THE USER-CENTERED NATURE OF AWARENESS CREATION IN COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

In face-to-face contexts, information about the activities, context or emotions of others is typically available and often taken for granted. In computer-mediated communication (CMC) contexts, this awareness information is not readily available and thus needs to be actively signaled by users or technology or otherwise conveyed as byproduct of the ongoing interaction. We present a theory of the dynamic creation of awareness via computer-mediated communication illustrated by a metaphor of pools fed from streams of interaction. Pools of awareness are held within users and gradually fill via signals from others. Users need different pools to be fed and draw from the streams of interaction to feed their pools and reciprocally place information in the streams to feed the pools of others. In addition, pools drain and must be replenished when a new CMC encounter begins. Awareness is thus created actively or as byproduct of social communicative practice, but is not an instant product of technology. We formulate theoretical propositions and discuss implications of our proposed theory for CMC researchers and practitioners