Jennifer Stromer-Galley

Interactivity-as-Product and Interactivity-as-Process

This article attempts to clarify the murky conceptual water of “interactivity,” arguing that the term refers to two distinct phenomena: interactivity between people and interactivity between people and computers or networks. The former orients research on the process of interactivity. The latter orients research on the product of interactivity. That two distinct phenomena have been labeled with the same term causes problems when one wants to move from theorizing about interactivity in the abstract to investigating what effects interactivity has and then to operationalizing measurement terms. Studying interactivity-as-process entails a research focus on human interaction. Studying interactivity-as-product entails a research focus on user interactions with technology. In wading into the murky waters of what interactivity is, we must not lose sight of why it matters. In research focused on the opportunities and constraints for citizen participation in the political process afforded by communication technology, for example, interactivity is a variable of importance.

Diversity of Political Conversation on the Internet: Users' Perspectives

This essay provides an account of the perspectives of users of online political discussion spaces. In-depth interviews with 69 people who participate in online political discussion groups were conducted. The interviews suggest that they perceive themselves to be interacting with persons who differ from them. They appreciate and enjoy the diversity of people and opinions they encounter online. Although some interview participants expressed dislike at encountering racist or xenophobic perspectives, others appreciated the broad range of opinions they encountered. These findings lend support to the view that people appreciate the diversity of persons and viewpoints they encounter in their chosen discussion spaces. Information provided by interviewees did not offer much support for the homophily perspective–that people seek out like-minded others online–which raises questions about the accuracy of that perspective in characterizing peoples online communication behavior.

Citizen Perceptions of Online Interactivity and Implications for Political Campaign Communication

In this essay we test empirically whether U.S. citizens identify and distinguish between the media and human interaction components of the Internet as suggested by Stromer-Galley (2000). In addition, we explore how citizens understand the role of the Internet in political campaigns, and the role they themselves can play in the campaign process by utilizing the interactive features of Internet applications. To answer these questions, we conducted focus groups in New Hampshire prior to the 2000 presidential primary election. The focus group discussions suggest that citizens perceive the “objective” types of interactivity identified by Stromer-Galley (2000): “media interaction” and “computer-mediated human interaction.” Focus group participants viewed political campaign websites as offering expanded opportunities for citizen engagement with the campaigns in comparison to other media, as well as increased citizen control in relation to campaigns. Although the focus group participants noted that the Internet offers increased potential for computer-mediated human interaction between citizens and campaigns, and they reported a desire to see such opportunities employed, they expressed understanding of the constraints placed on candidates in the context of political campaigning.

New Voices in the Public Sphere: A Comparative Analysis of Interpersonal and Online Political Talk

Abstract Political conversation for many people is a taboo activity, particularly with acquaintances or strangers. Online, there are a wealth of political conversation spaces, designed for acquaintances and strangers to interact. The question is are there people talking politics online who do not do so face-to-face. This essay presents findings on people’s reported political conversation behaviour online and offline from secondary survey analysis of a research project studying the effects of political deliberation. The survey analysis suggests that there are people who talk politics online who do not do so in face-to-face situations, and they are categorically different than those who do so face-to-face. The Internet may provide a new context for political conversation for those who would not normally engage in face-to-face political conversations, thus bringing new voices into the public sphere.

Modeling Sociocultural phenomena in discourse

In this paper, we describe a novel approach to computational modeling and understanding of social and cultural phenomena in multi-party dialogues. We developed a two-tier approach in which we first detect and classify certain sociolinguistic behaviors, including topic control, disagreement, and involvement, that serve as first-order models from which presence the higher level social roles, such as leadership, may be inferred.

Digital Media, Power, and Democracy in Parties and Election Campaigns Party Decline or Party Renewal?

The role of digital media practices in reshaping political parties and election campaigns is driven by a tension between control and interactivity, but the overall outcome for the party organizational form is highly uncertain. Recent evidence contradicts scholarship on the so-called “death” of parties and suggests instead that parties may be going through a long-term process of adaptation to postmaterial political culture. We sketch out a conceptual approach for understanding this process, which we argue is being shaped by interactions between the organizations, norms, and rules of electoral politics; postmaterial attitudes toward political engagement; and the affordances and uses of digital media. Digital media foster cultures of organizational experimentation and a party-as-movement mentality that enable many to reject norms of hierarchical discipline and habitual partisan loyalty. This context readily accommodates populist appeals and angry protest—on the right as well as the left. Substantial publics now see election campaigns as another opportunity for personalized and contentious political expression. As a result, we hypothesize that parties are being renewed from the outside in, as digitally enabled citizens breathe new life into an old form by partly remaking it in their own participatory image. Particularly on the left, the overall outcome might prove more positive for democratic engagement and the decentralization of political power than many have assumed.

The strategic female: gender-switching and player behavior in online games

As players craft and enact identities in digital games, the relationship between player and avatar gender remains unclear. This study examines how 11 in-game chat, movement, and appearance behaviors differed by gender and by men who did and did not use a female avatar – or ‘gender-switchers’. Drawing on social role and feminist theories of gender, we argue that gender differences in behavior align with the social roles and norms that establish appropriate and inappropriate behavior for men and women. Thus we complicate questions of ‘gender-switching’ by examining not only player gender, but also player psychological Gender Role as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory to examine how gender does – and does not – manifest in digital worlds. Analysis revealed that men may not necessarily seek to mask their offline gender when they use a female avatar, but there is evidence they do reinforce idealized notions of feminine appearance and communication. Movement behaviors, however, show no differences across men who do and do not gender-switch. That is, selecting avatar gender may be less a matter of identity expression, and more a strategic selection of available multi-modal codes that players take up in their navigation of this digital space.

Visual spaces, norm governed places: the influence of spatial context online

Current theories of social interaction and normative influence in Computer-Mediated Communication were developed in the era of the internet predominated by text-based interaction. With the growth of visual-spatial worlds like Second Life, these theories need to be re-examined. The evolution of thinking about social norms online has moved from a mechanistic view to a systems view of humans and communication technology intertwined in a complex relationship that includes groups, identity, communication, and norms. Missing from that system is explicit attention to context and the important role of the environment that encases interaction. This article discusses theories of how architecture and embodiment shape offline life and how such theories increasingly apply in online interaction in visual social spaces. We argue that such spaces communicate normative information that influences behavior within a given context in both conscious and unconscious ways. This article then discusses implications of visual-spatial environments on existing theories of interaction online.

Deliberative E-Rulemaking Project: Challenges to Enacting Real World Deliberation

ABSTRACT This article describes the challenges facing a federal government–funded initiative to promote online deliberation to improve the public comment process by federal and state government agencies in the United States. The three year project met several difficulties. Some have been technical, but our primary obstacle has been in securing partnerships with government agencies. Due to institutional, legal, and organizational challenges, many government agencies are resistant to opening up the public comment process to a deliberative structure, although some change occurred following the Obama administrations Open Government Initiative. This article describes the objectives of the original research project and details the challenges faced with the hope of guiding future deliberation research projects that aim to work with federal agencies in the U.S.

Public policy and obstacles to the virtual agora: insights from the deliberative e-rulemaking project

Cyber-optimists anticipate that electronic media will serve as an extensive public space, a virtual agora, that will re-engage the public with politics and the policies that affect everyday life. For three years we were involved in a U.S. National Science Foundation funded project designed to enhance the participation of citizens in government agency rulemaking processes using online public deliberation and Natural Language Processing technologies. Despite a promising approach in an important arena for direct and regular public engagement, the project was met with serious obstacles in trying to secure a partnership with a government agency or interest groups. This led us to consider the policy process literature for insights regarding the obstacles we faced. That literature, a mainstay in the public policy and public administration curriculum in the U.S. and an attempt to capture how policy makers actually make decisions, heavily focuses on institutional actors and their adversarial relationships. Yet, it provides for hardly any role for the public to participate in what ideally should be a democratic process. Important components of the literature imply that institutional actors should discourage direct public engagement. The analysis seeks to clarify leverage points and contexts that could be used to promote online public engagement as a regular component of government processes.