Computer-Mediated Communication

The illegal drug trade has recently found a new route: darknet cryptomarkets. On these Ebay-like marketplaces, located in an anonymous network, drug sellers and buyers from all over the world make deals without meeting each other in person. Drug vendors are known by their user names, and those names could have a huge financial significance for their owners. This study examines the characteristics of those vendor user names and contrasts them to both other types of user names as well as to real-life commercial names. The data for the study were collected from AlphaBay, the largest cryptomarket in early 2017. Many vendors share information of themselves through their user names, referring to their products, home country and whether they work alone or in a group. Names are also used to create various images of vendor's business. Some vendors try to create an image of a normal, legal business by using company and brand name vocabulary or by plagiarising famous real-life brand names. Other vendors, however, appear to even highlight their crim-inality, referring to illegal activities or well-known real-life or fictional drug criminals. Vendor names also include references to the desired effects of drugs and the high quality of products and service. One-third of names are not connected to drugs in any visible way. Overall, vendor names more closely resemble other user names, but they clearly have also been influenced by commercial names.

This entry reviews and discusses several issues regarding online friendship. After introducing two opposite perspectives: the cues-filtered-out perspective and the social information process theory, it examines empirical studies with particular focuses on online friendships development, comparisons between online friendship and its offline counterpart, and the impacts of online friendship on the offline life.

This paper describes the use of adaptation patterns in the task of formulating standards for adaptive educational hypermedia (AEH) systems that is currently under investigation by the EU ADAPT project. Within this project, design dimensions for high granularity patterns have been established. In this paper we focus on detailing lower granularity adaptive patterns based upon learning styles. Several patterns from existing AEH system case studies are identified and classified according to an extended learning style "onion" model. This model forms the basis of a learning style taxonomy, introduced here, whose components determine adaptation patterns for AEH. These patterns are of importance both for authoring, as well as for interfacing between adaptive hypermedia systems. From an authoring point of view, these patterns may be used to establish a fine-grain approach to instructional strategies that can be implemented in AEH systems, as a response to a particular learning style. The implementation of this adaptation pattern taxonomy is discussed, both generally and in detail.

Mollon, M., & Gentes, A. (2014). The Rhetoric of Design for Debate: triggering conversation with an “uncanny enough” artefact (pp. 1–13). In the proceedings of the Design Research Society International Consortium (DRS), Umeå, Sweden. (June 18th).
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http://bit.ly/talkDRS14 – PDF presentation
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Abstract: Design exploration research refers to various interaction design research practices that explore tensions issued from the interplay of science, technology, culture and society. Most of them explicitly trigger discussions and debates in the audience, for instance “critical design”, which raised the interest of members of design research communities. However its generalization suffers from a lack of shareable methodology. This paper aims at clarifying it practically and theoretically.
We claim that these practices trigger people’s reactions using a specific narrative strategy which provoke an “uncanny feeling”. By producing “uncanny enough” artefacts that embed a subtle entanglement of familiarity and unfamiliarity, designers can elicit responses from viewers. First, a review of literature on critical design texts presents the “uncanny balance” as being a recurrent design principle for the creation of these artefacts. We then present an exemplary case study produced by one of the authors, exploring communication technology—called Dog&Bone. Using classical rhetoric, we present a theoretical overview of the project. The outcome consists of a conceptual framework based on the narrative dimension of the uncanny plus the rhetorical dimension (composed of three elements: legitimacy, emotions, argumentation). We conclude that Design is a form of communication between designers and their audience.

Social Networking Sites (SNS) have changed the means and ways of communication all around the world. People are using these sites for information, relations, trade and many other ways. This research study “Influence of SNS on the acquisition of Knowledge: an analysis of Knowledge Gap Theory” primarily focuses on the use of SNS for the purpose of knowledge gain and particularly on the role of SNS in bridging the Knowledge Gap. How these sites are helpful in gaining knowledge. The study covers and discusses about the willingness to get knowledge and interest of the respondents about the useful information on SNS. The study highlights various aspects of social networking sites (SNS) that correlate with the motivation and the will of the individual to learn. Unlike the communication, social circle and interaction patterns, this study aims to define Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter etc. as means of knowledge acquisition. The study is conducted in three different cities of Pakistani Province Punjab Lahore, Sheikhupra and Narowal. People who use SNS wisely and with a purpose have a deep knowledge of what happens around. The research was carried out using primary and secondary data. After going through the previous studies and literature, questionnaire was designed and distributed among the individuals of age group 15-35. Sample size of the study is 500 respondents. Data was analyzed and interpreted on the percentage basis and the graphical presentation was also made.

One of the key issues that need to be addressed in wireless sensor network field is how to create a most efficient energy system. Ad-hoc Networks are becoming an effective tool for many mission critical applications such as troop coordination, situational awareness Etc. Ad-hoc Networks having limited computation and communication resources. To unguaranteed connectivity to trust authorities make known solutions for trusted authorities make knows solutions for single hop wireless networks. In this Project I am presenting A  Distinct Authentication Key for New TAM Protocol For large scale dense ad-hoc networks. TAM exploits network clusters to reduce overhead and ensure scalability. Multicast traffic with in a cluster employs a “One way hash function” chain in order to authenticate the message source. Cross cluster multicast traffic includes Message Authentication Codes (MAC’s) that are based on a set of keys. Result in terms of bandwidth overhead and delivery delay

המאמר מנתח את תרומתה של רשת האינטרנט להתארגנויות חברה אזרחית וליזמים פוליטיים. לצורך כך יוצגו שלושה סיפורי הצלחה מקומיים בולטים של יזמים אזרחיים אשר בחרו להשתמש באינטרנט על מנת לגבש התאגדויות מקומיות –לעתים אף בניגוד למדיניות ממשלתית ועירונית – ועל ידי כך לקדם את מטרות חבריהן. המקרים הללו, בסיועה של מסגרת תאורטית, מדגימים כי האינטרנט מעשיר את ארגז הכלים של תנועות חברתיות ושל יזמים פוליטיים, ומקל על ארגון ציבורים ועל ניתובם והירתמותם למטרות המשותפות לחבריהם.

There is a general perception that synchronous, online
chat about politics is fragmented, incoherent, and rife with ad hominem
attacks because of its channel characteristics. This study aims to better
understand the relative impact of channel of communication versus topic
of communication by comparing chat about four different topics. Discourse
analysis and coding for topic drift were applied to two hours of chat devoted
to the topics of politics, auto racing, entertainment, and cancer support.
Findings demonstrate that topic may have an effect on the coherence of chat,
with discussion in the politics chat room surprisingly being more coherent
than in the other rooms. This research suggests that users can sustain
relatively coherent interaction on political talk, suggesting chat technology
may not be an inherently problematic medium for political discours

This chapter explores the relationship between ethics, wearable technology and higher education through the lens of teaching with Google Glass.  Beginning with an introduction to Glass and to the contemporary concept of the digital citizen, the chapter traces out a pedagogical framework aimed at preparing learners to embrace their civic duty to contribute to the virtual world responsibly. Continuing with an investigation of ethical obligations, educational concepts, and learning exercises made available by advances in HET the chapter describes how to use Google Glass as a case study for examining the limits and possibilities of a new point-of-view angle on interactive instruction. To this end, students’ project-based and experiential learning about how Glass impacts communication culture and technology, commerce, security, access, etiquette, branding, ethics and law is described. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how technology’s ethical consciousness continues to be enacted and embodied via a “collusive” point-of-view angle and third voice that shed light on the ongoing rhetorical and pedagogical processes of expression, experience and identification in the "Gigabit Age."

Völlig neue Bild- und Erfahrungswelten versprechen die jüngsten Produkte der Medienindustrie ihren Usern. Euphorisch investieren Google, Microsoft und Co. Unsummen in digitale Medientechnologien wie Virtual-Reality-Displays. Jeder Blockbuster muss in 3D gedreht werden. Entwicklungen wie diese verdeutlichen nicht nur den hohen Stellenwert, der sowohl der technologischen Seite als auch den ästhetischen Strategien visueller Medien zukommt. Sie werfen auch eine Reihe von Fragen auf: Wie adressieren multimodale Medienarrangements die Sinne der Rezipienten? Welche Rolle spielen Technologie und Wahrnehmung bei der Modellierung von Bildwirkungen? Um diese Fragen zu beantworten, legt der vorliegende Band den Fokus auf die Analyse medialer Interfaces. Konzentrierte sich die Bewegtbilder-Reihe bislang auf den Film, widmet sich Bild und Interface auch interaktiven Digital- und Computerspielbildern. Dadurch sollen weitere Bausteine einer kritischen Bewegtbildwissenschaft herausgearbeitet werden.

This book chapter historicizes the notion of telepresence, a term coined in 1986. After defining the different forms of telepresence, it shows that, much before computers and virtual reality, old technologies such as correspondence and painting have been used to provide a sense of social telepresence (being with) or spatial telepresence (being there, far away). It suggests a research program for this specific narrative of media history

Crossing two different research fields, the socio-psychological and the linguistic one, the present work aims at exploring what means to be part of a minority group built through a social media. In particular it will deepen the argumentations used by its followers before and after a very critical phase, and mostly if their discourses entail positive effects in terms of empowerment. The main hypothesis of this study is that the empowerment process of a minority, seen as a form of re-appropriation of individual or collective efficacy, can be constructed by means of the quality of discussion and then through its arguments. The case is represented by " Roars " , an active Facebook group of Italian researchers born after a very criticized reform of University. The linguistic analysis of Roars's group aims to understand their discur-sive and argumentative processes, and to state if they can develop some forms of empowerment. The results show how Roars change their rhetorical moves passing from presumptive and biased to " normative " argumentations, thus improving the quality of discussions and also their level of empowerment.

Virtual teamwork is increasingly becoming a characteristic way of working within and between organisations in the digital economy, bringing both opportunities and drawbacks. This article considers communication in virtual teams and ways in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) can enhance or impede it. It is recognised that the richness of face-to-face communication cannot be captured fully by the tools on offer, although important steps to create team belonging in virtual presence have already been taken. While the tools go some way to permitting distributed team members to interact informally, they cannot go all the way to building and maintaining the personal side of relationships, nor provide stress-relief in many instances. Information overload is highlighted as an example of this failure, and ways to address the problems inherent in ICT-mediated communication and its usage should be sought via inter-disciplinary approaches. On the other hand, the virtual paradigm leads to new organisational forms and organisational culture that tend to strengthen the individual's role in the organisational grapevine.

The design of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) affords for, and itself produces, non-response situations that are not possible in FTF or telephone interaction. These system-occasioned non-responses produce almost isomorphic stimuli to participant non-responses. Situations thus arise in which non-responses are interpersonally accountable despite agentive ambiguity. This study explores four intersections of participant-action and system-occasioned non-responses. An extension to Pomerantz's (1984b) 'pursuing a response' problems/solutions is proposed. The impact of IRC's design on its popularity is discussed in contrast to more recent chat systems. Suggestions are made for active and passive presence and non-response accounting features in future chat systems.

Mit diesem Titel liegt eine veröffentlichte Magisterarbeit vor, deren redaktioneller Beschreibungstext auf dem Buchrücken einen „Blick über den Tellerrand hinaus“ verspricht. Dieses Versprechen soll sich durch drei Leitaspekte einlösen, die den Einfluss von virtuellen Welten auf das menschliche Verhalten fokussieren, zweitens das Suchtpotenzial und die Isolation von der Außenwelt thematisieren und drittens die neuen sozialen Komponenten beleuchten, die durch die ‚Begehung’ virtueller Welten ermöglicht werden.

Nuclear power accidents repeatedly reveal that the industry has an incomplete understanding of the complex risks involved in its operation. Through analyzing the investigation of a nuclear power incident in Sweden in 2006, I show how the industry’s learning
practices shape recurrent normalization of risk regulation after such surprises. Learning is shaped through institutionalized measures of sufficiency and particular “risk objects” (e.g.
human factors and safety culture) created through learning from previous events. Subsequent regulatory measures are shaped through improvement scripts associated with these risk objects. These learning practices exclude alternative conceptual perspectives to understand and address safety-critical incidents. Latent risks will therefore produce similar events in the future. The article contributes to the literature on organizational learning, policy making, sensemaking and normalization in complex systems. To improve learning from incidents and regulation in high-hazard industries, social scientists and a wider circle of stakeholders should be included in the regulatory and post-incident
examination processes.

“Abbiamo costruito il libro Conoscere i videogiochi come uno strumento conoscitivo allo stesso tempo di introduzione e di approfondimento all’argomento”, scrivono Pellitteri e Salvador nell’introduzione del volume Conoscere i videogiochi ed è proprio così che si presenta un volume che indaga il medium videoludico a tutto tondo, fornendo una grande quantità di spunti d’analisi e valutazione, fornendo molti dati utili ad approfondire - o ad avviare - la conoscenza del videogioco come prodotto, come medium, come cultura, come arte.

Sauro, S. (2009). Strategic use of modality during synchronous CMC. CALICO Journal, 27(1), 101-117.

Research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the second language (L2) classroom has revealed the potential for technology to promote learner interaction and opportunities for negotiation of meaning as well as to provide opportunities for language access outside the classroom environment. Despite this potential, social, linguistic, and technical factors can still limit the richness of interactional opportunities for L2 learners engaged in synchronous CMC. However, the multimodality of synchronous CMC may provide learners with tools and strategies (e.g., change of modality of communication by making selective use of text chat) that can help them garner increased opportunities for target language production. Such strategies were utilized during a 20-minute bimodal CMC exchange between a pair of L2 learners. During the course of the interaction, one learner employed voice chat almost exclusively, thereby positioning himself initially as the leader and more productive member of the conversation. However, at a midpoint in the interaction, the other learner began using the text chat option to gain a foothold in the conversation when her spoken turns were interrupted, ignored, or missed by her partner. By strategically appropriating the text-chat tool, she was able to negotiate the initial interactional asymmetries and reposition herself as a contributing, even guiding, member of the conversation.

This module is designed to acquaint students with understanding of new media, how it differs from old media, and what are the dilemmas and responsibilities of Net users, journalists, ISPs, state and international community in this new era. The module will combine theory with case studies. This module will supplement Level 5 module, 'New Media and Politics' which is focused mainly on the implications of new media technologies, such as the internet, for representative democracy. It will provide interested students with the opportunity to continue focusing their studies also in their third year on Internet and New Media.

Almost everyone in India is conscious of the importance and urgency of the Challenges in Education and these are reflected in several other parts of the world as well. Some of these are the challenge of numbers, of relevance, of Quality, of access, of costs and of speed. There is sometimes a sense of paralysis at the enormity of the challenge and the apparent impossibility of managing conflicting expectations. But we need a change in direction, as suggested in the scenario painted by Edward de Bono. “Imagine a ship at sea that is in trouble. The lights keep going out. The engine is faltering. The rudder is unreliable. The first mate is drunk. The crew is very demoralised. The service is appalling. The passengers on the ship are very dissatisfied. Then a new captain and first mate are brought in by helicopter. Very quickly everything changes. The morale of the crew is lifted. Service improves. The engine is fixed. The rudder is fixed. The lights stay on. Everything is fine. But the ship is still heading in the wrong direction.” The solution to these multiple challenges probably lies in a number of disruptive innovative solutions. These include inculcating self-learning (building on meta-cognition), measuring learning, collaborative and co-operative learning, personalisation of learning and learning analytics. However, in addition to new systems or technologies, we need a fundamental change of perspective. Education is seen as the responsibility of the State and the system is based on authority and licenses and permissions to allow education to be transacted in modern times this is unlikely to work. As Henry Maine had said ' as society progresses, it moves from status to contract'. So must the educational system build contractual relationships between the learner and providers of learning as more important than statutory authority. A very promising technological and pedagogical model that has received a lot of attention during the last few years and adoption by Stanford, Harvard, Duke and almost 100 of the world's top ranking Universities to teach millions of learners is that of the MOOC. The MOOC is considered on the one hand as a panacea for education and on the other as a defilement of the sanctity of the higher education tradition. The truth will probably lie somewhere in between and we must explore the potential of MOOCs to create a model of simultaneously teaching on-site and off-site learners, using synchronous and a-synchronous teacher learner interactions to deliver high quality learning to large numbers , maybe evolve a model for a classroom of 10,000 learners. This event is a step in that direction. We are experimenting here with mounting 10 MOOCs in a variety of subjects, for different target groups delivered by a team of Internationally renowned resource persons. We will be exploring several technological platforms and pedagogical models to find answers to a few interesting questions:
 What is the right size of a learning cohort that is empowered with technology?
 What is the right price for tuition?
 What would be the most appropriate technology platform for mass education?
 What is the best way to cope with linguistic diversity?
 What course programs are best delivered as MOOCs?
 What skill sets must learners have to benefit most from MOOCs?
 What skill sets must educators acquire to teach effectively with MOOCs?
I welcome and thank all those who are contributing to make this unique exploratory endeavour a success.
M.M. Pant

The aim of the paper is to present the perception of time of the women who have
babies less than 12 months old through observation on some titles of so-called annual
topics in the largest  Bulgarian  forum  platform –bg-mamma.
Using  qualitative  and  quantitative  methods,  the study includes the investigation of time indicators preferred by the forum users in the excerpted 50 threads.  Attention  is  drawn  to  the  presence  of  subjective/objective  time  markers  as  well  as  of linear/cyclic  ones.  Furthermore,  excerpted  words  and  phrases indicating time  have  been  studied having  in  mind  that  time  is  often  metaphorically  represented.  The  investigation also  reveals the  most  important events  in the  mother’s  life as expressed by the  titles of the  topics.
It  seems  to the researcher that in the first year of maternity women perceive the time in a very specific way –they put the baby  growth as a  measure and the objective time  marks only disclose  the changing baby world.  It  is  also  interesting  that  some  traditional  holidays  become  very  important  as  well  as  the rituals connected to them.

A qualitative and quantitative content analysis was conducted of all text-based synchronous online chats at an oral communication peer tutoring center throughout a semester. As a comparative benchmark, chats at the same university’s main library were analyzed over the same time period. The library’s chats were much more heavily weighted toward task-oriented research questions. The communication center chats served almost entirely as a portal for making appointments. Suggestions are offered for more robust incorporation of chats to diagnose a center’s operational issues, improve outreach, triage student needs, build a sense of personal connection, and reduce attrition.

This paper reports on an investigation into the online visibility of work undertaken in South Africa in the field of poverty alleviation. An experiment with
Google searches was undertaken, motivated by concerns about the visibility of South African research and development work, particularly in a context where social
inequality is extreme and poverty such a critical issue. Aware that much attention – through research and the practice of development work – is being paid to
poverty alleviation1
, the authors set out to examine whether that work could be found easily, and what the nature of the search results would be. Significant sums
of public money are invested in research, which should result in the production and dissemination of locally generated knowledge as a public good grounded in
local realities. A great deal of national and international funding is also spent. Thus, research published online should inform and reflect on national and regional
development practice, while contributing perspectives from the South to the global corpus of poverty research. Research to understand poverty and inform the design
and targeting of poverty alleviation programmes needs to be freely available and actively shared in order for it to accumulate value. In this regard it is argued that
there are exponentially beneficial linkages between research, scholarly publication and social development, which originate with local knowledge production and
are amplified by the availability and discoverability of that research. Availability and discoverability add breadth and depth to the potential use, value and impact
of the knowledge produced

This paper looks into the use of humor in one of the most influential social media platforms, Twitter, through the observation of several English Parody accounts. The study specifically analyzed the linguistic features used in every tweet, which made the particular accounts popular for its sense of humor and purpose of entertainment, which attracted thousands and even millions of followers. The study was based on The Language of Humor: Navajo by Cisneros, Alexanian, Begay, Goldberg (2006), which studied the humor used in the Navajo Language, a widely used language in New Mexico and Arizona. The said study used a theoretical framework named as “frame semantics.” The researcher will use the same theoretical framework for it best fits on analyzing the language of humorous tweets, as well. Moreover, the research was patterned on The Language of Twitter: Linguistic Innovation and Character Limitation in Short Messaging by Lewis Denby (2010), which carefully analyzed the language of Twitter, specifically on the character limit it imposes similar to the then 160-character limit of text messaging, by observing the message lengths and some of its linguistic features.
The researcher first randomly picked ten English Parody accounts on Twitter, then, the researcher observed five humorous tweets per parody account and analyzed its linguistic features. Lastly, the researcher categorized these linguistic features and found out that among the many linguistic features present in the tweets observed, the total use of capitalization occurred the most with 118 occurrences. To conclude with, the researcher concluded that tweets on Parody accounts, in a microblogging social media application, use certain linguistic features to express and emphasize their feelings, emotions, and utterances. It may or may not add up to the engagement of its followers’ especially humorous words, phrases, and sentences are also used to attract a certain number of Twitter users.

Keywords: humor, joke, social media, twitter, tweet, linguistic features, parody, computer-mediated communication

Unequal contributions to social media, whereby a vast amount of content is produced bya limited number of users, need a better, theoretically grounded explanation. The presentpaper argues that contribution inequality on social media can be considered a symptom ofsocial differentiation, which can be detected via social entropy. A conceptual foundationfor this perspective is offered, supported by an empirical example. We use social entropy to detect the evolution of contribution inequality on Wikipedia over a period of 9 years. The paper also offers suggestions for using the conceptual framework for better understanding social media contribution structure and functional roles for practical applications.

ABSTRACT: Computer-Mediated-Communication (CMC) and Willingness-to-Communicate (WTC) have been paid thorough attention and been put to numerous investigations in L2 acquisition literature. What seems lacking is a study into how these two concepts are related. The present study investigates the role of CMC in promoting learners’ WTC both inside and outside the classroom. Among other factors, it was found that learners’ feel for privacy and their need to convey their emotions played major roles in their judging about CMC, their willing to employ CMC and consequently their WTC. It was concluded that introducing CMC into language classrooms as a means to communicate inL2, both inside and outside the classroom, promotes learners’ WTC as far as it guarantees learners’ privacy and assures them of effectiveness of CMC in conveying their emotions and puts them at a safe position in their computer-base contacts as a means to facilitate their emotional revelations.

"Block Printing is the process of using an object to make an inked impression upon a plain surface. It is one of the oldest and most enjoyable of all the crafts and has given color and pattern to paper, cloth, and other surfaces for nearly 4,000 years.
Today the process is essentially the same. As it is simple and impressive, it is ideal for the beginner. "

Negli ultimi cinquant’anni il videogame ha ridefinito il concetto di intrattenimento nella nostra società e il suo mercato è diventato uno dei più creativi e importanti del mondo, ma per molti aspetti è un mondo ancora sommerso.
Questo libro cerca di rispondere alle domande essenziali su cosa definisce un videogame, perché giochiamo e chi sono i videogiocatori, per condurre l’esplorazione verso fronti ulteriori.
Attraverso molteplici prospettive e approcci teorici, gli autori offrono una guida al videogame come nuovo medium della cultura pop contemporanea, mentre il racconto delle evoluzioni tecnologiche e del mercato mostra al lettore, neofita o videogiocatore, il dietro le quinte di un’industria innovativa.

This research examined how individuals’ gendered avatar might alter their use of gender-based language (i.e., references to emotion, apologies, and tentative language) in text-based computer-mediated communication. Specifically, the experiment tested if men and women would linguistically assimilate a virtual gender identity intimated by randomly assigned gendered avatars (either matched or mismatched to their true gender). Results supported the notion that gender-matched avatars increase the likelihood of gender-typical language use, whereas gender-mismatched avatars promoted countertypical language, especially among women. The gender of a partner’s avatar, however, did not influence participants’ language. Results generally comport with self-categorization theory’s gender salience explanation of gender-based language use.

Computer-Mediated Communication across Cultures: International Interactions in Online Environments provides readers with the foundational knowledge needed to communicate safely and effectively with individuals from other countries and cultures via online media. Through a closer examination of the expanded global access to the Web, this book discusses the use and design of cross-cultural digital media and the future of the field for executives, marketers, researchers, educators, and the average user.