Coye Cheshire April 19, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

The Nature of Community

Project Wiki & Discussion Forum

Keep those projects coming! Many of you already posted to wiki, so take a look even if you have not posted an idea.

Forums: We are looking for your experiences with online communities – good experiences, bad, or just relating an example. Helpful if you can post a few thoughts before class on Thursday.04/19/23 Computer-Mediated Communication 2

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Today

Community, Boundaries and Symbols

More on defining your “problem” for the CMC final project

“Mechanical Solidarity”“Organic Solidarity”

“Classic” Conception of Community (The Chicago School)

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The ‘Myths’ of Community

Simplicity and F2F“…the anatomy of social life at the micro-level is more intricate, and no less revealing, than among … the macro-level”

Egalitarianism“…community generates multitudinous means of making evaluative distinctions among its members, means of differentiating among them…”

Inevitable Conformity“suggests that the outward spread of cultural influences from the centre will make communities … less like their former selves…[this assumes that] people are somehow passive in relation to culture: they receive it, transmit it, but do not create it.”

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Community Boundaries

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other,outgroup

ingroup

other,outgroup

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Symbols and Community

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Symbols versus Emblems, Signs

04/19/23 Computer-Mediated Communication 10from 37signals.com

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Symbolic Meaning (and variation) within Communities

“Patriotism”

Symbolic variation within CMC communities…

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Symbols are effective because they are

imprecise. … They are, therefore, ideal

media through which people can speak a

‘common’ language, behave in apparently

similar ways, participate in the ‘same’

rituals, pray to the ‘same’ gods, wear

similar clothes, and so forth, without

subordinating themselves to a tyranny of

orthodoxy. Individuality and commonality

are thus reconcilable.

“

”

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Community Boundaries and Symbols

“Symbols do not so much express meaning as give us the capacity to make meaning.”

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Community Boundaries and Symbols

Public face(symbolically simple)

Private face(symbolically complex) “ ”

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Some questions to consider (and for you to share in forums)

Other examples of communities in CMC and the use of symbols?

How does the community define its boundaries?

If there have been times when those boundaries were violated, how did members respond?

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Thinking about your final project: defining and justifying a good

problem

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What makes a good research problem?

Research Questions for Theoretical Development or Practical Application

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How Research is Supposed to Work

Problem Method Data CollectionSupport or Reject

Hypotheses

How Research Really Works…

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Defining Problems for A Good CMC Final Project

What is an example research or design problem?

“an interrogative sentence or statement that asks: What relation exists between two or more concepts?”

“an interrogative sentence or statement that asks: What elements of a given system affect (or might affect) the behavior(s) of users, and in what specific ways?”

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Characteristics of good problems

1) Should state the concepts to be related clearly and unambiguously

2) Should be testable (research) or constructible (design) – even if you don’t test it or build it!

(robertnlee.com)

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Specific Criteria for a Problem

What are we going to learn as the result of the proposed project that we do not know now?

Why is it worth knowing?

How will we know that the conclusions are valid? How do we know if a solution is viable?

A few examples we have already mentioned:

Design, prototype or build a novel CMC system Experiment using a CMC system Analyze or visualize interaction in a CMC system

Importantly, everyone should:

(1) build on a strong theoretical foundation

(2) use this foundation to justify the solution

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