[Air-l] CMC vs the other stuff

[Barry Wellman]

Sam Tilden just wrote:

"Most of the research in CMC seems to "assume" differences between CMC and
other media such as telephone and letter-mail. I have been unable to find
research that clearly delineates this difference. Can anyone help me
here."

Someone once wrote that whenever someone asks for something, Barry
replies: "We did a paper on this."

In reply to Sam's Q: Several papers, but mebbe not quite what he wants.

1. We have a bunch of papers in the past decade, showing differences in
the frequency of CMC vs phone vs FTF use -- and who uses it.

Go to my site, and see the National Geographic paper with Anabel
Quan-Haase, the organizational analyses with Anabel Quan-Haase (surprised
at how few on the AoIR list seem to study organizational use); the
Netville stuff by Hampton and Wellman; the Pew "Strength of INternet Ties"
by Boase, et al; the Connected Lives paper by Wellman & Hogan; the
Networked Households paper by Kennedy and Wellman.

2. However, we don't have much (yet) on how it is used, and nothing on
differences in content and cognition.

3. Sam also asks for letter-mail. Basically, it's only used by individuals
for greeting cards and a rare perfumed love note. When we have data on it,
it's at the bottom of the Y-axis. OTOH, those studying weak ties should
take greeting cards seriously, even if they've gone back to postal,
instead of e-greetings (Why?). As I recall, there was a paper in ASR or
AJS about this.
 Barry Wellman
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  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
        for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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