Journal of Documentation, Vol. 56, No. 3, May 2000 © Aslib, The Association for Information Management. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. Aslib, The Association for Information Management Staple Hall, Stone House Court, London EC3A 7PB Tel: +44 (0) 171 903 0000, Fax: +44 (0) 171 903 0011 Email: pubs@aslib.co.uk, WWW: http://www.aslib.co.uk/aslib DIFFERENT CONTEXTS IN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION: SOME REMARKS ON THE COMMUNICABILITY OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ADRIANA VALENTE and DANIELA LUZI {valente, luzi}@www.isrds.rm.cnr.it National Research Council – Institute of Studies on Research and Scientific Documentation Via C. De Lollis 12, 00185 Rome, Italy This paper explores how and to what extent the appearance and wide use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) may enhance scientific communication and knowledge. The first part analyses the general boundaries of scientific communication, focus- ing on the use of email. It summarises and develops the results of relevant international studies and surveys on computer-mediated communication; it identifies, on the one hand, the principal social settings and contexts in which email is used and, on the other, the characteristic features which determine specific communication models. The analysis provides evidence of the various factors which determine the dynamics of electronic communication and which, more specifically, define the difference between business and scien- tific communication. The second part of the paper explores the close relationship between communication and knowledge in the scientific sector and the role played by ICTs. The assumption that ICTs ought to enhance the acquisition, sharing and transmission of scientific knowledge is questioned by the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge: ICTs ultimately appear to provide a strong drive only to processes of explicit/coded knowledge handling. Nevertheless, exploring the main components of tacit knowledge in depth, and considering recent ICT-based applications, it is possible to foresee new opportunities for the creation and dissemination of knowledge through networks. INTRODUCTION The aim of this paper is to explore how and to what extent scientific communica- tion is influenced by the appearance and widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This means analysing two separate sets of questions: (a) Analysis of the factors which define the general boundaries of scien- tific communication: ● considering the main differences between scientific communi- cation and other communication environments; ● considering the importance of the context in determining the aims and characteristics of communication models. 299 299 Journal of Documentation, vol. 56, no. 3, May 2000, pp. 299–311