See reviews of Network and Netplay.
Network and Netplay addresses the mutual influences between information
technology and group formation and development, to assess the impact of
computer-mediated communications on both work and play. Areas discussed
include the growth and features of the Internet, network norms and
experiences, and the essential nature of network communication.
Many of the papers in this collection are a product
of an electronic collaboration among more than one hundred
scholars. The membership represents a dozen disciplines, and as
many countries.
Some of the papers are based on the jointly collected
database, which contains more than 4,000 messages drawn from dozens
of discussion groups.
Editors: Fay Sudweeks is Research Associate, Key Centre of Design Computing,
University of Sydney. Margaret L. McLaughlin is Professor of Communication
at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern
California. Sheizaf Rafaeli is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Information
Systems area, School of Business Administration, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
Contributors:
Michael Berthold, Lee Chen, Richard Coyne, Brenda Danet, Patrick Doyle,
Brian Gaines, Barbara Hayes-Roth, Steve Jones, Sandra Katzman, Joe
Konstan, Edward Mabry, Richard MacKinnon, Margaret McLaughlin, Sid
Newton, Kerry Osborne, Sheizaf Rafaeli, Yehudit Rosenbaum-Tamari, Lucia
Ruedenberg, Christine Smith, Fay Sudweeks, Alexander Voiskounsky, Diane
Witmer.
Contents
Foreword by Ronald Rice
Introduction
Sheizaf Rafaeli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Margaret McLaughlin,
University of Southern California; Fay Sudweeks, University of Sydney,
Australia
Smile When You Say That: Graphic Accents as Gender Markers in
Computer-Mediated Communication
Diane Witmer, California State University at Fullerton, USA;
Sandra Katzman, Interac Co, Japan
-
In the gender-bending world of computer-mediated communication (CMC),
is it possible to determine the gender of a message sender from cues in the
message? This study addresses the question by drawing on current literature
to formulate and test three hypotheses: (i) women use more graphic accents
than men do in their CMC, (ii) men use more challenging language in CMC than
do women, and (iii) men write more inflammatory messages than do women. Results
indicate that only the first hypothesis is partially supported and that women
tend to challenge and flame more than do men in this sample group.
Frames and Flames: The Structure of Argumentative Messages on the
Net
Edward A. Mabry, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
USA
-
This chapter assesses the use, in computer-mediated communication,
of the strategic message structuring tactic known as framing. It is hypothesized
that framing strategies are related to the emotional tenor of a disputant's
message and that a speaker's emotional involvement with an issue should be
curvilinearly related to the appropriation of framing as an argumentative
discourse strategy. Results provided support for the primary hypothesised
relationship.
Telelogue Speech
Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia
-
Mediation processes form the basis of human psychological development.
Speech signs play a crucial role in the internalization of mediating means.
In the computer-mediated communication (CMC) field, speech has its own
peculiarity, thus modifying the possible directions of the internalization
process. The analysis in this chapter shows the specifics of CMC speech,
i.e. telelogue speech.
"Hmmm ... Where's That Smoke Coming From?" Writing, Play and
Performance on Internet Relay Chat
Brenda Danet, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and The Smithsonian
Institution, USA; Lucia Ruedenberg, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Israel and New York University, USA; Yehudit
Rosenbaum-Tamari, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ministry of Absorption
of Immigrants, Israel
-
This chapter is a study of writing, play and performance on Internet
Relay Chat, known for short as IRC, a network program that allows thousands
of users all around the globe, at any hour of the day or night, to "talk"
to each other in real time by typing lines of text. We adopt a textual,
micro-sociolinguistic approach, informed by recent work in discourse analysis,
the study of orality and literacy, and the anthropology of play and
performance.
Media Use in an Electronic Community
Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
-
This study examines one facet of the penetration of personal computers
into everyday life. It seeks to discover how members of a Usenet newsgroup
value and use news sources. Electronic news sources predominated. An important
finding is that media use was not tied to the user's local geographic. The
study raises several questions for future research: What are the rhetorical
dimensions of media use in electronic communities? How might our understanding
of readers and communities be affected by new patterns of media use in electronic
communities?
From Terminal Ineptitude to Virtual Sociopathy: How Conduct is
Regulated on Usenet
Christine B. Smith, Margaret L. McLaughlin and Kerry K. Osborne,
University of Southern California, USA
-
This chapter explores standards of conduct across a representative
sampling of Usenet newsgroups. Established newsgroups, those with a core
cadre of regular posters, can be characterised as "common place" where group
standards for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors regulate discourse. These
standards differ from group to group and in many ways reflect the underlying
goals and purposes of the group as well as its demographic makeup. This chapter
raises and addresses several interesting behavioral questions and gender
issues in the development of so-called "online communities". It highlights
a critical research question that remains in this area: Are standards for
conduct a symptom of or an inevitable consequence of community?
Investigation of Relcom Network Users
Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia
-
Relcom is the most intensively used network available of the former
Soviet Union, and its users form a sample of highly active and educated citizens
of the newly-formed independent states. To describe this newly-formed sample,
surveys of the users were conducted via the network. The results include
data on demographic characteristics of users, their attitudes, motivations,
and typical ways of network usage. Attitudes towards possible social monitoring
service functioning in the network are also investigated, and the potential
directions of its functioning are rated by the respondents.
Practicing Safe Computing: Why People Engage in Risky Computer-Mediated
Communication
Diane Witmer, California State University at Fullerton,
USA
-
This chapter defines the basic types of computer-mediated communication
(CMC) and contextualizes them as electronic counterparts to other forms of
communication. It then discusses the ways in which message privacy and security
can be compromised in the electronic environment and reports a survey study
of individuals who engage in potentially embarrassing forms of CMC via USENET
newsgroups. The questionnaire asked respondents how risky they perceived
their communications to be and why they felt secure enough to engage in "risky"
communication. Survey results were equivocal on the question of user perceptions
of privacy, but indicated that the perceived risk was low in the sample group.
Finally, the chapter discusses implications and proposes an agenda for future
research.
The Social Construction of Rape in Virtual
Reality
Richard MacKinnon, University of Texas at Austin, USA
-
The current social construction of rape in virtual reality is not
a worthwhile endeavor in that it forces theorists to adapt an undesirable
concept in order to import it into virtual reality. Rape exists as such in
"real life" because of the social construction of women relative to the social
construction of men. The relationship of these constructions is not and does
not have to be analogous in virtual reality because virtual reality presents
an opportunity for social reordering. Among these opportunities is the
exploration of the ramifications of bodies presented arbitrarily. Given these
opportunities, theorists seeking to pursue positive constructionism ought
to endeavor to develop virtual-reality specific constructions which empower
rather than import real life constructions which victimize.
Interactivity on the Nets
Sheizaf Rafaeli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; Fay
Sudweeks, University of Sydney, Australia
-
This chapter proposes that one useful perspective for studying group
computer-mediated communication (CMC) is interactivity. Results indicate
that the content on the net is less confrontational than is popularly believed:
conversations are more helpful and social than competitive. Interactive messages
seem to be more humorous, contain more self-disclosure, display a higher
preference for agreement and contain many more first-person plural pronouns.
This indicates that interactivity plays a role in the social dynamics of
group CMC, and sheds a light on comparing interactive messages with conversation.
The focus should be on the glue - that which keeps message threads and their
authors together - and what makes the groups and their interaction
tick.
It Makes Sense: Using an Autoassociative Neural Network to Explore
Typicality in Computer Mediated Discussions
Michael Berthold, University of Karlsruhe, Germany; Fay Sudweeks,
University of Sydney, Australia; Sid Newton, University of Western Sydney,
Nepean, Australia; Richard Coyne, University of Edinburgh,
Scotland
-
ProjectH, a research group of a hundred researchers, produced a huge
amount of data from computer mediated discussions. The data classified several
thousand postings from over 30 newsgroups into 46 categories. One approach
to extract typical examples from this database is presented in this paper.
An autoassociative neural network is trained on all 3000 coded messages and
then used to construct typical messages under certain specified conditions.
With this method the neural network can be used to create "typical" messages
for several scenarios. This paper illustrates the architecture of the neural
network that was used and explains the necessary modifications to the coding
scheme. In addition several "typicality sets" produced by the neural net
are shown and their generation is explained. In conclusion, the autoassociative
neural network is used to explore threads and the types of messages that
typically initiate or contribute longer lasting threads.
Guided Exploration of Virtual Worlds
Patrick Doyle and Barbara Hayes-Roth, Stanford University,
USA
-
This chapter provides an interactive, intelligent agent as a guide
to help users understand, navigate, and learn from virtual worlds
in an engaging and effective way. Specifically we explore entertaining virtual
worlds that have an educational component for children.
Modeling and Supporting Virtual Cooperative Interaction Through
the Web
Lee Li-Jen Chen and Brian R. Gaines, University of Calgary,
Canada
-
With the growth of usage of List Servers and the World Wide Web the
Internet has become a major resource for the acquisition of knowledge, and
it has given new prominence to human discourse as a continuing source of
knowledge. The society of distributed intelligent agents that is the Internet
community at large provides an 'expert system' with a scope and scale well
beyond that yet conceivable with computer-based systems alone. It is important
to model and support the processes by which knowledge is acquired through
the net. In developing new support tools is one asks "what is the starting
point for the person seeking information, the existing information that is
the basis for the search." A support tool is then one that takes that existing
information and uses it to present further information that is likely to
be relevant. Such information may include relevant concepts, text, existing
documents, people, sites, list servers, news groups, and so on. The support
system may provide links to further examples of all of these based on content,
categorization or linguistic or logical inference. The outcome of the search
may be access to a document but it may also be email to a person, a list
or a news group. This chapter develops a model of virtual cooperative interaction
through the web, describes various forms of support tool, and categorizes
them in terms of the model.
Bibliography
Appendix: ProjectH: A Collaborative Quantitative Study of
Computer-Mediated Communication
-
A large group of people from several countries and many universities
collaborated for two years on a quantitative study of electronic discussions.
Members of the group include researchers from several dozen universities,
representing numerous academic disciplines, who used the net in order to
study use of the net. This chapter documents the design of the study
and the methodology used to create the first, and possibly only, representative
sample of international, public group computer-mediated communication.
