Made out of people

Some CMC theories

The other day in a class, I found us throwing back and forth a lot of theory. I don't think it was intentional; we were all just trying to grapple with a phenomenon ("Why do people blog"?) and wanted to find sets of reasonable explanations.

This isn't the full list of theories that people like to use in CSCW. But it's a fair chunk of the dominant CMC (that's "Computer Mediated Communication") theories. I think it's useful (for me!) to keep around.

• Media Richness Theory
  • “im is a sort of impoverished f2f”
• Goffman: “Dramaturgical” performance of self
  • Front / Back / various levels
  • Converse with fragmented identities (e.g. Turkle)
  • (and teens are developing identity)
  • But: what does it do for audience when “I never expected anyone to read that”
• Diffusion of Innovation and Opinon leaders
  • "the influential guy uses Verizon”
• Actor-Network Theory
• separating cultural factors (from other factors)
• "Gift Culture" notion
• Economic theory
• Attention Management