Media Factors in Collaboration

Abstract

As McLuhan observed, technological changes precipitate a variety of other changes in how we live, think, and interact. Furthermore, the media that we use to communicate with one another profoundly influence the nature of those communications. This chapter focuses on the diverse and subtle impacts of the media characteristics of an interaction environment on collaboration. We consider a variety of interaction modalities: face-to-face, video-supported, audio-only, synchronous and asynchronous computer-supported communication. We begin with a detailed review of the characteristics of collocated work and the environmental factors that affect the ability to establish a shared understanding of a problem. We then consider the role of visual and auditory cues in communication and in the coordination of communication, such as availability and turn-taking cues. Although the cues that occur in co-present collaboration are very different from those that occur in computer-supported communication, they provide a basis for understanding not only the rich character of face-to-face collaboration but also the characteristics of communicative exchanges in general. This knowledge can then be brought to bear to understand issues that arise in computer-supported collaboration.

“...in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium -- that is, of any extension of ourselves — result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” Marshall McLuhan Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man