The social and organizational issues presented in this section are not exclusive to the WWW. In fact, their origins precede the WWW. Yet, as collaborative applications and activities grow on the WWW, these social and organizational issues will become increasingly relevant and important to study. Social and organizational issues are sources of ongoing debate in CSCW. The aim of this section is to survey the kinds of social and organizational issues that collaborative technology has instigated, but not to make judgments or draw conclusions on these issues.
4.4.1. Development of On-Line Virtual Communities
In cases where the same members of a group consistently collaborate over time, members may perceive the emergence of an on-line, virtual community. Over time, a member develops a strong sense of loyalty and commitment to the computer-mediated group much like a community member develops loyalties and commitments to real-world associations such as neighbors, friends, and workmates. Developing a sense of community further engages the member into the collaborative activity as well as shifts the focus of the collaboration away from personal agendas and towards the benefits to the community as a whole.
As an example of community behavior, Dibbell describes an incident where a MUD player repeatedly made obscene gestures to other members of the MUD (Dibbell, 1994). After weeks of being harassed, members of the MUD called an on-line town meeting to discuss how to deal with the obscene player. During this town meeting, members discussed the culprit's behavior, victims' individual feelings, and appropriate forms of punishment. The final verdict from the meeting had the obscene player banished from the MUD.
The actions of the MUD members portray a deep sense of community. The MUD as a whole developed moral and ethical policies and took action against one of its members. In the process, the MUD community addressed deep-seated social issues of law, order, and ethical forms of conduct. Collaboration was carried out and policies were enacted for the good of the community.
A sense of community evolves naturally from the effects of group dynamics. Yet, this sense may be induced or promoted through computer-mediation.
How important is it that collaborative applications establish a sense of community? Does a sense of community improve the work produced? If so, in what ways? In what ways do virtual communities compare to real-world, physical communities?
4.4.2. Social and Psychological Impact
CMC mechanisms inherently eliminate many of the physical and social cues that people rely on to communicate in their day-to-day activities. Cues such as eye contact, tone of voice, hand gestures, and head nods may or may not be supported by the various forms of CMC. Regardless of the CMC mechanism, the level of social interaction is often reduced.
The restricted interaction imposed by CMC has social and psychological impact. For example, people involved in bargaining situations depend heavily on physical and social cues in their negotiations. The loss or diminishment of such cues would adversely affect a person's ability to negotiate. On the other hand, the loss or diminishment of social and physical cues associated with status or position (e.g., leader sits at the front of a table, unempowered subordinates sit along the outer fringes of a room) may lead to more equitable and universal collaboration.
Asynchronous forms of CMC introduces other social and psychological effects. For example, newsgroups and discussion groups are well-known for incidents of "flaming." Flaming occurs when argumentation over a topic evolves into personal attacks among discussants. "Flaming is impulsive, highly emotional, and often rude behavior that is rarely exhibited in a face-to-face setting (Belson, 1994)."
CSCW research has also shown that CMC may lead groups to make riskier decisions (Belson, 1994). One possible explanation for this tendency is that the decision-making process is hampered by greater group conflict and confrontation as evidenced in flaming. A second theory is that virtual groups tend to consult more people on-line, and thus, produce a greater number of extraneous solutions. Third, those users who have the greatest capacity to make good decisions may not have as much influence as they would in real-life due to the equalizing effects of CMC.
The social and psychological impact of CMC poses many questions with respect to groupware and collaboration. What are additional social and psychological effects of CMC? To what extent should we manipulate collaboration to minimize or maximize social and psychological effects? Is such social or psychological manipulation ethical?
4.4.3. Breaking Social and Cultural Barriers
With computer-supported collaboration, the interaction that occurs among group members is modified or manipulated from its naturally-occurring form. With this in mind, some CSCW researchers wish to apply CMC in ways that diminish social and cultural barriers. For example, some CMC systems may hide the identity of a group member such that his/her appearance, gender, and race are not revealed. In these systems, users develop and utilize other kinds of criteria to evaluate and form opinions of other collaborating users. Some preconceived biases and prejudices may be averted.
The use of characters in MUDs and MOOs is an example of hidden identity in CMC. In a MUD or MOO, players take on the name, description, and behavior of fictitious characters as they collaborate with others. Most often, players in a MUD or MOO do not know the true identities of the other players with whom they interact. In fact, the anonymity of a MUD or MOO often lures many introverts into a social setting (Livingood, 1995). Thus, MUDs and MOOs may provide socially-timid users a social outlet to the outside world.
The controversy surrounding hidden identities is one of information or misinformation. Is it ethical to hide the identity of those with whom one collaborates? Are there situations where hidden identities are and are not appropriate? Do users have a right to know the true identities of those with whom they interact? These are the questions we must address if we choose to manipulate collaboration to break social and cultural barriers.
4.4.4. Construction of Group Knowledge
People collaborate in the performance of work. In the process of collaborating, knowledge is distributed and evolves among the members of the group. Each member holds a unique manifestation of knowledge. Yet, the combined knowledge of all members is needed to accomplish the work at hand.
In general, group knowledge is implicitly maintained by individual members and shared through communication. In this vein, the construction and evolution of group knowledge occurs naturally through collaboration. Alternatively, collaborative technology may also facilitate the construction and evolution of group knowledge. For instance, bulletin boards lay out individual pieces of user-created information in a hierarchical structure. In an abstract sense, the information hierarchy represents the evolving group knowledge of the discussion group as it struggles to understand and reason about the topic under discussion.
There are a number of issues surrounding the development of group knowledge among collaborating computer users. How is the group knowledge distributed among the users and machines? How is the knowledge constructed and accessed? Is the knowledge persistent or ephemeral? How can computers better support the construction of group knowledge?
4.4.5. Telepresence
Collaborative technology eliminates the requirement that people must be co-located in order to collaborate. With collaborative technology, users separated by large geographical distances may still work together on tasks and activities. In any collaborative setting, however, a sense of presence is important for effective interaction. People are used to communicating and collaborating with other people; they are not used to communicating and collaborating with computers. People want to sense the presence of living, human beings at the opposite ends of a collaboration.
Collaborative technology simulates presence in a variety of ways. This simulation of presence is known as "telepresence." Two types of telepresence are generally supported by collaborative technology: group presence and environmental presence. Group presence is related to the richness of communications among group members. The richer the communications channels, the more natural the interaction appears among group members. One stream of thought in CSCW is that groupware should simulate as closely as possible the level of interaction that occurs in face-to-face communications. This suggests the inclusion of higher bandwidth communications mechanisms such as video teleconferencing.
Environmental presence is concerned with immersing the user in the environment of the activity and work setting. By simulating the context of work on a computer, the user ideally becomes more familiar and comfortable with the computer-mediated form of work. Kmi Stadium is an example of environmental telepresence where the physical setting of a classroom, auditorium, or stadium is modelled (Eisenstadt, 1995). Auditory cues such as clapping, laughing, shouting, and whispering are inserted into the stream of a presentation to simulate the presence of an active audience.
Telepresence support in groupware poses many interesting questions. How much telepresence is desirable in collaboration over the WWW? Does it greatly enhance our ability to collaborate and work or is it merely "window dressing" on collaborative activities and situations? Are there situations where too much telepresence hampers users' abilities to collaborate or to carry out work? For example, some CSCW researchers believe that a high sense of telepresence may actually lessen the level and equity of social interaction (Belson, 1994).
Copyright © 1996 George Chin Jr., All Rights Reserved
George Chin Jr.
<chin@csgrad.cs.vt.edu>
Last modified: Tue Dec 10 16:00:00 1996