Social Computer Mediated Communication - CS 598 (42378)
Karrie Karahalios
11:00-12:15 WF
1105 Siebel Center
201 Goodwin St.
| Communication
systems from the optical and electrical telegraph, to the telephone, to
messaging over the internet were originally geared towards business
applications. As the infrastructure became more commonplace, people
adapted social conventions and motivations towards these systems. For
example, weddings took place over the telegraph, the telephone migrated
from the office and into the home and bedroom, etc. Packet-switching
technologies of the 60’s and early 70’s made it easier to send
messages to and from remote computers. Arpanet, starting in 1969, was
created with the intent to enable scientists to remotely share resources
such as specialized hardware, databases, and programs. This vision of
Arpanet became a reality. What was not anticipated, and was quite a
surprise, was that the most popular and most used feature of the Arpanet
was electronic mail. People could message each other if they were logged
on to the same machine or they could leave messages that could be read
later. Hence, the beginning of computer-mediated-communication (CMC). Today, more
and more computer-mediated-communication interfaces are in use such as
instant messaging systems (MSN, AIM, ICQ) and mobile messaging systems (SMS).
Some of these interfaces work well, and some don’t. We will look at the
social and technical implications of why this is so — primarily,
communication cues over different channels and the importance of interface
design. The emphasis of this course is to design and implement computer
mediated communication systems that serve a social function. We will begin
by looking at screen based communication systems and current hand-held
devices. We will then move away from the traditional screen and hand-held
devices and look at interactive objects, wearable interfaces, and
communication devices embedded in surrounding space. This course
will combine reading from selected texts, design of new communication
systems, and two implementations of completed designs.
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