Module code: ECS638U
Credits: 15
Semester: SEM1
Technology has the potential to transform human communication. It can weaken spatial and temporal constraints on who can communicate. It creates opportunities for new communities and patterns of interaction and it can also provide the resources to enable radically new kinds of human-human interaction.
Our intuitions about what makes communication effective are a poor guide. Some technologies, such as videophones, that are specifically designed to enhance communication can sometimes make it worse. Currently, there is no accepted explanation of how technologies alter, and are altered by, the patterns and processes of human communication. Such an explanation is necessary for effective design of new technologies.
This research led course explores these issues by introducing the social science of human communication and applying it to the analysis of technologies that support human interaction (video phones, whiteboards, facebook, twitter). We will consider small-scale face-to-face conversations and mass interaction in classrooms and live performances. In each case we will explore how people exploit the resources available to them, such as speech, gesture, touch and body orientation to enable effective, engaging interactions.
Level: 6
