Syllabus :: Spring 2013
We might adjust the syllabus as the semester goes along, but we won't change anything with less than a week's notice. Most of the readings for the course are available online, usually through one of the many online journal subscriptions that are carried by UC Berkeley. You can read them on-screen or print copies, depending on what you prefer. To access some of these links from off campus, you will need to use the Berkeley library proxy server. Please contact us if you have any trouble accessing them. Those readings that aren't online are included in a reader available at Copy Central (2560 Bancroft Way at Telegraph, 510-848-8649).

Enter the password to see reviews and write your own:    
Week 1

Wed 23 Jan :: Introductions, course overview, and history of CMC — slides

AIR-L mailing list discussion of CMC.

Rheingold, H. (1995) The Virtual Community: Finding Connection in a Computerized World. London: Minerva. (Read introduction only — i.e., just the linked page.)

Week 2

Wed 30 Jan :: Social presentation, interpersonal perception, and deception — slides

Goffman, E. (1956) Chapter 1 from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday. (In reader.)

Donath, J. (1998) Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. In Smith, M., and P. Kollock (Eds.) Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge.

Donath, J. (2011) Signals, cues, and meaning (draft chapter). In Signals, Truth and Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press (forthcoming).

Hancock, J.T. (2007) Chapter 19: Digital deception: Why, when and how people lie online. In Joinson, A., McKenna, K., Postmes, T., and U-D. Reips (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. (In reader.)

Week 3

Wed 6 Feb :: Community, online and offline — slides

Cohen, A.P. (1985) Chapters 1 and 3 from The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Routledge. (In reader.)

Haythornthwaite, C. (2007) Social networks and online community. In Joinson, A., McKenna, K., Postmes, T., and U-D. Reips (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. (In reader.)

McKenna, K.Y.A. (2008) Influences on the nature and functioning of online groups. In A. Barak (Ed.), Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory, research, applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Week 4

Wed 13 Feb :: Privacy and information control — slides

Mayer-Schonberger, V. (2009) "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age". Princeton University Press. (In reader.)

Boyd, D., and Hargittai, E. Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares?. In First Monday 15(8).

Cheshire, C., Antin, J. and Churchill, E. (2010) Behaviors, Adverse Events and Dispositions: An Empirical Study of Online Discretion and Information Control. In Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61(7)..

Week 5

Wed 20 Feb :: Media richness and visual interfaces — slides

Walther, J.B., and Parks, M.R. (2002) Cues filtered out, cues filtered in: Computer-mediated communication and relationships. In In M.L. Knapp and J.A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 529?563). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (Only pages 529 through 542 are required.)

Dennis, A.R., and S.T. Kinney. (1998) Testing media richness theory in the new media: The effects of cues, feedback, and task equivocality. In Information Systems Research 9 (3).

Erickson, T., Halverson, C., Kellogg, W.A., Laff, M., and Wolf, T. (2002) Social translucence: designing social infrastructures that make collective activity visible. In Communications of the ACM 45 (4).

Donath, J. (2001) Mediated Faces. In In M. Beynon, C.L. Nehaniv, K. Dautenhahn (Eds.) Cognitive Technology: Instruments of Mind: 4th International Conference.

Week 6

Wed 27 Feb :: Visual interfaces, part II — slides

ASSIGNMENT DUE: Problem and Justification Statement.

Monmonier, M. (1996) Chapters 3 and 10. In How to Lie with Maps. Chicago, Ill.: University Of Chicago Press. (In reader.)

Erickson, T. (2003) Designing visualizations of social activity: six claims. In Extended abstracts of ACM Computer-Human Interaction.

Donath, J. (2011) Visualizing Conversation. (Draft book chapter)

Narayan, S., Cheshire, C. (2010) Not too long to read: The tldr Interface for Exploring and Navigating Large-Scale Discussion Spaces. In Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. (HICSS). Computer Society Press.

Week 7

Wed 6 Mar :: Trust and trustworthiness — slides

Nissenbaum, H. (2004) Will Security Enhance Trust Online, or Supplant It?. In In R. Kramer and K. Cook (eds.) Trust and Distrust Within Organizations: Emerging Perspectives, Enduring Questions. Russell Sage Publications.

Cheshire, C. (2011) Online Trust, Trustworthiness, or Assurance?. In Daedalus 140 (4): 49-58.

Bos N., Olson J., Gergle D., Olson G., and W. Wright. (2002) Effects of four computer-mediated communication channels on trust development.. In Proceedings of ACM CHI 2002.

Week 8

Wed 13 Mar :: Reputation systems — slides

Yamagishi, T., Matsuda, M., Yoshikai, N., Takahashi, H., Y. Usui. (2009) Solving the Lemons Problem with Reputation: An Experimental Study of Online Trading. In eds. Cook, K. S., C. Snijders, V. Buskens, and C. Cheshire eTrust: Forming Relationships in the Online World.

Resnick, P., Zeckhauser, R., Swanson, J., and K. Lockwood. (2006) The Value of Reputation on eBay: A Controlled Experiment. In Experimental Economics 9 (2).

Rice, S.C. (2011) Reputation and Uncertainty in Online Markets: An Experimental Study. In Information Systems Research, September 2011. (Optional)

Week 9

Wed 20 Mar :: Intimate relationships

Whitty, M. (2007) Chapter 3: Love letters: The development of romantic relationships throughout the ages. In Joinson, A., McKenna, K., Postmes, T., and U-D. Reips (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. (In reader.)

Norton, M.I., Frost, J.H., and D. Ariely. (2007) Less Is More: The Lure of Ambiguity, or Why Familiarity Breeds Contempt. In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92 (1).

Ellison, N., Heino, R., and J. Gibbs. (2006) Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment. In Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2).

Week 10

Wed 27 Mar :: Spring break (no class)

Week 11

Wed 3 Apr :: Collective action

ASSIGNMENT DUE: Interim report and project draft.

Hardin, R. (2003) The Free Rider Problem. In E.N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition). (Skim.)

Bimber, B., Flanagin, A.J., and C. Stohl. (2005) Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment. In Communication Theory 15 (4).

Welser, H.T., Gleave, E., Fisher, D., and M. Smith. (2007) Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups. In Journal of Social Structure 8.

Antin, J., and Cheshire, C. (2010) Readers are Not Free-Riders: Reading as a Form of Participation on Wikipedia.. In Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW 2010). (Optional.)

Week 12

Wed 10 Apr :: Social dilemmas (in-class activity)

Axelrod, R. Chapter from Evolution of Cooperation. (To be handed out in class)

Yamagishi, T. (1995) Social Dilemmas. In Cook, K.S., Fine, G.A., and House, J.S. (Eds.), Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bason.

Week 13

Wed 17 Apr :: Information pools and collaborative editing

Cheshire, C., and J. Antin. Order, Coordination and Uncertainty: A Field Study of Contributions to an Online Information Exchange System. In eTrust: Forming Relationships in the Online World. Karen S. Cook, Chris Snijders, Vincent Buskins, Coye Cheshire (Eds.). Russell Sage Foundation. (Read first 17 pages only.)

Ling et al. (2005) Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities. In Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(0), article 10.

Rafaeli, S., and Y. Ariel. (2008) Online motivational factors: Incentives for participation and contribution in Wikipedia. In A. Barak (Ed.), Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory, research, applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Week 14

Wed 24 Apr :: Inquiry, theory, and the future of CMC; Intro to Games

Anderson, C. (2008) The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete. In Wired Magazine 16.07.

Timmer, J. (2008) Why the cloud cannot obscure the scientific method. In Ars Technica.

Rieder, B. (2008) Statistics vs. science (and why this is rather political). In The Politics of Systems.

Box, G.E.P. (1976) Science and Statistics. In Journal of the American Statistical Association 71. (Optional.)

Ducheneaut, N., Moore, R.J., and Nickell, E. (2007) Virtual third places: A case study of sociability in Massively Multiplayer Games. In Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 16(1-2).

Week 15

Wed 1 May :: Games: Invited Speaker

Week 16

Wed 8 May :: Final project presentations

Week 17

Fri 17 May :: Final project reports due by 5 pm