Typologies for the analysis of computer media

Convergence

Volumn 3, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 82-101

  Mayer, Paul A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN   (Denmark)

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EID: 38949113751     PISSN: 13548565     EISSN: 17487382     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/135485659700300210     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction, third edition (London: Sage, 1994), p. 20.
2. 'Télétex' refers to systems for the distribution of text data interlaced in television signals. Text-TV is the quintessential example. 'Videotex' refers to systems like the French Minitel (see note below), or commercial stock quote 'ticker' systems.
3. For examples of this see Edwin B. Parker, 'Implications of New Information Technology,' The Public Opinion Quarterly, 37, no. 4 (1974), pp. 590-600
4. Ronald E. Rice (ed. ), The New Media, (London: Sage, 1984)
5. Frederick Williams and Ronald E. Rice, 'Communication Research and the New Media Technologies,' in R. Bostrom (ed. ), Communication Yearbook 7, (New Brunswick, NJ. : Transaction Books, 1984), pp. 200-224.
6. Niels Ole Finnemann, Tanke, Sprog og Maskine: En Teoretisk Analyse af Computerens Symbolske Egenskaber (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1994)
7. (Author's translation of the title: Thought, Language and Machine: A Theoretical Analysis of the Computer's Symbolic Properties). Chapter 11 is an English summary of Finnemann's primary arguments.
8. See, for instance, Peter Bøgh Andersen, A Theory of Computer Semiotics (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
9. Alan Turing, 'On Computable Numbers- with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem,' Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, ser. 2, vol. 42 (1936-37), pp. 230-265.
10. Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL. : The University of Illinois Press, 1949/63), pp. 29-125.
11. Alan Kay, 'Computer Software,' Scientific American, 251, no. 3 (September, 1984), pp. 41-47.
12. Cited in Frank Biocca, 'Communication Research in the Design of Communication Interfaces and Systems,' Journal of Communication, 43, no. 4 (1993), pp. 59-68.
13. See Sherry Turkle, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984).
14. See, for example, Michael Heim, Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing (New Haven, CT. : Yale University Press, 1987)
15. Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993); and Alan Kay (1984).
16. Jan L. Bordewijk and Ben van Kaam, 'Towards a new classification of teleinformation services,' Intermedia, 14, no. 1 (1986), pp. 16-21.
17. Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Kathleen Reardon, 'Monologue, Dialogue, and Telelog: Comparing an Emergent Form of Communication with Traditional Forms,' in Robert P. Hawkins, John M. Wiemann, and Suzanne Pingree, Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes (London: Sage, 1988), pp. 134-161.
18. BITNET (Because It's Time Network) is an asynchronous, e-mail based message distribution system begun in 1981 with a link between the City University of New York and Yale University in New Haven Connecticut, USA. It persists today with various gateways to the Internet. Minitel is an information service started by France Télécom in the early 1980s. It is based on a special terminal which is used in conjunction with a normal telephone connection. Many of its services are now available via an Internet-Minitel gateway.
19. John December, 'Units of Analysis for Internet Communication,' Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 46, no. 1 (1996), pp. 14-38.
20. Though closer description of these protocols is not possible here, these are: a) Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, used for WWW communication; b) the Gopher document transfer and search protocol; c) the Telnet, terminal emulation protocols; d) the File Transfer Protocol, used to transfer binary and ASCII files; e) the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, used in e-mail exchange; f) the Post Office Protocol, used for e-mail mailbox access; and g) the Network News Transfer Protocol, used for exchanging USENET newsgroups and their content
21. Justus Buchler (ed. ), Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. , 1955), p. 100.
22. Buchler, p. 99. Italics in original.
23. Klaus Bruhn Jensen, The Social Semiotics of Mass Communication (London: Sage Publications, 1995), p. 11.
24. Buchler, pp. 105-115.
25. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis, IN. : Hacket Publishing Company, 1978/88), p. 58.
26. A good introduction can be found in chapters 6 and 7 of Jenny Preece et al. , Human-Computer Interaction (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994).
27. Jonathan Steuer, 'Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence,' Journal of Communication, 42, no. 4 (1992), pp. 73-93.
28. Steuer, p. 78, cites T. B. Sheridan, 'Musings on Telepresence and Virtual Presence,' Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1, no. 1 (1992), pp. 120-126.
29. Steuer, p. 90, provides an axial plot of these as well as other media forms.
30. See, for example, David Morely, Television, Audiences, & Cultural Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).
31. For more about VR applications and their history, see Howard Rheingold, Virtual Reality (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991)
32. and Benjamin Woolley, Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality (London: Penguin Books, 1992).
33. For a provocative discussion concerning the effects of mass media in this area, see Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
34. Internet Relay Chat is an Internet-based, multi-channel, multi-user chat system.
35. See Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theater (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993).
36. For a critical discussion of the theatrical metaphor and computers, see Andrew Murphie, 'Computers Are Not Theatre: The Machine in the Ghost in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's Thought,' Convergence, 2, no. 2 (1996), pp. 80-109.
37. Pavel Curtis, 'Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities,' Proceedings of the 1992 Conference on Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (Berkeley, May 1992).
38. For a discussion of the significance of these variables and a social semiotic analysis of a specific computer media application, see Paul Mayer, 'Representation and Action in the Reception of Myst: A Social Semiotic Approach to Computer Media,' Nordicom Review, no. 1, 1996, pp. 237-254.