Guillaume Latzko-Toth
University of Quebec in Montreal, 2010. English translation of:
Guillaume Latzko-Toth. La co-construction d’un dispositif sociotechnique de communication: le cas de l’Internet Relay Chat. Sociologie. Université du Québec à Montréal, 2010. Français.
TL Note: If a sentence looks like this, it means the automatic translations are so shoddy that I can't understand what it's supposed to mean. This is a best-effort translation by someone who doesn't know French, and any help would be appreciated! (Thanks to Thomas for help so far!)
University of Quebec in Montreal
The co-construction of a socio-technical communication device: the case of Internet Relay Chat
Thesis presented as a partial requirement of the Doctorate in Communication
By Guillaume Latzko-Toth
May 2010
University of Quebec in Montreal
Faculty of Communication
This thesis entitled:
The co-construction of a socio-technical communication device: the case of Internet Relay Chat
Presented and publicly supported on April 30, 2010 as a partial requirement for the degree of Ph.D. (Doctorate in communication) by: Guillaume Latzko-Toth
In front of a jury composed of:
- PIERRE-LÉONARD HARVEY - Chairman and Rapporteur
- THIERRY BARDINI - Member of the Jury
- NICOLAS AURAY - External Examiner
- SERGE PROULX - Thesis Director
To my grandmother Elen
In memoriam
It is never easy to choose a thesis subject, because it means giving up, for many years, other questions that we think are just as worthy of attention. Maybe that's what made me keep this subject - the invention of a chat system over the Internet - which allowed me to reconcile two fields of interest: the phenomenon of computer-mediated communication on one hand, and technical innovation on the other. Both are focuses in the field of communication studies, as technical mediation occupies an increasingly central place in the lives of individuals and societies.
In the wake of the democratization of the Internet and the explosion of its uses in the 1990s, an international community of humanities and social scientists was formed around a common fascination for emerging social phenomena related to the uses of what was still called the "network of networks" (1). Over the years, the themes of the hour change (2), but with an invariant: a certain propensity of the researchers to want, one one hand, to remain at the crest of the wave (that is to say, stay in touch with the most recent phenomena), and on the other hand -- to a lesser extend today -- to justify the relevance and sociological legitimacy of objects of study ignored, denigrated, or underestimated by their peers. The chat plays such a role in those uses of the internet, that it is now a legitimate research topic, just as the "Minitel Rose" services in France, or the CB cards in other times (tl 1). Today, the phenomenon has become commonplace. As a sign of the times, when I was presenting my first work on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), at the turn of the 2000s, my communication was usually included in a chat panel. As part of the conference marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the AoIR (3), my intervention on IRC was included in a session on historical research... (4)
My interest in chat is, so to speak, paradoxical, since it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that I am interested in the chat as it is not used for conversation. In other words, what interests me centrally in this thesis is not what is said in chat rooms, but all the practices related to the construction, maintenance and administration of these virtual spaces of social interaction. What I have tried to account for is how, from a simple computer program allowing any number of Internet users to converse directly via their keyboard, one leads to an electronic service and technical system of such great complexity. In the beginning, there was the concern of the founders to provide a "quality of service", and ensure the stability of the system. The problem with an IRC network is that it is completely open and largely decentralized; it is a constellation of servers that share the same database of users and "channels" of discussion. Their administrators must therefore cooperate with each other and cope with users, some of whom want to demonstrate their technical skill by making the service inaccessible or disrupting its' operation. Delays in transmitting information between servers cause desynchronizations, which are the wave on which hackers who want to steal a channel from their creators "surf". Each side of confronted by interposed programs, real was machines called "warbots".
So, by connecting to an IRC server for the first time, I not only discovered a new communication tool or a new way of communicating. Like those explorers of an asteroid nowhere to be found in Greg Bear's novel Éon (5), I discovered a fascinating world, much larger on the inside than one would be led to believe by gazing at it from the outside. And to remain in the realm of science fiction, the scenario imagined by George Lucas for "Episode 1" of Star Wars (6) is quite prescient of what could happen if the robot war on IRC (7) was transposed into physical reality. All in all, this story of invading a planet by an army of robots remotely controlled by two individuals made of flesh has an air of déjà vu: translated into IRC jargon, it resembles a banal takeover of a channel by a network of robots (botnet).
That is why, beyond the theoretical stakes involved in the case study proposed here, my wish is to succeed in communicating to the reader of this thesis some of the feelings of wonder and astonishment that I've experienced in the face of this unexpected richness and complexity and, perhaps even more, seeing the passion that animates the various protagonists of Internet Relay Chat.
But first, I would like to express my gratitude to the people who helped me in the realization of this project. The first goes to my thesis advisor, Serge Proulx. I cannot express my gratitude here for having accompanied me all these years, giving me the opportunity to explore various facets of research, and above all, for always having had confidence in my ability to carry out this project. I would also like to thank the other members of my jury for having done me the honor of reading and evaluating the work, and to particularly express my gratitude to the professors and researchers who have guided my steps, to varying degrees, at one time or another on this long journey: Josiane Jouët at the University Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, Thierry Bardini and Lorna Heaton at the University of Montreal, Dominique Cardon and Benoît Lelong during an internship at France Télécom R & D (now Orange Labs), and Pierre-Léonard Harvey at UQAM, who directed by master's thesis already devoted to IRC and which encouraged me, very early in my training, to explore the field of computer-mediated communication.
Second, I would like to thank the the IRC development actors who generously answered my questions and patiently reiterated their explanations, without whom this thesis would have been simply unfeasible. A special thank you to Stacy Brown, who trusted me and generously gave me access to her archives of the lists Wastelanders and Undernet-admins, but also to Michael Lawrie (Lorry), Carlo Wood (Run), Donald Lambert (WHIZZARD), Armin Gruner (argv), Mandar Mirashi (Mmmm), Magnus Tjernström (Core), Patrick Ducrot (DP) and Doug McLaren (Demon). More than informants, I consider them to be people who, through their generosity and interest in my research, have provided me with invaluable moral support in times of discoragement. It is also for them that I wanted to carry out this work to completion, and also to them that this thesis is dedicated. Thanks also to the following people who gave me valuable information: Murray Turoff, Tom Rons, Marty Lyons and Bill Harnett.
I then think of my long-time companions (!) of the joint PhD in communication from the Montream and the electonic journal COMMposite, some of whom have become respected researchers today, including Éric George, a mentor for me, who wanted to read and comment on some chapters of this thesis, Florence Millerand, my intellectual big sister whose advice and encouragement have always proved invaluable, as well as France Aubin, Maryse Rivard, Luc Bonneville, Danielle Bélanger, Diane Raymond, Stéphane Fauteux, Michael Totschnig and their spouses -- I certainly forget them -- whose unwavering moral support was essential to me in carrying out this project. Thanks also for allowing the COMMposite e-Journal to exist; As with many others, this magazine helped me consider a career as a researcher, while providing me with an initial forum to disseminate my work on IRC.
While it was still embryonic when I started this research, the small world of francophone research on chat provided me with very valuable research leads, fruitful interactions to deepen certain concepts, but also an intellectual complicity that has strengthened me in the conviction of the relevance of my research subject. Thanks to Madeleine Pastinelli, Julia Velkovska and Véronique Mattio, among others.
I would also like to thank the dynamic team of the Research and Observation Group on Media Usage and Culture (GRM) and the Computer-mediated Communication Lab (LabCMO), co-directed -- better: animated -- by Serge Proulx and Florence Millerand. It was and still is for me a highly-stimulating intellectual environment within which I was able to refine my project and my reflection. Among the people I have travelled to, I first think of Michael Totschnig, co-founder of LabCMO, already mentioned above. Without his intellectual contribution and his passionate commitment to the study of computer-mediated communication, quite honestly, I wonder if I would have persevered in this area. At the risk of forgetting some, I would like to thank Julien Rueff, Stéphane Couture, Christina Haralanova, Anne Goldenberg, Guillaume Blum and Mélanie Millette for the fruitful intellectual exchanges that I had with them, but more than that, for the camaraderie that has developed between us and which has greatly contributed to providing me with the necessary energy and confidence in the "last few miles" of writing my thesis.
I cannot conclude these thanks without mentioning the relatives who, without being linked to the academic world, have played a more than decisive role, crucial I would say, in the culmination of this doctoral thesis. I first think of my family of course, for their unwavering morel, emotional, and maternal support: My parents, Jocelyne and Jean, my brother Stéphane, my uncle Jean-Claude Cassier and, last but not least, my grandfather, Mother Elen Cassier, who unfortunately could not see the realization of this project so important to her eyes and to which she has contributed so much, but I am sure that she left this world with the certainty that it would eventually succeed. Computing and communication -- by letter, by telephone or by computer -- have always played a major role in the complicity we share. Communication technologies were also the passion of a grandfather gone too fast, but who had the time, I realize in retrospect, to give me the taste. Finally, thanks to the friends who "supported" me in this project, in both directions: François, Daphne, Achmy, Noël, Dominique, Pierre, Alex, Maxime, Jean-Sébastien. Each in his own way was a valuable coach to me.
Footnotes
- An emblematic forum of this research community is the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), founded in 2000, and its annual "Internet Research" conference.
- For example, the definition, existence, and consistency of "virtual communities" was the subject of intense debate in the second half of the 1990s (see Proulx and Latzko-Toth, 2000). This topic has been completely abandoned since in facor of "social networks" online and even the notion of "social media".
- See (1).
- In addition, through the conference program, it was the only discussion with the word "chat" in its title.
- Greg Bear, Éon, trad. Guy Abadia, coll. "Elsewhere and Tomorrow", Paris: Robert Lam, 1989.
- Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, George Lucas, 1999.
- For more on this subject see Andrew Leonard (1997, pp. 112-115).
Translator Notes
- "Minitel Rose" refers to phone sex lines, and "CB" refers to Card Bleue / Card Bancaire.
TODO: this
TODO: this
TODO: this
This thesis focuses on the socio-technical dynamics at work in the construction of a chat service via the Internet: Internet Relay Chat (IRC). It shows that it is constantly being co-developed by a set of human and non-human actors in socio-technical networks called "IRC Networks", among which the users and designers of the system cannot be clearly distinguished. This thesis focuses on understanding the modalities and the motives of this joint construction.
Situated at the intersection of two fields of study: the sociology of innovation -- from the perspective of our Science and Technology Studies (STS) -- and studies on computer-mediated communication (CMO), our problem is that recent theoretical input argues that the role of users in the construction of these systems has been underestimated, especially in the case of digital artifacts, which seem to offer greater "plasticity" to use. While the idea of a user not only being an actor, but also a contributor to the technical systems is increasingly put forward today, we find that the nature of this contribution is often limited to content. The case of IRC is interesting in that we see the users' contribution to the structure of the system itself.
The research is based on a conceptual framework stemming from three theoretical approaches in STS: The social construction of technologies, the theory of the network actor and the "ecological" model of the social worlds. These three approaches are used to provide the elements of a theory of co-development which, compared to the classic models of innovation, redistributes the capacity to act between the actors in the development of the technical system. Thus, the roles of designer and user are proving themselves to be co-located in the process. The concepts of community of practice and its research techniques are used to explain the social springs of the involvement of the actors in this co-development.
At the methodological level, this research is a case study focusing on the genesis and development of two of the main IRC networks: EFnet and Undernet. The specific subject of study consists of a series of controversies which occurred between 1990 and 2001 and which led to qualitative leaps in the evolution of these networks. The methods used are mainly discourse analysis and online ethnography, combined with investigative techniques on socio-technical controversies specific to STS. Concretely, the protocol of inquiry consisted of three points: a) on-line observation; (B) content study and analysis of speeches on a body of literature available on the Web and on the archives of four discussion lists and two Usenet forums; and (c) synchronous and asynchronous online interviews with a dozen key players in IRC development.
While the identification of critical moments in the development of the system has helped to identify controversies and structuring events, it is their analysis that brought out the concept of service as a key to understanding the modalities of co-construction of the system. Understood initially in its common sense (related to the notion of user in the sense of a client), the service has gradually "translated" into the form of increasingly elaborate programs to form (almost) black boxes: Official "robots" (bots) or IRC services. On EFnet, this process has long been inhibited and even suppressed. But users have developed their own answers to the shortcomings of the original technical protocol, notably by creating their own bots to protect their channels. In contrast, the promoters of Undernet wanted to differentiate themselves from EFnet by placing the service to the users and the implication of the user in the device at the heart of their project. On Undernet, the channel service is a hybrid concept: it is a service in the organizational sense, and a service in the technical sense of a bot. The definitional vagueness surrounding the notion of service in the discourse of the actors of the IRC reveals its status as a border object around which are articulated the "philosophies" of the chat sometimes diverging to the point of widening technical boundaries between IRC networks and, by the same token, between communities using the chat.
Keywords: technical innovation, computer-mediated communication, chat system, co-construction.
This is a story about a simple chat network that was created some time ago. [...] this little network has grown to a size that no-one had anticipated. With this large growth came problems. All of the operators and users have stuck together to make this net work. It was a big task but it was being done.
John Berlo - "IRC: the life and times", Operlist, 17/09/1990.
What I learned about the world I was inhabiting from day to day gave me answers for which, so to speak, I had no questions, as well as answers to questions I had already formulated.
Howard S. Becker - Becker (2005).
About twenty years ago, new models of innovation emerged, inviting social scientists to open the black box of technical systems to discover "the social connection in the machine" (1). Fundamentally, these theoretical approaches were at odds with deterministic explanations for the success or failure of technical innovations, on the contrary emphasizing the socially constructed nature and artefacts, and the uses of it. From the point of view of the communication sciences, these approaches had a double merit. On one hand, they gave communication phenomena a central place in the analysis and explanation of the very process of innovation, mobilizing concepts such as interaction, mediation, negotiation, representation, translation, inscription, not to mention the notion of a network whose history is closely linked to the field of communication studies (1997; Sfez, 2001). On the other hand, they provided tools for understanding communication technologies other than as "upstream" devices of the social, as an exogenous variable whose "impacts" on communication in particular, on society in general. They also offered a way of thinking how the dynamics of human communication could help shape the devices that were supposed to convey it.
At the same time, another current was going through the sociology of technology, questioning an elitist conception of science and techniques relegating the "layman" to a "overdetermined" passive consumer posture, rather than participating in techno-scientific development. It advocated the dissemination of a "technical culture", or even the social appropriation of the ability to act technically (see Jouët, 1987). Indeed, the first work on the amateur uses of microcomputers supported the idea that the user could be considered a technical actor (Turkle, 1986; Jouët, ibid.; Proulx, 1988; Breton, 1990a). There was a theoretical step to be taken to make it an actor of the technical innovation in its own right, which was realized about a decade later by the work of Madeleine Akrich, Trevor Pinch and Eric von Hippel among others. However, these models still had to be validated by finding solid empirical support. The development of digital technologies has helped to provide them to a large extent.
This thesis is part of this quest for the empirical validation of a renewed model of technical innovation in the field of communication technologies, taking into account the ability of users to intervene in the design of the communication devices they use. We are particularly interested in the role of users and users in the evolution of open systems (2) of computer-mediated communication (CMO). We approach this user participation by reframing it in a co-construction process whereby various entities engaged in dynamics of cooperation and conflict create an innovation. To do this, we rely on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a text-based synchronous teleconferencing system which works through Internet "relays", developed in Finland at the end of the eighties and which is today still a reference for this type of application. At any time, almost one million people (3) use this Internet protocol to chat, confer, exchange technical advice, flirt, trade files, take online courses, etc. The most surprising thing about this communication infrastructure is that it has been developed without a plan, in a decentralized, even anarchic way. It is the result of a collective invention process at the technical, socio-political and organizational levels. This sociotechnical experiment, of an unprecedented scale, seemed to us to constitute a formidable laboratory, both for its actors and for the researchers who are interested in the socio-technical dynamics at work in the construction of a communication system outside the traditional frameworks of technical innovation. We therefore decided to give it a case study that allows us to report, through an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon, the emergence of IRC.
This thesis has seven chapters. The first three chapters present respectively the problematic, the theoretical framework and the methodological approach that guide our approach. The first chapter presents our subject of study and situates our questioning at the crossroads of three fields of research: computer-mediated communication (CMO), the sociology of use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS). Based on a review of the literature in these areas, we show how the IRC case can shed light on the general question we formulate. The second chapter outlines the conceptual framework that we mobilize in the analysis of the development of IRC, which is part of a technical perspective on innovation. In the third chapter, we first situate the case study, as a research strategy, in the various research traditions in STS. Then, we describe in detail our research approach, in a reflexive and critical way, indicating not only the methods of investigation used and the precise nature of the terrain and corpus studied, but also raising ethical questions.
The next three chapters are analytical. Chapter 4 plays the pivotal role with the previous chapters, to the extent that it aims to anchor the case of IRC in the broader context of the emergence of the chat as a practice of CMO, through the analysis of the genesis of the main artifacts. We explain how the main IRC networks emerged, allowing us to introduce the two "case histories" that form the core of our study – the development of the EFnet and Undernet networks, respectively – and which are the subject of the following two chapters. Finally, the seventh and final chapter provides a summary of the main lessons learned from this case study, in relation to the problem we identified. Each chapter begins with a brief summary of its purpose. Partial conclusions are proposed at the end of each of the three chapters of analysis.
Like most Internet-related projects, the working language of the IRC development community is English. Almost all the elements of discourse analyzed (arising from the archive of electronic messages or interviews) are expressed in this language, and it seemed preferable not to try to translate them. On the other hand, we have opted to translate quotations extracted from bibliographic references in English. This bias allows us to integrate quotes more harmoniously throughout the text. When it appeared to us that the translation of certain terms or expressions might be less successful or questionable, we retained the terms in italics in parentheses. To avoid heavier notes, the original quotations are proposed in the appendix, where they are grouped by chapter and by order of appearance.
Specialized terms or jargon specific to the IRC or culture hacker are defined in footnotes the first time they are introduced in the text. However, a glossary of terms and abbreviations is provided in the appendix so that the reader can refer to it at any time. It contains certain terms and abbreviations contained in the quotations and extracts of the corpus and which we do not systematically define, on the one hand so as not to weigh down the text, and on the other hand in order not to annoy readers already familiar with the "Internet culture". In addition to this practical function in the economy of the text, this glossary is in itself a product of our ethnographic approach and an entry into the social world studied.
It is in the same vein that we considered it relevant to attach the following appendices:
- a chronology of IRC with temporal references, most of which are mentioned in the course of the thesis, but whose grouping will allow the reader to better find themselves in the reports of minutes of the "critical moments" of the system (Appendix A);
- a table of the main actors cited under their real name in the thesis, which we hope will also allow the reader to better situate the various protagonists of the controversies studied, while at the same time aiming to be a tribute -- inevitably partial and somewhat one-sided as well -- to the people who took part in this collective project (Appendix B);
- a mapping of the main IRC development forums, drawing the links between the different arenas of "behind-the-scenes" areas where the controversies described in the thesis have taken place between the various actors of IRC took place (Appendix C);
- a synthesis of the governance structure of Undernet, which has been indispensable to us given its relative complexity -- unlike the case of EFnet -- and which we believe may be useful to the reader to refer to it on occasion (Appendix D).
Footnotes
- The formula is by Louis Quéré (1989), but he uses it to describe the model of Bruno Latour (1987), of which he delivers a critical commentary.
- In the sense of open source computer projects (see Lessig, 1999b).
- The site <SearchIRC.com>, which offers the most comprehensive directory of IRC Networks, provides the current cumulative number of their users (most of which are only connected to one network at a time). That number hovered around 800,000 in February 2010, but it likely underestimates the total number of users.
Chapter 1: Problem. New Plays, New Mobiles in Technical Innovation in the Era of Computer-Mediated Communication
The question of the genesis of CMO systems lies at the intersection of three fields of study: the sociology of technical innovation (itself constituting the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS)), the sociology of uses Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and studies on computer-mediated communication (CMO). But the existing literature tends to ignore certain aspects. Usual sociology and CMO studies generally focus on the use of a stabilized system considered in a given time, and stick synchronically, neglecting the transformation of the device over time, or even its "Perpetual incompleteness" (non-closure of innovation), as well as the role of users in this dynamic. In addition, classical studies in STS tend to perpetuate a fairly dichotomous and static vision of the forms of engagement in the device (user / designer dyad). Digital artifacts, made of code, have a greater "plasticity" for use than "material" technical artifacts. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a good example of this type of system, and its features – which we outlined – seemed to us to be interesting enough to justify a case study that could enrich knowledge in the areas mentioned.
Our research is primarily in the field of computer-mediated communication (CMO) studies. The construction of this field dates back to the late 1960s when Licklider and Taylor (1990 [1968]) anticipated the use of the computer as a communication device -- speaking of communication assisted (aided) by the computer, and the emergence of electronic communities whose interactions would be mediated by a digital network. However, it took at least a decade for the advancement of information technology to shift from speculation to empirical studies (Hiltz and Turoff, 1978). In the 1980s, the diffusion of micro-informatics in companies stimulated and allowed the realization of experimental studies, in the laboratory, on this new field of communication. Much of this research focuses on comparing group dynamics in CMO versus face-to-face situations (Kiesler, Siegel and McGuire, 1984). Finally, the spread of the Internet outside the circle of computer scientists in the mid-1990s, as Serge Proulx (2005, p. 305) noted, has encouraged the expansion of the CMO field by conducting numerous field studies (see the work collected by Jones, S., 1995, 1997, 1998; Herring, 1996; Shields, 1996; Kiesler, 1997; Porter, 1997; Smith and Kollock, 1999 (1)). In parallel with this Anglo-Saxon research tradition, research on a CMO system, the Minitel, was carried out in France, notably on the on-line messenging service (Baltz, 1984, Réseaux, 1989a, 1989b; Toussaint, 1992). They have in turn been extended by research on CMO applications based on what was then called the "network of networks" (Réseaux, 1996, 1999, Guichard, 2001).
However, a common trait for the majority of these works is to consider the CMO in the first place as a new "interactional situation" (Fornel, 1989) whose specific features need to be analyzed, while, of course, common processes in other situations, mediated technically or otherwise. Moreover, in a schematic way, it can be considered that the common trait in the majority of studies on CMO until recently is the comparison of CMO with face-to-face communication, which appears as a reference model, an archetype most often itself not problematized (2) (Feenberg, 1989; George and Totschnig, 2001) betraying a "fetishization" of the "dyadic nucleus of face to face communication" (Proulx, 2005, p. 306).
In this respect, two currents cross the literature. The first of the two, which brings together the theories on "reducing social indices" (reduced social cues), proposes face to face as an ideal of communication (Watt, Lea and Spears, 2002). The work of the social scientist is then on the one hand to assess the deterioration of communication when it is technically mediated, and on the other hand to bring to light the mechanisms and strategies by which the users manage to compensate the deficiencies of the system. The initial work of this current was concerned with the degree of "social presence" (Short, Williams and Christie, 1976), corresponding to the level of awareness that the user has of the presence of a third party with whom he interacts socially. This property would depend on the media's ability to convey "indices of social presence". Related, the so-called "media richness" theory (Daft and Lengel, 1984, 1986) prioritizes the media according to their effectiveness in transmitting equivocal messages. In general, Watt, Lea and Spears (ibid., p. 64) note that these approaches base their analysis of media-mediated communication in terms of the "bandwidth" of the medium (3), and therefore tend to consider a priori the text-based communication devices -- corresponding to a small bandwidth -- as being unable to support rich communication nor elaborate social interaction.
On the contrary, the second major stream of studies on CMO endeavors to show that it constitutes not only a functional substitute for the completely valid face to face, enabling social interactions that are rich and even the development of a consistent social bond (Baym, 1995; Kendall, 2002; Chayko, 2002), but that it even offers new communication opportunities. This is due to the anonymity or at least the bracketing of the physical body -- which would favor a certain social decompartmentalization (Willson, 1997) or even, paradoxically, a closer relationship between individuals (Walther, 1996) because of the possibility of structuring group conversations in a manner impossible to match with the classic tools of "graphic reason" (Goody, 1979) - thematic / logical structuring, memorization / accumulation, search functions by criteria, etc (4). In terms of interpersonal communication, Herring (1999) sees synchronous written conversations conducted on several windows at the same time, an unprecedented situation in which several people are addressed simultaneously but on the mode of interpersonal communication, a form of social interaction which she describes as hyperpersonal, borrowing the term Walther (ibid.). The sequentiality of interpersonal exchanges is thus replaced by parallelism (hence the analogy with hypertextuality), a phenomenon already pointed out by Turkle (1995) who, like Herring, finds that the users see this as an advantage over face to face (5).
Within this perspective, we find another set of works in the field of sociology of ICT uses and taking up the achievements of interactionist sociology, ethnomethodology and ethnography of conversation ( 6). These studies conceive the CMO device as a framework for interaction with given characteristics (Bays, 1998, 2000, Beaudouin and Velkovska, 1999, Verville and Lafrance, 1999, Mattio, 2004). They tend to consider the technical variable as independent, including the communication practices studied. It is the modalities and forms of interaction that are the object of the analysis, the linguistic, playful and "dramaturgical" dimensions being most often favored, while the most recent ones even adopt a micro-analytical stance on "Procedures" at work in establishing and maintaining interactions (see Velkovska, 2004). Moreover, in many cases the singularity of the device is not taken into consideration, and one tends to gather under a same typology a large variety of technical configurations (7). However, disregarding the singularities of each CMO system, we neglect the possibility of feedback practices on the device that serves as a framework. Such an approach of the CMO therefore remains mostly on the synchronic level and completely obscures the genesis of the device, and even more so its evolution in interrelation with its uses.
Within this perspective, there is another set of work in the field of the sociology of ICT uses and taking on the achievements of Interactionist sociology, ethnomethodology and ethnography of the Conversation (6). These studies design the CMO device as a framework for the interaction with the data characteristics (Bays, 1998, 2000;) Beaudouin and Velkovska, 1999; Verville and Lafrance, 1999; (Mattio, 2004). They tend to consider the technical variable as independent, including the communication practices studied. These are the modalities and forms of interaction that are the subject of the analysis, the linguistic, playful and "dramaturgical" dimensions being most often privileged, while the newer ones adopt even a micro-analytical posture on The "procedures" at work in the establishment and maintenance of interactions (see Velkovska, 2004). Moreover, in many cases the singularity of the device is not taken into consideration, and one tends to bring together in a typology a wide variety of technical configurations (7). However, by ignoring the singularities of each CMO system, the possibility of a feedback of the practices on the device that serves as a framework is neglected. Such an approach to CMO is therefore most often on the synchronic plane and completely obscures the genesis of the device, and a fortiori its evolution in relation to its uses.
Footnotes
- Also included are Benedikt (1991) and Star (1995), two books that are forerunners of the word "cyberspace" and thus the encompassing systems prior to the Internet.
- Andrew Feenberg (1989) notes that our civilization tends to consider face to face as the ideal style of communication, the paradigm of our communication in a way. All other forms of communication, and in particular written communication (imitation of the word, itself imitating thought), would be degraded forms of communication, devoid of authenticity. However, we still think of the writings of Plato, more than 2300 years old!
- Bandwidth, a "concept [derived] from engineering sciences" (Watt, Lea and Spears, 2002, p. 64), measures the ability to transmit information on a communication channel. In this sense, these approaches are therefore part of the old paradigm of mathematical information theories, inspired by the work of Shannon and Weaver.
- This is the posture in particular of some pioneers of research on CMO (Hiltz and Turoff, 1978; Feenberg, 1989). On the position of Turoff, see chap. 4, sect. 4.2.2, p. 154. Subsequently, this thesis opened up a whole field of research on computer-aided collaboration (CSCW / CSCL) and "knowledge management". For example, see Henri and Lundgren-Cayrol, 2001; Campos, 2003.
- More recently, Sherry Turkle reports cases of psychotherapeutic relationships combining face-to-face interaction and interaction over the Internet (mainly via email), and reports that several patients prefer this latter mode of interaction (Turkle, 2008).
- The theoretical foundations of this work generally revolve around one of the conceptual frameworks proposed by Erving Goffman, Georg Simmel, Harold Garfinkel and Alfred Schutz respectively.