University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

School of Information and Library Science

INLS 180

Communication Processes

Fall 1998

Syllabus

Time and Place: Room 307 Manning Hall 11:00-12:15 Mon & Wed.

Instructor: Gary Marchionini

Email: march@ils.unc.edu

Phone: 966-3611

Office: 203 Manning Hall

Graduate Assistant: Jennifer Arns

Email: arnsj@ils.unc.edu

Brief Course Description

This course serves as a survey of human communication processes (interpersonal, mass, scholarly) and relates these processes to principles of information science and human behavior. Students will have opportunities to develop communication skills individually and in small groups. A general theme of the course will be the impact and implications of ubiquitous interpersonal communications capabilities on work and leisure.

Course Materials

No textbook is required. Readings will be on reserve in the SILS Library or online.

Assignments and Evaluation

Assignments include a written letter, a five-minute speech, a series of media reviews, and a content or citation analysis. The assignments will be graded and in combination worth 50% of the final grade. A term project will determine 40% of the grade. The term project may be an empirical investigation and report (e.g., survey, citation analysis, content analysis), research proposal, original presentation/construction in a non-print medium (e.g., video, online), or scholarly paper. All projects must be approved by the instructor and small group (two or three collaborators) projects are encouraged. A brief summary of the project will be presented in the final week of class. In addition, every student will be expected to make weekly postings to the class electronic list. The remaining 10% of the grade will be based on class participation.

Tentative Schedule

Session Topic Assignment

Week 1 Introduction

Aug. 19 Overview of course Search web for definitions of communication

Introduce 1-min paper Read Pierce (1972)

Read Weaver (1963)

Subscribe to list, send favorite definition

Term Projects

  • Term Project Notes
  • Day One Class Notes

    Week 2 Models & Modes

    Aug.24 Information theory Read Solomon (1997)

  • Day Two Class Notes

    Aug. 26 Personal verbal communication Read Tannen (1995)

    Discourse structures and affordances

    Project Ideas round 1

  • Day Three Class Notes

    Week 3 Models & Modes continued

    Aug. 31 Personal written communication Write letter (Due Sept. 9)

    Read Anderson et al. (1995)

  • Day Four Class Notes

    Sept. 2 Mediated personal communication Read Olson et al. (1993)

     

  • Day Five Class Notes

    Week 4 Groups

    Sept. 7 Labor Day (no class)

    Sept. 9 Group communications: debate online Read Conger (1998)

  • Day Six Class Notes

    Week 5 Groups continued

    Sept. 14 Group communications: persuading Read Trigg & Bodker (1994)

  • Day Seven Class Notes

    Sept. 16 Project commitments Read Dillon (1990)

  • Day Eight Class Notes

    Week 6 Elicitation

    Sept. 21 Interviews Read Tibbo (1995)

  • Day Nine Class Notes

    Sept. 23 Surveys Read Crane

    Review Style manuals

  • Day Ten Class Notes

    Week 7 Scholarly Communication and Information Transfer

    Sept. 28 Invisible colleges, standards Read Price

    Read AAP (1994)

    Review book structures and affordances

  • Day Eleven Class Notes

    Sept 30 Publishing Read Borgman (1990)

    Citation or content analysis

  • Day Twelve Class Notes

  • Formal Comm Patterns Assignment

    Week 8 Scholarly and Social networks

    Oct. 5 Informetrics Read Chatman

  • Day Thirteen Class Notes

    Oct. 7 Social networks Read Rogers

  • Day Fourteen Class Notes

    Week 9 Social Networks continued

    Oct. 12 Online meeting Read Paisley (1993)

    Oct. 14 Libraries as communities Read Schram (1973)

    Review newspaper structures and affordances

    Week 10 Mass communication

    Oct. 19 Print media Read McLuhan

    Review television structures and affordances

  • Day Fifteen Class Notes

    Oct. 21 Television Read Reeves & Nass (1996)

  • Day Sixteen Class Notes

    Week 11 Mass communication continued

    Oct. 26 Impact Review website structures and affordances

    Oct. 28 ASIS (no class) Read Pool (1973)

    Week 12

    Nov. 2 Advertising & propaganda

  • Day Eighteen Class Notes

    Nov. 4 Censorship

  • Day Nineteen Class Notes

  • Web site structure assignment

    Week 13 Designing communication services

    Nov. 9 Information design Read Tonfoni

    Read Albers (1997)

  • Day Twenty Class Notes

    Nov. 11 Visual communication Read Sonnenwald (1996)

    Week 14 Designing communication services continued

    Nov. 16 Surrogates Read Bolter (1991)

    Nov. 18 Websites Read Turoff (1991)

    Week 15 Computer-mediated communication

    Nov 23 Cyberspace Read Dibbell (1996

    Optional: read a Gibson or Stephenson novel

    Nov. 25 Ubiquitous communication & interactivity Read McCarthy & Monk

    Week 16 Evaluation

    Nov. 30 Evaluating communication effects

    Dec. 2 Project Presentations

    Week 17 Presentations

    Dec. 7 Project Presentations

    Projects Due

    Dec. 9 Final Exam

    Pointers

     

    Albers, M. (1997). Cognitive strain as a factor in effective document design. Proceedings of 15th Annual International Conference on Computer Documentation; SIGDOC ’97 (Salt Lake City, Oct. 19-22, 1997). P. 1-6.

    Anderson, R., Bikson, T., Law, S., & Mitchell, B. (1995). Universal access to e-mail: Feasibility and societal implications. Santa Monica, CA: RAND [Read: Summary xiii-xxiii AND Chapter One: Introduction p. 1-12.]

    Association of American Publishers (1994). Promises and pitfalls: A briefing paper on Internet publishing. NY: AAP. (Introduction, p 1-6; part iv—migrating to the electronic milieu, p 35-40.

    Bolter, J.D. (1991). Writing space: The computer, hypertext, and the history of writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Chapter 1 p 1-11.

    Borgman, C. (Ed.) (1990). Scholarly communication and bibliometrics. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. [Read Editor’s Introduction, p 10-27.]

    Chatman, E. (1992). The information world of retired women. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Chapter 3, Social network theory, p 33-41.

    Conger, J. (1998). The necessary art of persuasion. Harvard Business Review, May-June, 84-95.

    Crane, D. (1972). Invisible colleges. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. Chpater 3, The social organization of research areas, p 41-65.

    Dibbell, J. (1996). A rape in cyberspace: How an evil clown, a Haitian trikster spirit, two wizards, and a cast of dozens turned a database into a society. In Mark Stefik (Ed.) Internet dreams: Archetypes, myths, and metaphors. Cambridge, MIT Press.

    Dillon, J. (1990). The practice of questioning. London: Routledge. Chapter 10, Notions of questions p 131-163.

    McCarthy, J. & Monk, A. (1994). Measuring the quality of computer-mediated communication. Behaviour & Information Technology, 13(5), 311-319.

    Olson, J., Card, S., Landauer, T., Olson, G., Malone, T., & Leggett, J. (1993). Computer-supported co-operative work: Research issues for the 90s. Behaviour & Information technology, 12(2), 115-129.

    Paisley, W. (1993). Knowledge utilization: The role of new communication technologies. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44(4), 222-234.

    Pierce, J.R. (1972). Communication. Scientific American. 227(3), 31-41.

    Pool, I. De Sola. (1973). Communication systems. In Ithiel Pool, Wilbur Schramm, Nathan Maccoby & Edwin Parker, (Eds.), Handbook of communication. Chicago: Rand McNally. 3-26.

    Reeves, B. & Nass, C. (1996). The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and the new media like real people and places. NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Rogers, E. (1962). Diffusion of innovations. NY: Fress Press.

    Schramm, W. (1973). Channels and audiences. In Ithiel Pool, Wilbur Schramm, Nathan Maccoby & Edwin Parker, (Eds.), Handbook of communication. Chicago: Rand McNally. 116-140.

    Solomon, P. (1997). Conversation in information-seeking contexts: A test of an analytical framework. Library and Information Science Research, 19(3), 217-248.

    Sonnenwald, D. (1996). Communication roles that support collaboration during the design process. Design Studies, 17, 277-301.

    Tannen, D. (1995). The power of talk: Who gets heard and why. Harvard Business Review, Sept/Oct, 138-148.

    Tibbo, H. (1995). Interviewing techniques for remote reference: Electronic versus traditional environments. American Archivist, 58, 294-310.

    Tonfoni, G. (1996). Communication patterns and textual forms. Exeter, UK: Intellect. CPP-TRS: A universal grammar of linguistic performance, p 48-62.

    Trigg, R. & Bodker, S. (1994). From implementation to design: Tailoring and the emergence of systematization in CSCW. Proceedings of ACM 1994 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (Chapel Hill, NC, Oct. 22-26, 1994). New York: ACM Press, 45-54.

    Turoff, M. (1991). Computer-mediated communication requirements for group support. Journal of organizational computing, 1, 85-113.

    Weaver, W. (1963). Recent contributions to the mathematical theory of communication. In, The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: U. of Illinois Press. [Read Chapter 1]

     

     

    Others

    Canary, D. & Dindia, K. (1998). Sex differences and similarities in communication: Critical essays and empirical investigations of sex and gender in interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    De Kerckhove, D. (1995). The skin of culture: Investigating the new electronic reality. Toronto: Somerville House.

    Dizard, W. (1997). Old media, new media: Mass communications in the information age (2nd Ed). NY: Longman.

    McGarry, K. (1975). Communication, knowledge and the librarian. London: Clive Bingley.

    Rogers, E. (1994). A history of communication study: A biographical approach. NY: The Free Press.

    Thayer, L. (Ed.). 1966. Communication concepts and perspectives. Washington, DC: Spartan Books