Computer-mediated interactivity: A social semiotic perspective

Convergence

Volumn 4, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 40-58

  Mayer, Paul A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN   (Denmark)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33746145700     PISSN: 13548565     EISSN: 17487382     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/135485659800400306     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Journal of Communication, 42, no. 4 (1992).
2. Frank Biocca, 'Communication within Virtual Reality: Creating a Space for Research', Journal of Communication, 42, no. 4 (1992), pp. 5-22.
3. Rudy Bretz, with Michael Schmidbauer, Media for Interactive Communication (London: Sage Publications, 1983).
4. Jerome T. Durlak, 'A Typology for Interactive Media' in Communication Yearbook 10, ed. Margaret L. McLaughlin (London: Sage Publications, 1987), pp. 743-757.
5. Sheizaf Rafaeli, 'From New Media to Communication', in Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes, eds. Robert P. Hawkins, John M. Wiemann, and Suzanne Pingree (London: Sage Publications, 1988), pp. 110-134.
6. Alan Kay, 'Computer Software', Scientific American, 251, no. 3 (1984), p. 42.
7. See also Jan L. Bordewijk and Ben van Kaam, 'Towards a new classification of tele-information services', Intermedia 14, no. 1 (1986), pp. 16-21. It's worth noting that Durlak's elements in this category can be easily located within Bordewijk and van Kaam's oft cited typology of information flow. Further, this can be taken as an indicator of the level at which interactivity as a reflection of information access is implemented.
8. Figure 35.1 in Durlak's text, captioned 'Toward a typology for interactive media', p. 754.
9. See Alan M. Turing, 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence', Mind, 59, no. 236 (1950), pp. 433-460;
10. J.C.R. Licklider, 'Man-Computer Symbiosis', IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, HFE-1, March (1960), pp. 4-11;
11. and Terry Winograd, 'Toward Convivial Computing', in The Computer Age: A Twenty-Year View, eds. M.L. Dertouzos and J. Moses (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1980), pp. 56-72.
12. For a first-hand account of the circumstances of computation under this model, see Herman H. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1972).
13. Webster's Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Gramercy Books, 1989).
14. Robert R. Everett, 'WHIRLWIND', in A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century: A Collection of Essays with Introductory Essay and Indexes, eds. N. Metropolis, J. Howlett, and Gian-Carlo Rota (London: Academic Press, 1980/85), pp. 365-384.
15. Sketchpad is described in Ivan E. Sutherland, 'Sketchpad - A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System', in Proceedings of the Spring Joint Computer Conference, held in Detroit, MI, USA, May 1963 (Washington DC: Spartan, 1964).
16. See also Ivan E. Sutherland, 'The Ultimate Display', in Proceedings of the International Federation of Information Processing Congress (1965), pp. 506-508.
17. David Canfield Smith et al, 'Designing the Star User Interface', Byte, 7, no. 4 (1982), pp. 242-282.
18. MacOS, Version 8.0 (Apple Computer, Inc., 1997).
19. Windows 95 (Microsoft, Inc., 1995).
20. For example, see Sheizaf Rafaeli and Fay Sudweeks, 'Networked Interactivity', Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 2, no. 4 (1997), available online at 〈http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol2/issue4/rafaeli. sudweeks.html〉 (20 February 1998).
21. See Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington, IL.: Indiana University Press, 1976);
22. Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress, Social Semiotics (Oxford: Polity Press, 1988);
23. Robert E. Innis, Consciousness and the Play of Signs (Bloomington, IL.: Indiana University Press, 1994);
24. and Klaus Bruhn Jensen, The Social Semiotics of Mass Communication (London: Sage Publications, 1995).
25. A number of significant semiotic textual analyses are collected in Marshall Blonsky (ed), On Signs (Baltimore MD.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985).
26. A common version of this hierarchy is provided in Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (London: Sage Publications Ltd, 1994), p. 7.
27. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (London: Paladin, 1972), p 242.
28. Gregory Bateson, 'A Theory of Play and Fantasy', in Semiotics: An Introductory Anthology, ed. Robert E. Innis (Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp. 129-144.
29. There is abundant formal and anecdotal literature which underscores the significant conditions and possibilities of computer media for everyday interpersonal and group communication practices. For a sampling of these, see Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach and Sandra Reardon, 'Monologue, Dialogue, and Telelog: Comparing an Emergent Form of Communication with Traditional Forms', in Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes, eds. Robert P. Hawkins, John M. Wiemann, and Suzanne Pingree (London: Sage, 1988), pp. 135-161;
30. Liam J. Bannon, 'Computer-Mediated Communication', in User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction, eds. Donald A. Norman and Stephen W. Draper (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1986), pp. 433-452;
31. J. Dibbell, 'Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society', Village Voice, 38, no. 51 (1993), pp. 36-42;
32. Susan Herring, 'Posting in a Different Voice: Gender and Ethics in Computer-Mediated Communication', in Philosophical Perspectives on Computer-Mediated Communication, ed. Charles Ess (Albany, NY.: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 115-145;
33. Paul Mayer, 'Typologies for the Analysis of Computer Media', Convergence, 3, no. 2 (1997), pp. 82-101;
34. Howard Rheingold, 'A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community', in Global Networks: Computers and International Communication, ed. Linda M. Harasim (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1993), pp. 57-80;
35. and Russell Spears and Martin Lea, 'Panacea or Panopticon? The Hidden Power in Computer-Mediated Communication', Communication Research, 21, no. 4 (1994), pp. 427-459.
36. In 'From Interactivity, through Interaction, to Action: Constituents of a Model of Computer-Mediated Communication', in Ib Bondebjerg (ed), Proceedings of the Conference Visual Media: History, Aesthetics, and Reception, held by the research programme 'Virtual Construction of Reality' at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 1-4 December 1997 (forthcoming), Klaus Bruhn Jensen presents a typology clarifying three forms of interactivity which lie between 1) the medium and the user, via an interface, as evident in user selectivity and the give-and-take of turn-taking, 2) the medium and society, where media are objects-to-think-with which engender forms of social reflexivity, and 3) users and society, where users are enabled in some regard with respect to the social sphere, as evident in change and development of social structures in conjunction with new communication media.
37. Myst (Brøderbund Software, 1994).
38. A detailed treatment of the discursive dimensions of Myst is provided in Paul Mayer, 'Representation and Action in the Reception of Myst: A Social Semiotic Approach to Computer Media', The Nordicom Review, no. 1 (1996), pp. 237-254.
39. Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
40. Vannevar Bush, 'As We May Think', Atlantic Monthly, 176, July (1945), pp. 101-108.
41. See also James M. Nyce and Kahn Paul (eds), From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine (London: Academic Press, Inc., 1991).