NCA 2003 Response: Internet and Society

Response:

Human Communication and Technology Division Paper Session:

Internet and Society: Applied Criticisms, Comments, and Concerns

Common Ground

Obviously, all are concerned with the use of networked communication.
- Four of five pretty much stick to web sites, computer conferencing, and e-mail.
- One goes deeply into presence
The contrast of network-based media with face to face is a theme in all, but sometimes indirectly.
- Note that I specifically don't call the Internet a medium
- or any of these media channels
- Its high time we got a little more rigorous in our vocabulary here.
  - Channels enable media
  - The Internet is a channel that enables many media
Virtual Community: a direct theme in two, but should be considered in the others

Mihaela V Nocasian (Florida State) Constituting Civic Engagement in Cyberspace: Curierul de Seara as an Illustration of a Romanian Virtual Community

A deserving top paper, but with some rough edges
- Some 7 different factors are introduced as being a measure of virtual community
  - Cooperation
  - Interactivity
  - Sustained Membership
  - Virtual common public place
  - Variety of Communicators
  - Explicit and Implicit norms
  - Language
- Not a bad list, but the study proceeds to assess community on only three of them
  - Cooperation
  - Interactivity
  - Explicit and Implicit norms
- This creates a problem
I believe in virtual community
- but in the end the author doesn't convince me that this Romanian webzine is a virtual community
- a part of what's missing are measures of the site
  - How many people participate?
  - How "sustained" is their membership (the paper supplies at least some suggestion that it may not be)?
  - How diverse is their interaction?
  - How much interaction is there?
    - 179 messages are specifically documented, and the writing suggests that any remaining threads are less than 10 messages long).
    - There are obviously more, but does the rate of postings exceed one a day. Its not clear.
- And part of its definitional
  - Is debate necessarily cooperative. I think many would argue that that it is not.
  - Does a moderator's creation of a formal norm necessarily indicate that there was an informal norm before?
    - It may well often be
    - But formal rules can come from lots of places, including external forces
    - Does interaction, in of itself, constitute community.
- Something more was needed
- As possibilities, in addition to the four that aren't considered, I might add:
  - Critical mass (see Hiltz and Turoff's "The Network Nation")
  - Generic practice (see Baym's "Tune In, Log On" or Foulger's "Medium as Process")
  - Community self-reference (people in the community referring to the virtual space as a community)
Again, this is a very good paper ... but there is room to improve.

Gwendolyn H. Costa and I Ling Hsieh (U of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana) A Transtheoretical and Social Marketing Approach to Internet-based Health Campaigns

Another deserving top paper.
And a strongly theoretical one
- Indeed, it has some interesting synergy's with Rothenberg
But it has some inconsistencies
Strengths
- An excellent review of the problem and of the relevant Internet use statistics
- A strong presentation of the Transtheoretical Model and Social Marketing
- An excellent analysis of how the Transtheoretical model informs health campaign planning
But theoretical models can lead us astray as easily as they can inform what we are doing

As I read the paper I found all of the following, which I present as an alternate Table 2:

	Stages of Change
	Precontemplation	Contemplation	Preparation	Action	Maintenance
Consumer Actions	Needing
		Evaluative Seeking
			Comparative Seeking
				Implementation Detail Seeking
					Seek Support
Provider Actions	Reaching Persuading
		Provide evaluation materials and reinforcement
			Provide decision materials.
				Provide action data and applications
					Enable Online Support Groups and Applications

All of which is a long way of saying that I buy TTM's stages of change, but think their processes of change are misleading and probably incomplete
What convinces me of that is your presentation of the above.
Although you nearly miss on support groups:
- "As of yet, there is little to indicate that this population is reaching to the Internet for aid and support" (p. 23)
- This statement appears to be contradicted in the next paragraph (and lots of other literature).
I'd also point you to support applications on sites like atkins.com

But you are right to focus, in the last few pages, on the most problematic group, those in the precontemplation stage
I might suggest presenting things a little differently
- advertising and product placement, but drop the message customization.
- partnerships and cobranding: ibid
- individualized messages and ad placement
  - "big brother" may be an argument against this approach, but there are levels of individualization
Finally, I suggest another possibility
- reach out to the friends and family of those at risk and give them the tools to create "consciousness raising" and other experiences
There is lots of evidence that mass media campaigns often succeed through the interpersonal interaction they enable.

Kyra Perry Rothenberg (Kent State) The Communication Information-Seeking Model: Internet Use Within the Health Context

A good compact review and explication of how uses and gratifications can be applied in the information seeking space

This paper pairs nicely with Costa and Hsieh.

You should read each others papers
Costa and Hsieh would benefit from considering how the uses and gratification approach fits with TMM's stages
Rothenberg would benefit from the considering how theory can translate to practice
But consider the following back of the napkin mapping.

TTM Stages of Change	Precontemplation	Contemplation	Preparation	Action	Maintenance
Consumer Actions	Needing
		Evaluative Seeking
			Comparative Seeking
				Implementation Detail Seeking
					Seek Support
Uses and Gratifications	Motives	Needs	Goals	Plans	Outcomes

I don't know that its perfect, but its worth exploring. U&G is well established in this field.

There is an interesting model and set of axioms in this paper.
Unfortunately, they don't appear to match:
- Here's a redrawing of Rotherberg's Communication Information Seeking Model:
- Here's how the axioms actually map to it:
- I hope the disconnects are fairly obvious. Based on the axioms and the model, I think you meant to create this picture.
- And I would argue that, at least in this case, you have to consider the community, and going back to the beginning, I think you mean "media" rather than "channel":
A very nice paper, but where does it go from here.
- Theory without a statement of possible practice seems fairly empty to me.

Junghyun Kim (Michigan State) Does Better Technology Ensure More Interpersonal Interaction?: Opportunistic Face-to-face Communication with Mobile Ad Hoc Network Device

The real problem with these systems, as I see it, are the fundamental problems of controlling self-disclosure, retaining privacy, and restraining big brother
- Indeed, while reading the paper I jokingly relabeled it ORWEL (Opportunistic Recognition With Estimated Location)
A technology assessment of what, at this point in its development, I'd usually call a proto-medium:
- MANET (Mobile Ad Hoc Network Device)
- In effect, an interpersonal presence detector for the real world
- A number of existing experimental prototypes are documented
- I have my doubts that this kind of technology will ever be widely adopted in anything like this form
- But child locator systems are already out there
- And the technology to do most of this with cell phones already exists
There are some things I really like in this paper:
- the progression from evaluating the system to elucidating its characteristics to exploring its uses to extrapolating its likely effects
  - this is a great way to evaluate a medium
- the use of the cue filtered out, personal interaction perspective, and hyperpersonal interaction perspective in looking at a new device
And some things I don't like:
- the characteristics of the technology are wildly overstated
- This device doesn't extend face to face
- It is simply another of McLuhan's "extensions of man"
- As described, a serial medium that acts as a mobile presence detector
- It finds someone to talk to and, perhaps, tells us something about them
- Then we do face to face pretty much without it.
Imagine attending last nights no host party with one of these devices.
- I have hundreds of friends in NCA.
- If we all had them, would they ever have stopped beeping? could we hear each other talk?.
- I'm not usually a luddite, but these devices could be more annoying than cell phones:
- In the words of Samuel Becket: "Another blot on silence"
And then there are some minor issues of continuously evolving technology.
- Instant Messenger isn't bound to your desk anymore.
- There are cell phones that support it.
- Recently companies started to sell IM mobile tablets that are dedicated to the application
And somewhat problematic examples
- The truck driver exchange with WALID ignores the indeterminacy of the underlying problem (the traveling salesman problem)
- In Pervasive Clue, wouldn't low "reputation" values simply cause a player to trigger a machine reset.
- In AgentSalons, I imagine a con artist simply discreetly following an heir from painting to painting until the device pointed out our obvious compatability
And consideration of what kinds of community effects they might have

Julian Kilker and Loril Gossett (U of Nevada, Las Vegas) Revisiting Bentham: Counter-panopticism in the age of the Internet

I love discussions that demonstrate the power of the Internet to enable empowering applications of media
- and that's exactly what this paper is
Honestly, I have no complaints with this paper.
It is well executed.
My question is, where do you go from here?
This reads like an opening salvo.
You've demonstrated that counter-panoptisicism is a clear use of computer conferencing and the web.
But it may be time to talk a more rigorous look.
Your paper suggests generic features of this use
- but there are other uses/genres of interaction associated with these sites
- and these generic features need to be tacked down.

Conclusion

To all of you, thanks.
I learned something from every paper.
I hope, in the tradition of text as gift, I've returned something of your gift in kind.