LM350 Computer Mediated Communication

Practical Details

Teaching staff

Aims

Resources

Assessment

Schedule 2004 - 5

Practical Details 

Teaching Staff  

Tel: 01273 642476.
Email: LP22@bton.ac.uk
Room: Watts 602
 

Aims 

Resources 

Major Topics

Internet discourse
Identity and the Internet
Communities and social behaviour on the Internet
Politics and nations on the Internet
Internet Ethics
Mobility

Related Topics

Hypertext
Internet Effects on Behaviour
Space and Place on the Internet
Working via computer networks
Learning via the Internet
Play on the Internet
Romance and Sex on the Internet
Psychology on the Internet

Recommended Reading 

For introducing the range of issues tackled by Internet researchers, try Jones, Steve, Ed. (1999) Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net. Thousand Oaks: Sage. This, plus another Steve Jones book, CyberSociety 2.0, will be the source of most of the articles we use in the module.

Jenny Preece's book  Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability, published by John Wiley & Sons, 2000, is a good source for work on community and interface aspects.

For all aspects of mobility and communication, the collection edited by Barry Brown, Nicola Green and Richard Harper - Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age (Springer, 2002) is a core text.

A very useful on-line journal, which is bound to help with any essay topic, is the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication. Another is Computer mediated Communication, now defunct but the back copies are still an excellent source. See also First Monday, for a good range of topics.

Look too at these useful sites for leads on your research topics:

• John December's resources site. Excellent set of links to broad range of related sites. May be a little succinct for the total newcomer but will soon grow on you.
• If you are interested in a psychologist's view, the result of years of immersion in a CMC environment, visit John Suler's Cyberpsychology site.
• Robin Hamman's CyberSoc site is frequently updated and reliable, and his list of 16 top CMC sites will be of particular use.
• David Gauntlett's identity site is always worth visiting too - especially good for media students. Here too you can see your favourite theorists translated into yellow plastic as Lego characters. Priceless.

More reading - general and collections 

Bolter, J.D. (1991) Writing Space. The computer, hypertext and the history of writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bruce, B., J.K. Peyton and T. Batson. (1993). Network Based Classrooms.Cambridge: CUP.

Connolly, J. H. and L. Pemberton, Eds. (1996). Linguistic Concepts and Methods in CSCW. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. London, Springer-Verlag.

Dery, M. (1994) Flame Wars: the Discourse of Cyberculture. Durham, NC.: Duke University Press.

Ess, Charles. (1996). Philosophical Perspectives on Computer Mediated Communication. SUNY Press.

Gauntlett, David (ed). 2000. Web Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age.

Harrison, T.M. and T. Stephen (eds) (1996). Computer Networking and Scholarly Communication in the 21st Century University. New York: SUNY Press.

Herring, Susan. (1996) Computer mediated Comunication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Jones, Steve Ed. (1999) Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Jones, Steve Ed. (1998) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting CMC and Community. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Kiesler, S. (ed) 1997. Culture of the Internet. N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Kling, R., Ed. (1996). Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices. London, Academic Press.

Pemberton, L. and S. Shurville. (2000) Words on the Web: Computer Mediated Communication. Bristol: Intellect.

Selfe, C. and S. Hilligoss (eds) (199?) Literacy and Computers. New York: MLA.

Sharples, M. and Thea van der Geest, Ed. (1996). The New Writing Environment: Writers at Work in a World of Technology.  London, Springer-Verlag.

Shields, R. ed. (1996). Cultures of Internet. London: Sage.

Silverstone, R. and E. Hirsch (eds) (1992) Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. London: Routlege.

Sudweeks, F., M. McLaughlin and S. Rafaeli (eds) (1998). Network and NetPlay: Virtual Groups on the Internet. Menlo Park: AAAI/MIT Press.

The Research Centre for Cyber Culture studies is a very valuable resource.
 

Language and Communication Background 

Biber, Douglas. (1988) Variation across Speech and Writing.  Cambridge: CUP.

Brown, P. and S. Levinson. (1987). Politeness: some universals in language usage.  Cambridge: CUP.

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: CUP.

Crystal, David. (2001) Language and the Internet. Cambridge University Press

Goffman, Erving. (1957) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Anchor.

Levinson, S. (1989) Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP.

Verschuren, Jef. (1999). Understanding Pragmatics. London: Arnold.
 

Topics

Internet Discourse 

Herring, Susan. (1996) Two Variants of an Electronic Message Schema. In Herring (ed) (1996).

Harrison, Sandra. (2000) Maintaining the Virtual Community:  use of politeness strategies in an email discussion group. In Pemberton, Lyn and Simon Shurville (2000).

Hutchby, Ian. (2001) Conversation and Technology. From the Telephone to the Internet.  Polity Press.

Kollock, P and M. Smith. (1996) Managing the Virtual Commons. In Herring (1996).

Lauspach, Sonja (2000) Literal or Loose Talk: the negotiation of meaning on an internet  discussion list.  in Pemberton, Lyn and Simon Shurville (2000).

Pemberton, L. (1996). Telltales and Overhearers: Participant Roles in Electronic Mail Communication. In J. Connolly and L. Pemberton (eds).

Werry, Christopher. (1996) Linguistic and Interactional Features of Internet Relay Chat. In Herring (1996).
 

Identity and the Internet 

As you would expect, David Gauntlett's identity site is a thing of beauty - many useful references here.

Daniel Littler on identity and the Web.

Daniel Chandler on CMC and social and personal identity, particularly the home page.

Judith Donath on identity and deception. Excellent references. Her home page is well worth a visit.
 

Communities and social behaviour on the Net 

Walch James. 1996. Citizens' Networks: Examples of Utopian Uses of Computer Mediated Communication in Sharples and van der Geest (1996).

Harrison, T.M. and T. Stephen (1999) Researching and Creating Community Networks. In Jones, S (ed) (1999), pp. 221 - 241.

Doheny-Farina, S. (1996). The Wired Neighbourhood. New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press.

Mitra, A. (1996). Nations on the Internet: the case of a national newsgroup soc.cult.indian. In Convergence: the Journal of Research in New Media Technologies 2, pp. 44-75.

Mitra, A. (1997) Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet. In Jones, S. (ed) (1997)

Mitra, A. (1997) Diasporic Web Sites: Ingroup and outgroup discourse. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 14, pp. 158 - 181.

Smith, Marc A. & Peter Kollock. 1999. Communities in Cyberspace. Routledge

The Net-Life research centre in Sweden has some interesting work on on-line communities.

Some on-line community sites

Center for Civic Networking   - organisation promoting online communities

Blacksburg Electronic Village - best known of the on-line communities

The Matrix: Community Memory - a site for storing memories about the Internet itself

Hanover Community Association - home sweet home

Brighton Web Ring

Virtual Brighton & Hove

Alternative Brighton

KempTown

HanoverNet

Politics and nations on Internet 

Ethics of the Internet 

An on-line guide to privacy resources.

Sharf, Barbara. 1999. Beyond Netiquette: the Ethics of Doing Naturalistic Discourse Research on the Internet. In Jones, S (ed) (1999).

Elgesem, D. (1996). Privacy, respect for persons and risk. In Ess, C (ed) (1996), pp. 45 - 66.

Parks, M.R. and K. Floyd. (1996). Making Friends in Cyberspace. Journal of Communication, 46, 80 - 97.

Danielson, P (1996). Pseudonyms, mailbots and virtual letterheads: the evolution of computer-mediated ethics. In Ess, C (ed) (1996), pp. 67 - 93.

M. Ermann, M. Williams, & M. Shauf, Coputers, Ethics and Society (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)

The EPIC web site is a good source of current information about legal and ethical issues related to the Internet: that's the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, not the multimedia company down the road.
 

Mobility 

Katz, J.E. & M. Aakhus. 2002. Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk and Public Performance.
 

Hypertext 

Walch, James. (1996) Spider Webs, Symphonies and Yellow Brick Road: Form and Structure in Electronic Texts. In Sharples and van der Geest (eds) (1996).

Charney, D. (1995) The Effect of Hypertext  on processes of reading and writing. In C. Selfe and S. Hilligoss (eds) Literacy and Computers. New York: MLA.

Murray, Janet H. 1998. Hamlet on the Holodeck. The MIT Press; ISBN: 0262631873

Mitra, Ananda and Elisia Cohen. (1999) Analysing the Web: Directions and Challenges. In Jones, S (1999)
 

Internet Effects on Behaviour 

Kiesler, S. and L. Sproull. 1992. Group Decision Making and Communication Technologies. In  In Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Process 52, pp. 96 - 123..

Weisband,S.P. (1992) Group Discussion and First Advocacy Effects in Computer mediated and Face to Face decision making groups. In Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Process 53, 352-380.
 

Space and Place on the Internet 

McLaughlin, M., Goldberg, S.B., Ellison, N. and J. Lucas. (1999). Measuring Internet Audiences: patrons of an on-line Museum. In Jones, S (1999), pp. 163 - 178.

Lombard M and T. Ditton. (1997) At the Heart of it all: The concept of presence. JCMC 3(2)
 

Working via computer networks 

Sanderson, S. (1996) Cooperative and Collaborative Mediated Research. In Harrison and Stephen (eds) (1996).

Clarke, A. A., John H. Connolly, Steven W. Garner and Hilary K. Palmen (1996). A Language of Cooperation. Linguistic Concepts and Methods in CSCW. J. Connolly and L. Pemberton (1996).

Posner, R., R. Baecker and M. Mantei (1991). How People Write Together. Proceedings of ECSCW '91.

Sharples, M., Ed. (1993). Computer Supported Cooperative Writing.  London, Springer-Verlag.

Ziv, Oren. (1996) Writing to Work: How Using Email can reflect Technological and Organisational Change. In Herring (1996).
 

Learning via the Internet 

Play on Internet 

Romance and Sex on the Internet 

Deuel, Nancy R. (1996) Our Passionate Response to Virtual Reality. In Herring (1996).

Dibbell, Julian. (1993). A rape in CyberSpace. Village Voice Dec 21, pp. 36 - 42.
parcftp.xerox.com/pub/MOO/papers/VillageVoice.txt
 

Psychology on the Internet 

Storm King's site on internet self help groups.
 

Other

Assessment 

Assessment is by a portfolio of tasks carrried out during the course of the module (Assessment 1) and a 3000 word essay on one of the topics covered in the module (Assessment 2).

Assessment 1

• face - public self image
• positive face - a person's desire to be liked and understood
• negative face - a person's desire to act freely
• positive politeness strategy - a strategy that seeks to create a positive relationship with the hearer
• negative politeness strategy - a strategy that seeks to minimise the threat to the hearer's face
• bald, on-record strategies - attacking a hearer's threat without mitigating the threat

off-the-record strategies - attacking a hearer's threat in a way that can be denied if challenged

I would expect this to take no more than one side of A4. JUST ONE EXAMPLE.

Task 2:

The theme for this week and next is community and the Internet. We'll look at existing communities who extend their activities to the Internet, as well as communities who owe their existence to online communication. You may like to look at:   http://www2.fhs.usyd.edu.au/bach/pub/community/What%20is%20Community.htm
for a good clear introduction to the concept of community.

Your task is as follows. Choose an Internet discussion group (could be a fan site, a support site or some other type of group). Choose a message that interests you by its relevance to some aspect ofcommunity, e.g. in-group vs outgroup feeling, demonstration of shared history, expression of shared values. Write a brief commentary. As in Task One - a single example on a page of A4 should be enough. If you have to add some of the history of the message for context, this is fine

Task 3:

The theme for this mini-assessment is mobile phones and particularly innovative uses thereof. Your task is to observe yourself using your phone and pick out an example of some use that you make of it that was unintended or unforeseen by the designers. For instance, phoning to say "I'm at the door" rather than using the buzzer is a micro-coordination usage that has been invented by phone users. Briefly describe the usage and comment on its significance or implications.

Again, I wouldn't expect this to be much more than a side of A4.
 

Assessment 2

Devise, plan and carry out a research project on a topic covered in the module and write it up as a 3000 word essay. Your report should have the shape of a classic research report - Introduction, (Background), Research Methods, Results, Conclusions and Discussion, with a full bibliography.

or

Write a 3000 word essay on a topic relevant to the module. This does not have to involve original research from primary data but can be an investigation of a topic of interest to you.

Important dates:

Draft title to me:        week 4 (unless you're choosing one of the suggested titles)
Draft plan to me:        last session before Christmas break (optional, but a good idea)

Final hand-in:            week beginning 24 January 2004

Suggested titles:

1) Mobile phones are a force not for freedom, but for a new kind of tyranny, the tyranny of permanent availability. Discuss.

2) The so-called "communities" forged on the Internet are not real communities, but simply impoverished pseudo-communities. Discuss.

3) "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Discuss the implications of anomymity and identity switching on the Internet.
 

Some other possible topics:

• Any aspect of politeness and conflict - a comparison involving gender, age, topic or any other parameter you can be reasonably sure of.
• The interplay of English and other languages in sites based in non-English speaking countries.
• Adding interactivity to television via web sites - how do fan communities work? how do TV - program related support and interest groups work?
• Ethnic minorities in the UK and the Internet  - there are many topics to look at here, e.g. immigrant sites based on UK localities;  links with "home" countries; young people from ethnic minorities and their bulletin boards/home pages; diaspora sites, e.g. the Irish, Welsh and Scottish internet communities outside the UK. What about minorities with no nation - Romanies, for example? How are they using the net?
• Support sites on the Internet, e.g. for people with illnesses, disabilities
• The interplay of online and off-line interaction in a community, e.g. a local football supporters' group, people who go to local gay clubs
• People over 60/65 and the Internet
• The use of email in a specific context - company, college, etc.
• The Internet for learning - what patterns are emerging? how are teachers and academics using the Web and email?
• The Internet and political debate - how the parties are using the Internet to communicate with potential voters
• Web cam sites - presentation of self
• Artists' sites - presentation of self and work
• Deception and misrepresentation on the Web - case studies
• The use of the internet to represent a current issue or crisis , e.g. foot and mouth, Macedonia
• The rhetoric of on-line activism, e.g. animal rights movement, liberation groups - how about a comparative study of the Hunt Saboteurs and Countryside Alliance sites/boards?? Or a fluffy anarchist site vs a spiky one?

Schedule