Track:
Digital Media:
Content and Communication
Minitrack: Persistent Conversation 11: Perspectives from Research
and
Design
Persistent conversations occur via instant messaging, text and
voice chat, email, blogs, web boards, MOOs, graphical and 3D
virtual environments, gaming systems, video sharing sites,
document annotation systems, mobile phone texting, etc. Such
communication is persistent in that it leaves a digital trace of
varying duration, and the trace in turn affords new uses. It
permits conversations to be saved, visualized, browsed, searched,
replayed, and restructured. Persistence also means that
conversations need not be synchronous: they can be asynchronous
(stretching out over hours or days) or supersynchronous (with
multiple parties 'talking' at the same time). Finally, the
creation of persistent and potentially permanent records from what
was once an ephemeral process raises a variety of social and
ethical issues. This multi-disciplinary minitrack seeks
contributions from researchers and designers that improve our
ability to understand, analyze, and/or design persistent
conversation systems.
See http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS_PC.html
for more information.
The particular aim of the minitrack is to bring together
researchers who analyze existing computer-mediated conversational
practices and sites, with designers who propose, implement, or
deploy new types of conversational systems. By bringing together
participants from such diverse areas as anthropology,
computer-mediated communication, HCI, interaction design,
linguistics, psychology, rhetoric, sociology, and the like, we
hope that the work of each may inform the others, suggesting new
questions, methods, perspectives, and design approaches.
We are seeking papers that address one or both of the following
two general areas:
Understanding Practice. The burgeoning popularity of the
internet (and intranets) provides an opportunity to study and
characterize new forms of conversational practice. Questions of
interest range from how various features of conversations (e.g.,
turn-taking, topic organization, expression of paralinguistic
information) have adapted in response to the digital medium, to
new roles played by persistent conversation in domains such as
education, business, and entertainment.
Design. Digital systems do not currently support conversation
well: it is difficult to converse with grace, clarity, depth and
coherence over networks. But this need not remain the case. Toward
this end, we welcome analyses of existing systems as well as
designs for new systems which better support conversation. Also of
interest are inquiries into how participants design their own
conversations within the digital medium -- that is, how they make
use of system features to create, structure, and regulate their
discourse.
Ideally, papers for the minitrack should also address the
implications of their analysis or design for one or more of the
following areas:
Analytical Tools. The effort to understand practice can benefit
from an array of analytical tools and methods. Such tools may be
adapted from existing disciplinary practices, or they may be
innovated to analyze the unique properties of persistent
conversation. One goal of this minitrack is to gain a fuller
understanding of the kinds of insights offered by different
analytical approaches to persistent conversation.
Social Implications. Even as the persistence of digital
conversation suggests intriguing new applications, it also raises
troubling issues of privacy, authenticity, and authority. At the
same time, it has beneficial effects ranging from making a
community's discourse more accessible to non-native speakers, to
laying the foundations for mutual support and community in
distributed groups. Authors are encouraged to reflect on the
social implications of their observations, analyses, and designs.
Historical Parallels. From the constructed dialogs of Plato to
the epistolary exchanges of the eighteenth century literati,
persistent conversation is not without precedent. How might
earlier practices help us understand the new practices evolving in
the digital medium? How might they help us design new systems?
What perspectives do they offer on the social impacts (present and
future) of persistent conversation?
Minitrack Co-chairs
Thomas Erickson [Primary Contact]
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
3136 Irving Ave. (Remote office)
Minneapolis MN 55408-2515
Phone: 612-823-3663
Fax: 612-823-1576
Email: snowfall@acm.org
Susan C. Herring
School of Library and Information Science
10th St. and Jordan Ave.
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
Phone: 812-856-4919
Fax: 812-855-6166
Email: herring@indiana.edu
