Computer-Mediated Collective Action Or, The Electrification of the Interaction Order

1. Computer-Mediated Collective ActionOr, The Electrification of the Interaction Order Marc Smith Chief Social Scientist http://www.telligent.com

2. Email (and more) is from people to people

3. Patterns are left behind

4. Sociological Frames: Collective Goodsproduced through Computer-Mediated Collective Action - Digital Augmentation of the Interaction Order - New forms of Social Network Ties

5. Interactionist Sociology • Central tenet • Focus on the active effort of accomplishing interaction • Phenomena of interest • Presentation of self • Claims to membership • Juggling multiple (conflicting) roles • Frontstage/Backstage • Strategic interaction • Managing one’s own and others’ “face” • Methods • Ethnography and participant observation (Goffman, 1959; Hall, 1990)

6. The Fan Dance of Concealment And Exposure http://flickr.com/photos/csb13/2178250762/

7. Innovations in the interaction order: 45,000 years ago: Speech, body adornment 10,000 years ago: Amphitheater 5,000 years ago: Maps 150 years ago: Clock time -2 years from now: machines with socially awareness

8. When will my phone notice your phone?

9. Collective Action Dilemma Theory • Central tenet • Individual rationality leads to collective disaster • Phenomena of interest • Provision and/or sustainable consumption of collective resources • Public Goods, Common Property, "Free Rider” Problems, Tragedies • Signaling intent • Methods • Surveys, interviews, participant observation, log file analysis, computer modeling (Axelrod, 1984; Hess, 1995; Kollock & Smith, 1996) Community Computer Mediated Collective Action

10. Common goods that require controlled consumption http://flickr.com/photos/himalayan-trails/275941886/

11. Common goods that require collective contribution http://flickr.com/photos/jose1jose2jose3/241450368/

12. Social Network Theory • Central tenet • Social structure emerges from the aggregate of relationships (ties) among members of a population • Phenomena of interest • Emergence of cliques and clusters from patterns of relationships • Centrality (core), periphery (isolates), betweenness • Methods • Surveys, interviews, observations, log file analysis, computational analysis of matrices (Hampton &Wellman, 1999; Paolillo, 2001; Wellman, 2001) • Source: Richards, W. (1986). The NEGOPY network analysis program. Burnaby, BC: Department of Communication, Simon Fraser University. pp.7-16

14. Whyte, William H. 1971. City: Rediscovering the Center. New York: Anchor Books.

15. Socially aware machines

17. Sensors, Routes, Community Community Aspects: A Sociological Revolution? SpotMe: Wireless device for meetings and events

19. Sensors, Routes, Community Community Aspects: A Sociological Revolution? nTag: Electronic name badge

20. Trace Encounters: http://www.traceencounters.org/

21. Sensors, Routes, Community Hardware

25. Social Omniscience (or, the event loop of existence): [1] Who has what I want? [2] Who wants what I have? [3] Repeat

26. Search in the Interaction Order • Who are you? • How do I know you? • How do you know me? • Who do we know in common? • What do we have in common? • Where do we go in common (but not necessarily at the same time)?

27. The Ties that Blind? Reply-To Network Network at distance 2 for the most prolific author of the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general newsgroup

28. Darwin Bell

29. Distinguishing attributes: • Answer person • Outward ties to local isolates • Relative absence of triangles • Few intense ties • Reply Magnet • Ties from local isolates often inward only • Sparse, few triangles • Few intense ties

30. Excel .NetMap Add-in: http://www.codeplex.com/netmap

31. Tag Ecologies I Adamic et al. WWW 2008

33. Shifting from an Ephemeral society to an Archival Society

34. Computer-Mediated Collective ActionOr, The Electrification of the Interaction Order Marc Smith Chief Social Scientist http://www.telligent.com