MediaSpace Wiki

Small Group Spring2006 Session03

Index Card Assignment due today

What is the largest group you have worked with online (via the computer). What was the groups goal? What did you do? How effective was the group?

Agenda

• Return Cards
• Collect Cards
• Group discussion of index card
  • Describe your groups to each other
  • Make a list of the different "media" you used
  • Discuss how the experience of an online group is different than a face to face group
  • Make a list of differences
• Notes review
• Questions

Group as Context and Medium

• Groups rarely exist in isolation
  • Members of a group usually arrive with their own agendas
  • Viewed as a system, groups are open to external influences
  • Viewed as parts of a system, they operate to advance that system
  • Group members often belong to multiple groups within a system
• New communication technologies have accelerated these trends
  • It used to be that almost all groups met face to face
  • Now face to face is just one of many common group media
    • Teleconferencing
    • Videoconferencing
    • Web enhanced teleconferencing
    • Group decision rooms
    • Asynchronous collaborative media, including
      • Groupware
      • Computer Conferencing
      • Group workflows
  • And the implications of this diversity changes the way we build teams
    • It used to be that most work groups worked in the same place
    • It is not uncommon now for groups to have highly distributed memberships
      • Different organizations
      • Different functions within an organization
      • Different parts of the country
      • Different countries
      • What we call "virtual teams" that are often structured as "collaborative teams"
    • And as this has occurred, group memberships have become more fluid
    • And have increasingly become "self-managed" in the sense that group members don't share a common management that can set the groups agenda
• Putnam suggests that these changes require us to rethink the nature of groups
  • A "bona fide group" perspective
  • Two key elements
    1. Connectivity: Tight versus loose connections
       • Interdependent teams are tightly coupled with other groups
       • Autonomous teams are loosely coupled with other groups
       • Interdependence and Autonomy are ends of a continuum.
         • There are degrees in between
         • Perhaps even degrees of both
         • And the degrees of Interdependence and Autonomy can change over time
    2. Relationship to external context
       • Groups do not exist in isolation from
         • other groups
         • the larger system
  • Together, these elements describe two features of groups:
    1. Stable but permeable boundaries
       1. Multiple group memberships
       2. Representative roles
          • Boundary spanner
          • Implicit representation of other groups
       3. Fluctuation in group membership
       4. Group identity formation
    2. Interdependence with Relevant Context
       1. Coordinated actions among groups
       2. Intergroup communication
       3. Negotiation of jurisdiction and autonomy
       4. Framing intergroup relationships
• All of this matters, Parker argues, because this requires a new set of group skills
  • The standard face to face skills aren't adequate
  • Characteristics of virtual groups illustrate this
    1. Geographic dispersion
       • Intercultural skills become more important
    2. Asynchronism
       • Juggling ideas over time becomes more important
       • Countered to some extent by the existence of a transcript
    3. Porous boundaries
    4. Network composition
    5. Modified (not reduced) social cues
       • Competence with alternate means of non-verbal communication is important
    6. Degree of anonymity
    7. Degree of informal interaction
       • CMC can be a "limited interaction venue"
       • This changes relationships are requires to relationship building skills
    8. Dependence on technology
       • Computer and other technology skills matter
• All of this brings group interaction venues into focus as media, which is Scott's focus
  • group e-mail
    • collections of e-mail addresses
    • mailing lists
  • voicemail
  • instant messaging
    • presence indicators
  • group chat
  • electronic meeting systems
    • audio conferencing or teleconferencing
    • video conferencing
      • meeting room
      • desktop
    • web assisted teleconferencing
    • computer conferencing
      • usenet news
      • groupware systems
      • web-based conferencing systems
    • group decision support systems
      • leveraging parallel communication systems
  • Group document management systems
    • Collaborative Word Processing Features
    • Group document libraries
  • Collaborative Composition Systems
  • Groupware, teamware, and meetingware
  • Group Workflow systems
• Scott goes further, however, suggesting that frameworks for understanding these media may be more important than understanding the media
  • Adaptive Structuration Theory
  • Characteristics of group media
    • Interactivity
    • Time
      • Synchronicity/Asynchronicity
    • Space
      • Propinquitous/Distributed
    • Scale
      • N of senders and receivers
    • Capacity
    • Interactivity
    • Control
  • These are general dimensions of communication media, and very much in the focus of my research.

References

• Foulger, D. (1992). Bridging Media: Computers and Human Communication. Published in Visions of the Future, edited by Cliff Pickover. Retrieved on September 1, 2005 from http://evolutionarymedia.com/papers/Fut-cmc1.htm.
• Foulger, D. (2005). Exploring The Message In The Medium. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on September 1, 2005 from http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?ExploringTheMessageInTheMedium.
• Parker, R. (2003). Distinguishing Characteristics of Virtual Groups.
• Putnam, L. (2003). Rethinking the Nature of Groups: A Bona Fide Group Perspective.
• Scott, C. R. (2003). New Communication Technologies and Teams.