In addition to what others have suggested, I'd also recommend the work of my UIC colleague Richard John, particularly his book Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. While it doesn't directly address the "email vs. postal mail" matter, it is a remarkably insightful history of the U.S. postal service from the perspective of a media historian, and I think it can provide much material for you concerning the evolution of postal mail, its use and attitudes toward it. His cv with an extensive list of publications is online at http://www.uic.edu/depts/hist/Faculty/john.html Sj On Aug 5, 2005, at 12:10 PM, Ledbetter, Andrew Michael wrote:
I am currently writing a literature review on how various communication modalities are used in interpersonal contexts. One modality I am (not surprisingly) finding little material on is postal mail. In particular, I am looking for sources that either (a) address changes in postal mail use with the advent of e-mail or (b) qualitative comparisons of the use of postal mail and e-mail within interpersonal relationships. In particular, I have heard anecdotal reports of e-mail being more "convenient" but postal mail being "special" in a way that e-mail is not, though I have not found scholarly material that documents this perception.
Does anyone know of scholarly articles that address these issues?
Thanks, Andrew
---------------- Andrew M. Ledbetter Ph.D. student, University of Kansas _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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