- You can access Usnet Newsgroups through Netscape
- Under Window menu choose Netscape News.
- Click on a list of mails on the left handside, these will then be loaded into the right window.
- You can click on individuals postings and read them in the bottom third of the screen by double clicking on the chosen line.
- Record the names of three newsgroups you have visited and give a brief description of what they discuss.
Bulletin Boards
The fundamental distinction between a bulletin board and a mailing list can be seen in the non-electronic metaphors they draw on. A physical bulletin board has messages put up on it, and those who wish to see the messages must go to the board. A mailing list involves messages being delivered to the subscriber. Since the bulletin board, as a collection of messages, exists 'somewhere' there is no necessity for a subcription notion. The bulletin board thus implicitly has more sense of place, though with an off-line reader to capture bulletin board messages, and with an email package to filter all messages from a mailing list into a particular folder, this distinction begins to lose its edge. Another way of expressing the difference between the two is that of point-to-multipoint (e.g. mailing list) and point-to-server (e.g. bulletin board) as in John December's 'Units Of Analysis For Internet Communication' in the Journal Of Computer Mediated Communication. As with many aspects of the internet, this becomes clear once you start subscribing to mailing lists or look at BBs'sThe term "bulletin board" can function as a generic term to describe any system featuring a collection of messages which can be viewed at one place. Thus USENET Newsgroups are bulletin boards.
Exercise
Training report sheet