Discussion Questions

(Posted by Janice)

Here are some questions I'd like to discuss in class tomorrow:

What do you think of the recent “merging” of different online communication media? For example, where there used to be AOL IM, MSN, Yahoo, etc for personal chat, now there is Trillian and Adium that combine most of the major systems. Most blogs can also integrate photos posted on Flickr and videos from YouTube.

How to technologies like Skype fit in to the models/frameworks proposed in the readings? Do they count as CMC or is it just a different way of using a telephone? How does the addition of video change the communication paradigm?

The de Souza article talks about emoticons as substitutes for body language online. Are there other symbol systems that supplement online communication to make up for the lack of face-to-face interaction?

Would you agree with the prediction made at the end of the Herring article that internet will become a less-interesting communication environment as time goes by?

How do projects like SETI and Folding@Home fit in to the larger idea of CMC? How else could this kind of distributed computing be applied?

And here's a link to my response paper. (pdf)