Susan D. Blum of the University of Notre Dame has taught a class in anthropology on Instant Messaging: “Teaching an upper-division undergraduate class on linguistic anthropology, “Doing Things with Words,” at the University of Notre Dame, nothing got my students so excited—not gossip, not gender, maybe accent—as the topic of Instant Messaging. This I learned when my students and I decided to study Instant Messaging as a form of student communication.” Read Susan’s paper on the class: Buzzing and Writing the Day Away Instant Messaging, and the paper which resulted from the class: Instant Messaging: Functions of a New Communicative Tool (.pdf, 812KB).