Transcript Computer-Mediated Communication

Computer-Mediated
Communication
Media Richness and Social Translucence
Coye Cheshire & Jen King
//
February 2016
Projects and Assignment #1
 Assignment 1 is a short 2 page description of your group
project idea and the division of labor within the group. Use
this week to continue discussing ideas.
 Due Thurs Feb 18 at beginning of class
(one assignment per group, 2 printed copies).
 Groups will be signing up for a meeting with us to discuss
the project ideas after we read them.
 http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i216/s16/assignment1.php
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More Final Project Examples!
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A few examples of project types:
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Design, prototype (maybe build) a novel CMC system
Experiment using a CMC system
Analyze or visualize interaction in a CMC system
Research a specific CMC system or domain of systems
and collect empirical data (interviews, small survey, etc).
…to address some type of problem
Importantly, everyone should:
(1) build on a well-articulated problem
(2) use this foundation to justify the solution
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Creating Visual
Interfaces for
synchronous
Interpersonal Interaction
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Chat Circles 2
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The Chat Circles avatar
 Vaguely humanoid form, but
stylized, not realistic — no faces!
 Words centered in/around the form
— ties words to identity, “face”
 2D location allows proximity
 Size tied to length of utterance
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Temporality and spatiality
 Utterances vanish after a few seconds
 Hearing range: can see only nearby utterances
 What is the real-world effect mimicked here?
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Chat Circles: Integrating Movement
 Rhythm of conversation:
growing and shrinking circles set the pace
 Proximity:
friendliness, intimacy, or aggression
 Expressivity:
fidgeting, dancing, leading, following,
playing
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Chat Circles Traces
 Movement traces
 Speech traces
 Visual indicator of
social history of
the chat space
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Social Translucence
“Online social behavior must be made visible
in order to facilitate awareness, which
creates social spaces where we are
accountable to one another.” – Gilbert 2012
“To design digital systems that
support coherent behavior by
making participants and their
activities visible to one another”
– Erickson and Kellogg (2000)
Gilbert 2012, CHI
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Social Translucence in Social Networks
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A few key theories
of mediated
communication and
“media richness”
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Media richness:
“ formation of shared
[C]apacity to facilitate the
meaning within a given time
interval.
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”
— Dennis & Kinney
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A plausible ranking?
Richer
Face-to-face
Synchronous video
Synchronous audio / asynch. video
Synchronous text / asynch. audio
Asynchronous text
Leaner
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Rich
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Elements of richness
 Multiplicity of cues (bandwidth)
 Immediacy of feedback
 Use of natural language
 Personal focus
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Lean
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Elements of richness
 Multiplicity of cues (bandwidth)
 Immediacy of feedback
 Use of natural language
 Personal focus
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Channels, cues, and signals
Channel conduit for a particular type of info,
Channel:
e.g., for voice or text
Cue
Cue: “any feature of the world, animate or
inanimate, that can be used ... as a guide to
future action” (Donath 2007) —
i.e., informative, not necessarily intentional
Signal a cue meant to indicate an otherwise
Signal:
hidden quality
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Some types of social cues
Verbal
Non-verbal
Beyond FTF?
Textual
 Production cost to encode
meaning equivalent to FTF in text
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Feedback
Convey the receiver’s understanding to sender,
who can adjust accordingly
Type of feedback
Acknowledgment — understanding
Repair — correction or clarification
Proxy — completion
Immediacy of feedback
Concurrent: synchronous nods, mm-hmms
 a.k.a. ‘backchannel’
Sequential: brief interjection
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Cues Filtered Out
 Social presence:
Lower bandwidth  Less warm,
others seem less like people
unsealedprophecy.wordpress.com
 Lack of non-verbal cues —
disinhibition and hostility (e.g., flaming)
 1:1 mapping between cues and social
functions — missing cues, missing functions
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Social Information Processing
(Cues Filtered In)
Walther (1992) re-examined early CMC research:
“Given sufficient time and message exchanges for
interpersonal impression formation and relationship
development to accrue, and all other things being equal,
relational [quality] in later periods of CMC and F2F
communication will be the same.”
 Users compensate for attributes of CMC (e.g.,
emoticons to replace non-verbal affective displays)
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Social Identity/Deindividuation Theory
(Cues About Us, Not You or Me)
Visual anonymity leads to…
 “deindividuation”
 increased salience to group identity
“Over-interpreting” based on limited info
could lead to greater social attraction
based on in-group status; stereotyping of
out-group.
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Media choice vs. use
(Cues to Choose By)
What medium would you choose for a given task?
vs. What medium “performs” best?
 Media Richness (the theory) originally examined media
use and performance in organizations.
Claim: Managers should choose medium based on task to
be effective. More ambiguous tasks are more efficient in
richer media.
 But when might we actually want a “less rich” medium?
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Hyperpersonal communication
(Cues Bent and Twisted)
Contributing factors:
 Selective self-presentation
 Shared group membership
 Channel effects (control)
 Feedback effects (self-fulfilling prophecies)
Bottom line: Perceptions more extremely positive (or
negative) than FTF in the face of limited information
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“
The study of CMC effects is not best served by
blanket statements about technology main
effects on social, psychological, and
interpersonal processes, nor by proclamations
that online relationships are less rewarding
than FTF ones. Rather, qualities of CMC are …
more often the product of interesting and
predictable interactions of several mutual
influences than main effects of media.
— Walther et al. (2001)
”
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