Transcript Computer-Mediated Communication

Computer-Mediated
Communication
Community, Science, and CMC
Coye Cheshire
//
April 2, 2016
Course business
 Join the mailing list!
 [email protected]
 Instructions in the News section of course
website.
 Meta-review groups for the semester will be
sent out on the cmc mailing list by
Wednesday evening. If you have a known
conflict, email me asap (coye@ischool)
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
1
Course business (continued)
 Megan needs information from non-ischool
students so that you will have access to our
Wiki
(Information sheet will be passed around class)
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
2
Weekly reading task examples
from the days of yore
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
3
Final projects from the
before time…the long
long ago…
 Two Examples
 Squash&Vine
 user assessment, site prototype
 Mediated Memory
 Theory and hypotheses, experimental design
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
4
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
5
4/2/2016
6
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
7
Web 2.0, circa 1985?
vs.
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
8
Rheingold’s study:
An early online community
(Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link)
 At this time, geography still played an
important role because of BBSes (local
telephone access)
 Less use of pseudonyms (identity persistence)
 Less initial distrust
 Socioeconomic skew?
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
9
What is an online/virtual community?
Social Spaces
Role-playing
Professional Groups
Work-related discussion groups
Medical and Illness support groups
Geographically related groups
Tech/Software Support
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
10
Virtual communities are social
aggregations that emerge from the
Net when enough people carry on
those public discussions long
enough, with sufficient human
feeling, to form webs of personal
relationships in cyberspace.
Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
11
Social networks
 NOT the same as “social networking” sites!
 Accumulate capital (Smith) …
 Social capital
 Knowledge capital
 Communion
 … through ties within
the network.
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
12
Potential “to change our lives”
Rheingold (1995)
Political change
(aggregate social level)
Macro
Person-to-person interaction
(interpersonal interaction level)
Perception, thoughts, personalities
(individual level)
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
Micro
13
But does CMC change lives?
 That is, does technology change people?
Change society?
 What’s the role of adaptation?
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
14
Activity-centered design: An ecological approach to
designing smart tools (Gay and Hembrooke 2004)
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
15
Activity-centered design: An ecological approach to
designing smart tools (Gay and Hembrooke 2004)
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
16
The Internet as “agora”?
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
17
The Internet as Panopticon?
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
18
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
19
How do we know if the
promise is being fulfilled?
How is Internet use
related to general
social interaction?
How does offline
interaction relate to
online interaction?
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
20
Does CMC change science?
 Cyberpsychology — but what about:





Cybersociology
Cybereconomics
Cyberengineering
Cyberlaw
Cyber_fill-in-blank_
 Are these truly different?
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
21
The Internet as virtual laboratory
“Cyberspace as a
scientifically
legitimate social
environment”
Goals:
— To understand human behavior
in mediated channels,
— To explain it, and
— To predict it.
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
22
For Thursday
 Erving Goffman. (1956) Chapter 1 from The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New
York: Doubleday. (In reader.)
 Judith Donath. (1998) Identity and
Deception in the Virtual Community. In
Smith, M., and P. Kollock (Eds.)
Communities in Cyberspace. London:
Routledge.
4/2/2016
Computer-Mediated Communication
23