Kalman, Yoram

Lewis, Seth

Masullo, Gina

English

AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)

As Mediated Conversation Expands and Diversifies, so do Anti-Social RisksSeth C. LewisUniversity of Oregonsclewis@uoregon.eduYoram M. KalmanThe Open University of Israelyoramka@openu.ac.ilGina M. MasulloUniversity of Texas at Austingina.masullo@austin.utexas.eduAbstractThis brief article introduces the nine papers thatwere presented at the 2023 HICSS MediatedConversation minitrack. These studies show thatmediated conversation can foster learning,relationships, and community, but also that suchdomains for conversation face challenges that canmake these spaces inhospitable to quality discourse.Keywords: mediated conversation, communication,computer-mediated communication1. IntroductionAs we return to in-person HICSS meetings for thefirst time in three years, it is instructive to reflect onwhat transpired the past several years — and what itcould mean for the future of mediated conversation, thesubject of this minitrack.Among other changes in society, the pandemic hada dramatic effect in “pulling forward” demand forusing media and technology to facilitate conversation.We all experienced this switch in 2020, and then saw itpersist throughout much of 2021 and 2022: from theseemingly ubiquitous Zoom meetings to the growinguse of Slack and other chat-based tools to facilitatework-from-home to the way that group text threads andsocial media apps became more firmly embedded asvital everyday communication infrastructure. All ofthose things existed before the pandemic, of course —but the place they hold in our lives accelerated in just ashort period to a degree previously unimaginable.Now, several years later and with pandemic fearshopefully receding, there are signs both of how mediatechnologies will continue to claim an essential role inmediating public and private conversations — it’s hardto imagine a world without Zoom meetings anymore— and also of how some devices, services, andplatforms may begin to fade or become reconfigured intheir import when it comes to conversation. Consider,for example, the turmoil facing major technologycompanies: As of this writing in Fall 2022, Meta (thecompany formerly known as Facebook) had lost nearly75% of its market value a year after rebranding itself tosignal its new emphasis on building the “metaverse,” astill-nebulous idea about a future immersive mediaexperience that, at its core, would be aboutconversation and community in virtual reality.Meanwhile, Twitter faces an uncertain future as aglobal platform for conversation after its sale to ElonMusk, who subsequently laid off half of the company’sstaff and indicated that a more hands-off approach tocontent moderation would be adopted — widely seenas a critical change because of the level of harassment,disinformation, and toxicity rife on many socialplatforms, and which Twitter had sought to tame inrecent years. Many users, such as academics in ourfield, have talked of migrating to Mastodon, whichpromises a decentralized social media experience thatis more akin to a commons-based approach to theinternet, one that seems like a throwback to the digitalworld that was circa early 2000s. And, amid it all,TikTok looms large as a suddenly omnipresent giant inthe race to capture attention (particularly among GenZ), becoming the focal point of global conversation.Undoubtedly, there will continue to be many twistsand turns in the story of mediated conversation in thepost-pandemic world that is beginning to emerge, and,therefore, much for researchers to examine as we allattempt to make sense of the consequences of thesedevelopments. Of particular relevance for this year’sedition of the Mediated Conversation minitrack are twothemes that emerge from the papers accepted forpresentation. First, we see the wide variety of contextsand complications associated with a growing array ofsoftware, screens, and services that shape mediationand interaction — from emoji in politicalcommunication to dynamics of conversation via datingapps to TikTok as a platform for learning. Second, wesee a growing awareness of many anti-social outcomesassociated with digital technologies generally andsocial media technologies particularly. This is evident,Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2023Page 2368URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10125/102924978-0-9981331-6-4(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)for instance, in studies of political polarization,disinformation campaigns, and incivility on subreddits,even as some green shoots of hope may be evident inother studies in this collection, such as those focusedon “digital civic sensemaking” through participatorydialogue frameworks as well as collaborativeapproaches to making journalism more conversationaland relational with communities.In the section that follows, we highlight some ofthe key contributions from each of the nine papersselected for presentation.2. This year’s papersIn “What if I Use Help for This? ExploringNormative Evaluations of Relationship MaintenanceBehaviors Augmented by External Agency,” LewenWei, Jin Kang and Bingjie Liu study the relativeappropriateness that participants in mediatedconversations assign to augmentation by artificialintelligence or by another human in 25 commonrelational activities of friendship maintenance.In “Establishing TikTok as a Platform for InformalLearning: Evidence from Mixed-Methods Analysis ofCreators and Viewers,” Sourojit Ghosh and AndreaFigueroa explore the ways that TikTok is used forcreating and disseminating new knowledge and skillsthrough informal learning.In “Digital Civic Sensemaking:Computer-Supported Participatory Sensemaking ofNuanced, Experience-Based Dialogue,” MaggieHughes, Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, Maridena Rojasand Somala Diby present Real Talk, a hybrid civictechnology program that is used for facilitatingsmall-group dialogue and community organizing. Theyshow how it can be incorporated forcomputer-supported participatory sensemaking ofnuanced dialogue data.In “I 🌹 🍀 󰎿 You! — Emojis AsEmotional-Political Signifiers in Finnish ElectionCampaign Discussion Online,” Elisa Kannasto,Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, and Aleksi Knuutila providea framework for understanding how emoji are used tocreate online affective networks.In “Pushing for Social Change: HowCollaborations Are Recalibrating the JournalisticMission,” Patrick Walters shows how journalisticcollaborations involving a variety of partners (e.g.,legacy and non-legacy media, citizen journalists,universities, and nonprofits) play a role in improvingjournalism’s openness to community input — such thata more conversational style of journalism can beenacted with community members.Meanwhile, Chris Vargo and Toby Hopp find thatpolitical subreddits with complex moderation strategieshave less incivility in their paper, “Incivility on PopularPolitics and News Subreddits: An Analysis ofIn-groups, Community Guidelines, and Relationshipswith Social Media Engagement.”In their paper “The Impact of Politeness onConversational Outcomes in Mobile Dating Apps,”Holly Lopez-Long and Pnina Fichman explore theconversational landscape of mobile dating apps, suchas Bumble and Tinder, focusing on the impact ofpoliteness strategies and what they mean forconversational outcomes on such platforms.In “Immunize the Public against DisinformationCampaigns: Developing a Framework for AnalyzingMacrosocial Effects of Prebunking Interventions,”Johanna Klapproth, Saïd Unger, Janina Pohl, SvenjaBoberg, Christian Grimme, and Thorsten Quandtexplore the potential antidotes to disinformation: in thiscase, the effectiveness of prebunking interventions andtheir diffusion in social networks.Finally, in “Great Divisions: The Evolution ofPolarization During the Man-made Emergency ofJanuary 6, 2021,” Paras Bhatt, Naga Vemprala, RohitValecha, Govind Hariharan, and H. Raghav Rao studysocial media communication before, during, and afterthe January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, to examinehow the evolution of polarization in public discoursesurrounding a (political) crisis event of this nature.3. ConclusionOverall, these papers signal that the study ofmediated conversation will continue to evolve indiversity and complexity alongside the technologies,apps, and services that help structure and give shape tohuman communication. We appreciate the time andattention invested by the authors of these strongcontributions to the literature as well as the feedbackprovided by the many reviewers who continue tosupport this minitrack and its place in HICSS.Page 2369

Introduction to the Minitrack on Mediated Conversation

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Introduction to the Minitrack on Mediated Conversation

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