[Air-L] Research on multiple CMC environments

[Christopher Lueg]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009, Alice E. Marwick wrote:

> I'm looking for research on the interaction of different types of CMC - 
> e.g. how chat, email, IM, social networking, virtual worlds, blogging, 
> SMS, mobile etc. are used together as part of a communication 
> environment by users. Most studies I've found concentrate on a single 
> aspect; I'm looking for work on the use of two or more types of CMC by 
> the same users.

have a look at

Isaacs, E., Walendowski, A., Whittaker, S., Schiano, D. J., and Kamm, C. 
2002. The character, functions, and styles of instant messaging in the 
workplace. In Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conference on Computer Supported 
Cooperative Work (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, November 16 - 20, 2002). 
CSCW '02. ACM, New York, NY, 11-20.
DOI=http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/587078.587081

Abstract:
"Current perceptions of Instant Messaging (IM) use are based primarily on 
self-report studies. We logged thousands of (mostly) workplace IM 
conversations and evaluated their conversational characteristics and 
functions. Contrary to prior research, we found that the primary use of 
workplace IM was for complex work discussions. Only 28% of conversations 
were simple, single-purpose interactions and only 31% were about 
scheduling or coordination. Moreover, people rarely switched from IM to 
another medium when the conversation got complex. We found evidence of 
two distinct styles of use. Heavy IM users and frequent IM partners 
mainly used it to work together: to discuss a broad range of topics via 
many fast-paced interactions per day, each with many short turns and much 
threading and multitasking. Light users and infrequent pairs mainly used 
IM to coordinate: for scheduling, via fewer conversations per day that 
were shorter, slower-paced with less threading and multitasking."

Best regards
christopher



-- 
Dr. Christopher Lueg
Professor of Computing
University of Tasmania
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Hobart TAS 7001, Australia
christopher.lueg at utas.edu.au
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