Week 5 F08

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Week 5

Contents

[edit] Video

[edit] Week 5

[edit] Prompt reading

    • Who amongst your "daily readership" do you feel closest to?
      • Are there any bloggers/authors/reporters you feel connected to?
      • What qualities transformed them from a "voice on the web" to a visceral connection?
    • Have you ever been called to action on account of a web relationship?

[edit] Assignment review

  • Provide us a 3 minute overview of the technology you selected, its history, interesting uses, and innovations.

[edit] Presentation

  • Ruth F.

[edit] Technologies and the coordination of everyday life (per Cris' exercise on the list)

      • Cell Phone
      • Caller ID
      • Text Messages
      • Mobile Email/Web
      • Email
      • Twitter
      • Facebook/SNS

[edit] Historical Perspectives, Internet Technologies

Lecture Slides (PDF)

[edit] Herring, Computer-Mediated Communication on the Internet

[edit] Overview

  • The internet defines CMC by providing the context for CMC applications
    • LAN's, WAN's, ARPANET, Bitnet - the places for communication
    • Areas of interest: Effects of the internet on language, communication, interpersonal relations, and on group dynamics, as well as the emergence of social structures and norms, macro-societal impacts of internet communication
  • Modes of CMC
    • email
    • Listservs
    • Usenet
    • split-screen talk protocols
    • chat
    • MUD's
    • WWW
    • audio- and video- based CMC
    • Graphical virtual reality environments
      • What would we add to this list?
      • Show videos of the tech

[edit] CMC Characteristcs

  • CMC Research
    • CMC varies according to the technologies (modes) and its context of use
      • For example, synchronous CMC differs systematically from asynch CMC (Chat vs. email)
      • Aspects of difference: message length, complexity, formality, interactivity - due, in part, to temporal constaints on message production and processing
      • Also influenced by the granularity of message transmission (mesg-by-mesg vs char-by-char), buffer size, availability of multiple channels, default settings regarding the quoting of the previous message
  • CMC Contextual Factors
    • difference in demographics - age, gender, race, education - can result in different communication styles and content, varying the effectiveness of a CMC setting
    • Situational variables that influence communication include participant structure, public/private communication, purpose and topic, network density and language choice
  • CMC Types for study
    • CMC types can be identified on the basis of technical and contextual variables
      • Synch vs. Asynch
      • Recreational vs. Pedagogical
      • Male vs. Female
      • Combination of variables
    • Research takes into account situation, context and mode
      • Modes represent a technology, setting, culture and norms - i.e. IRC is diferent from MUD on the axes of mode

[edit] CMC Modes

  • Email history
    • First email sent in 1972 - Ray Tomlinson's SNDMSG protocol test
    • 1973 - email most popular use of the arpanet
    • Email function
      • Structure of email and addressing functions make it a non-anonymous form of CMC
      • Asynchronous nature of email allows time for composition of messages; uses communication at temporal convenience
      • More managed self-presentation/editing as compared to phone or F2F leads to email's widespread popularity.
  • Listserv history
    • Earliest listserv - MsgGroup - started in 1975 by ARPA personnel to share information about the development of messaging protocols
    • Through the 70's and 80's listservs emerged around a wide range of communities of interest
  • Listserv characteristics
    • Textual, asynchronous, distributed by a listserver to participants, archives messages
    • Moderated lists allow control over distribution of message, offering moderators a wide range of authority over the tone, language and content dimensions of the discussion
  • Listserv research
    • Discussions tens to focus on information exchange, debate, conversation, social management
    • Group discussion can devolve - flame wars - attributed to the cue-deprived nature of the medium (early CMC approach), deindividuation, and gendered practices
    • Group discussions are also useful sources of information, social support and can sustain virtual community
      • Studies have focused on content, patterns, dynamics, netiquitte, lurking, gender and politeness
  • Usenet
  • Usenet reserch
    • Usenet is an asynchronous bulletin board - email messages posted to public threads
    • Threads take place within newsgroups, organized by topic hierarchy of increasing specificity
    • Cross-postings bridge newsgroups
    • Low social accountability, no monitoring of readers and posters, significant flaming
    • Usenet gave rise to many of the archetypes of internet communication - Flaming, Trolls,
    • Topics explored: Patterns of large-scale conversation, community formation, identity and deception, participation divide, language, hate speech
  • Split-screen protocols: Talk, phone and ICQ
    • What is a split screen - show image
    • Earliest synchronous chat protocol was UNIX talk - 1970's
    • Talk on VAX, Zephyr, etc - simple split-screen console chat
  • SSP Research
    • Differs from email due to character-by-character transmission, meaning you can see what the other person is typing (anyone ever used one of these?)
    • Allows for the "anticipation" of word and sentence completion, allowing for more efficient communication
    • Renders the need for turn-taking irrelevant; no logging makes chat more ephemeral
  • Chat
    • First IRC written in in 1988
    • Later adapted by AOL, and many others; adapted into portals as well, etc.
      • Protocol wars? OSCAR vs TOC?
    • In chat, individuals join channels or rooms, group or 1 on 1 chat
    • Users can scroll back, record chat, log, etc
    • Chat appears chaotic, but through use maturity, threading, aliasing, etc - chat becomes less chaotic, users can develop a sense of the infomration space (SIP) that may lead to hyperpersonal relations
      • Twitter as chat in 2008 - ability to screen out threads, etc
      • Who used/uses IRC?
  • Culture of chat
    • Varies, but often sociable, playful, disinhibited; topics decay quickly, users adopt avatars
    • Conducive to flirting, play and other activities free from social accountability
  • Private Chat
    • Subset of chat - person to person communication.
    • Instant messaging, notifications, wide adoption, use of chat as backchannel
  • Multi-user Dimensions (dungeons, etc) MUD/MOO
    • First MUD designed in 1979/1980 - role playing adventure game
    • MUD's are textual virtual reality shared with other users and object
    • Popular MUD/MOO's - LambdaMOO, MediaMOO - Everquest and Ultima Online
    • Users navigate virtual space through textual commands
    • Users create, trade and sell objects created inside of the MUD/MOO
    • Users accumulate goods, skills and status in the system
    • Users develop a sense of community and identity in the environment
  • WWW
    • TimBL's internet, created in 1989, focused on hypertext
      • First www page at ibiblio
    • Development of the graphical browser in 1993 opened the web to wider audience
    • Web superceded all other modes of CMC, as it integrated the modes
  • Studying of the web
    • What is web communication? Authoring of a webpage? We study it now through the lens of SNS
      • Key legislation re: the web - Telecom act, DMCA, DOPA, etc?
  • Audio/Video
    • CUSeeMe developed in 1995
    • MSFT NetMeeting, iChats and Skype today
    • IP Based telephone (Pulver - skype)
    • We see these technologies fostering individual, group, collective, organization and community relations
      • These technologies are rich - offering a different level of mediated communication
  • Virtual Reality
    • Early VR systems were graphical MUD/MOO's
    • The Palace, 1994
      • Avatars, community, games
      • Second life
    • Graphical worlds intensify the social richness of muds/moos
  • CMC
    • Use up-to-date CMC slides

[edit] Related Works

  • Fred Turner - From Counterculture to Cyberculture
  • Katie Hafner - Where The Wizards Stay Up Late
  • Steven Levy - Hackers

[edit] Quick Links

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