Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore April 20, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

Community, Science, and CMC

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Course business

Join the mailing list! cmc@ischool.berkeley.edu Instructions in the News section here:

http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i216/f08/

Office hours Tue + Thu 2–3 p.m. in 305A South Hall (BUT TODAY ONLY IN ROOM 2)

Weekly reading task

What might encourage contribution? What might discourage it?

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Medium

Mailing list

Forum

Wiki

Annotations on syllabus

Annotations on document

Something else…

+??????

–??????

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Web 2.0, circa 1985?

vs.

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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?

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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

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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

Social networks

NOT the same as “social networking” sites! Accumulate capital (Smith) …

Social capital Knowledge capital Communion

… through ties within the network.

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Potential “to change our lives”Rheingold (1995)

Political change (aggregate social level)

Person-to-person interaction(interpersonal interaction level)

Perception, thoughts, personalities (individual level)

Macro

Micro

But does CMC change lives?

That is, does technology change people?Change society? What is this point of view called?

What’s the role of adaptation?

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(Gay and Hembrooke 2004)

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(Gay and Hembrooke 2004)

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The Internet as “agora”?The Internet as “agora”?

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The Internet as Panopticon?The Internet as Panopticon?

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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?

Does CMC change science?

Cyberpsychology — but what about: Cybersociology Cybereconomics Cyberengineering…

Are these truly different?

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The Internet as virtual laboratory

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“Cyberspace as a scientifically legitimate social environment”

Goals: — To understand human behavior

in mediated channels, — To explain it, and — To predict it.

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.

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