Video Conferencing: Infrastructures, Practices, Aesthetics

The COVID-19 pandemic has reorganized existing methods of exchange, turning comparatively marginal technologies into the new normal. Multipoint videoconferencing in particular has become a favored means for web-based forms of remote communication and collaboration without physical copresence. Taking the recent mainstreaming of videoconferencing as its point of departure, this anthology examines the complex mediality of this new form of social interaction. Connecting theoretical reflection with material case studies, the contributors question practices, politics and aesthetics of videoconferencing and the specific meanings it acquires in different historical, cultural and social contexts

Presence 2005: the eighth annual international workshop on presence, 21-23 September, 2005 University College London (Conference proceedings)

OVERVIEW (taken from the CALL FOR PAPERS) Academics and practitioners with an interest in the concept of (tele)presence are invited to submit their work for presentation at PRESENCE 2005 at University College London in London, England, September 21-23, 2005. The eighth in a series of highly successful international workshops, PRESENCE 2005 will provide an open discussion forum to share ideas regarding concepts and theories, measurement techniques, technology, and applications related to presence, the psychological state or subjective perception in which a person fails to accurately and completely acknowledge the role of technology in an experience, including the sense of 'being there' experienced by users of advanced media such as virtual reality. The concept of presence in virtual environments has been around for at least 15 years, and the earlier idea of telepresence at least since Minsky's seminal paper in 1980. Recently there has been a burst of funded research activity in this area for the first time with the European FET Presence Research initiative. What do we really know about presence and its determinants? How can presence be successfully delivered with today's technology? This conference invites papers that are based on empirical results from studies of presence and related issues and/or which contribute to the technology for the delivery of presence. Papers that make substantial advances in theoretical understanding of presence are also welcome. The interest is not solely in virtual environments but in mixed reality environments. Submissions will be reviewed more rigorously than in previous conferences. High quality papers are therefore sought which make substantial contributions to the field. Approximately 20 papers will be selected for two successive special issues for the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. PRESENCE 2005 takes place in London and is hosted by University College London. The conference is organized by ISPR, the International Society for Presence Research and is supported by the European Commission's FET Presence Research Initiative through the Presencia and IST OMNIPRES projects and by University College London

Understanding the impact of Artificial Intelligence on newsroom social culture and journalistic performative roles : a qualitative case study of AI as an emerging digital innovative technology in newsrooms

Throughout the evolution of journalism, innovative technology has played a pivotal role in shaping the production and consumption of news. The transformative power of disruptive technology has revolutionized the journalism industry in the past by impacting the society it serves through the diffusion of innovation. Artificial Intelligence, when operationalized for use in journalism, has the propensity to be a disruptive technology, possibly transforming the industry in significant and meaningful ways. This research investigates the impact of Artificial Intelligence as an emerging digital innovative technology on journalism and mass communication from a sociological and historical context. The aim of this study is to examine how the use of innovative AI technology may influence sociocultural perceptions and behavior in U.S. and UK-based news reporters and their semi-automated newsrooms by comparing present-day news reporters and newsrooms against the behavior of news reporters and newsrooms at the start of the last century when television and radio emerged as previous disruptive technologies. Present-day semi-automated newsrooms employ smart technology based on Artificial Intelligence to aid in the production of news information. AI technology has been operationalized at every measurable level, from simple intelligent content management system agents to fully-autonomous robust agents capable of producing natural human-language news reports and short articles. Pioneering news organizations that push the limits of AI operationalization capabilities have partnered with technology companies to generate lifelike digital avatars based on living human news reporters. These avatars are capable of rendering news reports that can be presented on digital video publishing platforms such as YouTube or websites owned and operated by the parent organizations. Creating a new social role generates contention in a shared social space, leading existing occupants to consider their existing role and the opportunities or challenges posed by this new role. This phenomenon is examined using Diffusion of Innovation theory, Human-Machine Communication theory, and Actor-network theory to help understand the emergence of new social roles in shared social spaces. Such a perspective enables a more nuanced understanding of how new social roles emerge and gain influence, and how existing roles may be challenged or reinforced. Data collected through semi-structured interviews from news reporters at a global news organization with offices in the U.S. and the UK have been analyzed using a comparative framework to study social behavior, customs, and culture evident in semi-automated newsrooms. The goal of this research is to better understand the impact that the diffusion of emerging digital innovative technology may have on the social culture of journalists and the newsroom within which they perform as newsmakers.Includes bibliographical references

Attention and Social Cognition in Virtual Reality:The effect of engagement mode and character eye-gaze

Technical developments in virtual humans are manifest in modern character design. Specifically, eye gaze offers a significant aspect of such design. There is need to consider the contribution of participant control of engagement. In the current study, we manipulated participants’ engagement with an interactive virtual reality narrative called Coffee without Words. Participants sat over coffee opposite a character in a virtual café, where they waited for their bus to be repaired. We manipulated character eye-contact with the participant. For half the participants in each condition, the character made no eye-contact for the duration of the story. For the other half, the character responded to participant eye-gaze by making and holding eye contact in return. To explore how participant engagement interacted with this manipulation, half the participants in each condition were instructed to appraise their experience as an artefact (i.e., drawing attention to technical features), while the other half were introduced to the fictional character, the narrative, and the setting as though they were real. This study allowed us to explore the contributions of character features (interactivity through eye-gaze) and cognition (attention/engagement) to the participants’ perception of realism, feelings of presence, time duration, and the extent to which they engaged with the character and represented their mental states (Theory of Mind). Importantly it does so using a highly controlled yet ecologically valid virtual experience

Redefining interaction in open and distance learning with reference to teacher education programmes in the University of the West Indies

This study was undertaken to serve two purposes. At a theoretical level, it was undertaken to review the concept of interaction in open and distance learning (ODL).The decision to conduct this review grew out of a concern that the current dominant approach to the study of teaching and learning in ODL was focusing on social interaction. This was regarded as a restricted interpretation of the concept, hence the decision to review and revise.At a subsidiary level, the study was aimed at examining teaching and learning in the current teacher education programmes of the University of the West Indies This aspect of the study was undertaken in light of the university's proposed expansion of these offerings in the distance mode. The concept of interaction was seen as the appropriate context for undertaking this examination.Based on a review of the literature, a revised concept of interaction was developed,embodying three separate, yet interrelated types, namely social interaction, leamer media interaction and learner-knowledge interaction. In developing this concept,attention was also paid to the part played by power relations and knowledge from external sources in the functioning of the concept's component parts. It is this reformulated concept that provided the theoretical framework for the examination of the teacher education programmes mentioned above.A research programme comprising two sub-studies was designed and implemented.The first sub-study was an exploratory survey based on selected attributes of social interaction and designed to examine student teachers' perception of their experience as learners. The second was an observation study based on the principles of leamer knowledge interaction and aimed at investigating student-teachers' knowledge-building processes as these revealed themselves within the interpersonal interaction of teachers and learners in an audio-conferencing environment.A key feature of the observation study was the design and implementation of an interpretive framework to guide data analysis. The framework was developed out of the data themselves and comprised two sets of interrelated categories, the one classifying knowledge-building activities and the other, control management functions. Extended data analysis drew on selected aspects of discourse analysis and specifically on the work of Fairclough (1989, 1992) and Potter and Wetherell (1987).The findings derived from the two sub-studies underscored the essential thesis of this study that interaction in distance education is best viewed as a multifaceted phenomenon, and that there is a functional interrelationship among the constituent parts of the concept.The research programme also confirmed the constructivist thesis that people construct rather than acquire knowledge. At the same time, the findings seem to indicate that the imbalance in the power relations between teachers and learners can hinder learners' capability to derive meaning from their learning. The findings also suggest that student-teachers are ambivalent about their roles as learners and that this ambivalence seems, at times, to be reflected in the attempts they make to gain control of the teaching learning situation and to direct their knowledge-building activities.The study proposes specific areas of further research, including a follow-up study to test and refine the interpretive framework used in the observation study, and another to assess the validity of the three-part concept of interaction formulated in this work

Digital Media as Contemporary Art and its Impact on Museum Practice

TechLab: Experiments in media art 1999-2019 is a survey of the TechLab, with an overview of every exhibition, project, and artwork was shown in the space over two decades. Also included are a selection of critical essays from leading academics and curators working across the field of new media, discussing the broader art-historical context of the TechLab as well as its legacy. Contributors include Rhys Edwards, Alison Rajah, Caroline Seck Langill, Robin Oppenheimer, Kate Armstrong, Beryl Graham, and Jordan Strom

Easing the writing task: designing computer based systems to help authors

An increasing number of people interact not only with computers, but through computers. Interaction between people through computers to complete work tasks is termed Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The scope of activities supported by CSCW systems is described, and CSCW systems which support communication, meetings and writing are discussed. More specifically, the potential for improved computer support of the writing task is investigated. It is concluded that models of the writing task and writers are not yet sufficiently accurate to be embedded in normative computer programs or systems; individual writers and writing tasks are extremely varied. Leading on from the studies of both existing systems and writing theories, requirements for generic CSCW systems, single author support systems and multiple author support systems are presented. The design of CSCW systems which support asynchronous collaborative authoring of structured documents is investigated in this thesis. A novel approach to design and implementation of such systems is described and discussed. This thesis then describes MILO, a system that does not feature embedded models of writers or the writing task. In fact, MILO attempts to minimize constraints on the activities of collaborating authors and on the structure of documents. Hence with MILO, roles of participants are determined by social processes, and the presentational structure of documents is imposed at the end of the writing process. It is argued that this approach results in a workable, practical and useful design, substantiating the view that 'minimally-constrained' CSCW systems, of which MILO is an example, will be successful. It is shown that MILO successfully meets the stated requirements, and that it compares favourably with existing collaborative writing systems along several dimensions. The limitations of work presented in the thesis are discussed, leading to suggestions for future work which will remedy deficiencies and extend the work which has been undertaken. The nature of this thesis's contribution to CSCW in general, computer supported collaborative writing, and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is discussed

A case study of distance education and development in Jamaica : a study of three distance education organisations and their contribution to development

This study examines three distance education organisations in Jamaica in order to understand their role as contributors to Jamaica's development. The three distance education organisations are: 1. The Ministry of Education Teacher Education Programme. 2. The University of the West Indies Distance Teaching Experiment. (UWIDITE) 3. The Jamaican Movement for the Advancement of Literacy. (JAMAL) Jamaica's most recent Development Plan is also examined for an understanding of how distance education is linked into that plan. The study is concerned with the contribution that distance education can make towards Jamaica's development, the problems that inhibit development and the conditions that assist development. It is therefore concerned with the political and economic structures in Jamaica and how these affect the function of distance education in development strategies. A qualitative approach, using the case study method is adopted, for this study, which enables the work of the institutions to be analysed in conjunction with attitudes of individuals who are involved in distance education in various capacities, for example as teachers, administrators, politicians, aid negotiators, volunteers and close observers. A qualitative analysis also helped in the understanding of the structure and functions of the organisations studied. Because benefits can accrue to a society in terms of growth in its Gross National Product, without such benefits reaching the whole population, the political nature of Jamaica was examined particularly in terms of the ideology of the main political parties in order to determine the difference, if any, between them. How the ideology was acquired or developed is also important. The study also examined the cultural and economic context in which attempts are being made to develop the society. This includes the internal relationships within the country and its external relationships with countries that give bilateral aid and organisations that 'assist' with multilateral aid. The study concludes that Jamaica is at a serious disadvantage in its attempt to implement 'development' policies because it is not properly in charge of its own destiny. The countrys currency is subject to sudden devaluations which can increase the cost of development without the possibility of being able to plan for the increases in costs. Ways of overcoming these difficulties may be found in less political opportunism, improved inter-departmental co-operation in determining development priorities and a unified political approach to multi-lateral and bi-lateral aid agencies by the main political parties. There may be implications for other developing countries whose currencies continue to decline in relation to Western currencies