I've appended an outdated draft version of the proposal I've wrote
for my thesis. Since then, as suggestions from one of my advisors,
I've been incorporating some issues discussed by Jean-Francois Lyotart
(the Postmodern Condition), Pierre Bourdieu (Language and Symbolic
Power). I've also shuffle some of the chapters in order to accomodate
a larger audience. In them, I'm discussing Distributed Cognition,
Situatead Learning, and Theory of Activity, Language-Action approaches
as forces of transformation in the established cultural organization
of the field. Paul Prior's book looks interesting. I have to take a
look on it.
I would like to talk more about it, but I'm going on a trip until the
27th of June. I'm leaving in a couple of hours.
See you,
Luiz
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Outdated DRAFT - Do dot cite without permission of the
author
Suggestions are welcome
Situating a Cultural Ecology of InterActing Media
ABSTRACT
People "use" computing and information technology to support
individual and
group work or play. The field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
revolves
around activities related to the understanding and the influencing of
such
a use and its subsequent effects. The historical development of HCI is
almost as time-worn as the discipline of computing. Until the forties
and
fifties, the computing community was highly interdisciplinary. It
involved
mainly scientists and engineers, but included humanists and social
scientists as well. During the sixties and seventies, a diverging
process of segmentation and specialization took place. The discipline
of computing became polarized around engineering, sciences, and
business schools. Through
this process the communities of Computer Engineering, Computer
Science, and
Information Technology have negotiated a tacit division of labour in
which
concerns about the use and the consequences of computing were
abstracted
away.
This project proposes a dialogical framework for construing and
leveraging
interactive media design and use. Generally, HCI's historical
disciplinary
heterogeneity has been typified as being the manifestation of the
polarization that exists between the technological sciences and the
human
sciences. For example, historically, placing the domain of HCI in the
interface between Computer Science and Psychology has been the norm. A
myriad of other similar boundaries between disciplines have
structured,
transformed, and guided the dynamics of the cultural ecology in which
HCI
has been developing.
Historically, the potential contribution of the arts and humanities to
the
field of Human-Computer Interaction has received scant recognition and
subsequently has been a dearth of commentary on the subject. This
thesis
proposal analyzes the needs for such an endeavour and seeks to provide
a
conceptual scaffold for an understanding of an HCI cultural ecology,
as
well as to illustrate its use.
-----
This proposal presents a discussion on the nature of the field of
Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This text is organized into two
main parts. Firstly, it situates and explores the academic cultural
ecology that the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has been
developing. The analysis is restricted to a North American context. In
it, I propose that the arts and humanities have an important role to
play in HCI and related fields. Secondly, it explores a niche in this
cultural ecology in which computing technology is construed as
situated communicating.
Different construals of ``human'', ``computing technology'', and
``interaction'' have delimited what is done in HCI, when and where HCI
is done, who does HCI, how HCI is done, and why HCI is done. Kenneth
Burke refers to these questions respectively as act, scene, agent,
agency and purpose. This thesis starts by establishing the historical
roots of computing, one of the disciplines that has been part of HCI
since before its recognition. This history is retold, not by listing
chronologically the accomplished technological achievements of the
field, but instead, by retelling the history of the specialization of
the computing discipline into distinct sub-disciplines and their
interactions. The narrative is based on a discussion of a series of
bifurcation points in which two sub-disciplines have diverged within
the computing realm. It is argued that these bifurcation points were
not only a result of internal factors, such as the associated subject
matters, but also a result of assumptions concerning what was, and
what was not interesting for a certain community at a certain moment.
The fractionalization of the computing domain co-evolved with the
associated division of labor within the discipline. The emergence of
HCI and of Software Engineering happened in the seventies. It was
contemporaneous to the bifurcation points in which the discipline of
computing was segmented as computer engineering, computer science, and
information technology.
HCI and software engineering have jurisdictions that intersect with
the discipline of computing. The assumption that they lay only in the
interstitial regions that differentiates sub-disciplines of computing
is a mistake. For example, software engineering encompasses domains
beyond the scientific and engineering disciplines. In addition, other
dimensions differentiate HCI and Software engineering from the field
of computing. Their intersection with the discipline of computing has
set the stage for a myriad of controversies and ownership quarrels.
Some of them are reported and discussed within this work.
The discipline of computing is only one, amongst many others, whose
sphere intersects with HCI's. The cognitive sciences, also, have
significantly contributed to HCI consolidation.
Generally, HCI's historical disciplinary heterogeneity has been
typified as being the manifestation of the polarization that exists
between the technological sciences and the human sciences. For
example, historically, placing the domain of HCI in the interface
between Computer Science and Psychology has been the norm. A myriad of
other similar boundaries between disciplines have structured,
transformed, and guided the dynamics of the cultural ecology in which
HCI has been developing. The contrast that exists between computer
science and information science, and between psychology and sociology,
as well as among many other disciplines have been considered within
the scope of HCI in varying degrees dependent on their time and place
of origin.
Historically, the potential contribution of the arts and humanities to
the field of Human-Computer Interaction has received scant recognition
and subsequently has been a dearth of commentary on the subject. This
thesis analyzes the needs for such an endeavour and seeks to provide a
conceptual scaffold for an understanding of a HCI cultural ecology, as
well as illustrate its use.
In Chapter 1, the field of computing and related disciplines are
described from the perspective of cultural, historical, and situated
developmental processes. It concentrates on the history of its
professional and academic organizations; on its development into a
collection of interrelated sub-disciplines; on the historical
development of its subject matter. The sources of information used for
tracing its historical development consisted mainly of documents
related to curricular recommendations. Historically, the integration
of cultural factors (cognitive, social, ethical, political, etc) in
curricular recommendations varies significantly, from being irrelevant
to being fundamental. Their discussion is usually confined either to
specialized committees in professional associations, or to isolated
disciplines in undergraduate curricula. In this work, their
variability is used to contrast the tenets of both the discipline of
computing and the field of HCI in different periods.
Chapter 2 discusses the emergence of HCI. HCI has a heritage that
both coincides and collides with the disciplinary organization
developed in the field of computing. It coincides because it partially
maintains the organization of the discipline of computing in its
milieu. It collides because it emphasizes dimensions that have been
partially alien to the tenets of the discipline.
Chapter 2 starts with a discussion of how the HCI community has
replicated the organization of both the disciplines of cognition and
the disciplines of computing. The confluence of both these domains,
among others, has shaped the initial organization through which HCI
have sustained its practices in its initial period. Chapter 2 follows
by including a detailed discussion of several issues that have been
raised by the community throughout its development. For example,
establishing stable foundations for HCI has been a problematic since
its inception. The disciplinary heterogeneity that characterizes the
field has been recognized as a source of these problems. Contrariwise,
the maintenance of this heterogeneity has been fostered as a means to
sustain HCI's autonomy in relation to more established disciplines.
Participating in HCI in the current academic, industrial, and
commercial milieu is a challenge. Despite the difficulties, HCI
subject matter has been co-evolving with its community and those
affected by the consequences of its practices. Until recently HCI has
been influenced by disciplines that have their domains polarized
around either ``behavioral'' or ``technological'' issues, but not
``cultural'' ones. This polarization is questioned throughout the
dissertation. It is proposed that the simultaneous exploration of
``interactions'', in conjunction with ``humans'' and ``computers'', is
necessary for the establishment of a minimum set of dimensions through
which a HCI cultural ecology could be characterized. The chapter
concludes by referring to a set of researchers who have acknowledged
that the arts and humanities have important contributions to offer to
the field of HCI.
However, the role of culture has not been explicitly incorporated into
a comprehensive construal of HCI's ecology, and the ones that are
associated to it. Chapter 3 reexamines the roots of the term
``ecology'' and introduces and situates \emph{interactive media}
within what is defined as a \emph{cultural ecosystem}. The subject
matter of interactive media is represented through a schematic diagram
whose objective is to show the relationship among humans, computers,
and interactions, as mentioned above. The historical and cultural
trajectory of methodologies and disciplines related to HCI are plotted
and discussed with the aid of this diagram. HCI heterogeneity is
discussed in relation to it. In addition to the technological and
human (recently subject of ``user centered'' approaches) dimensions
of HCI, a third aspect related to the mediated or interactive aspects
is introduced. This third dimension is usually the focus of the field
of knowledge known as the arts and humanities. A conceptual model
using these three facets of HCI cultural ecology is proposed and
compared with other ones in the literature.
To summarize, Chapter 1 establishes the historical development
centered on the technological aspects of HCI. Chapter 2 complements
this analysis with the human aspects of HCI, a dimension that has been
recognized by the community in movements labeled as human centered
approaches. Additionally, the ``turn to the social'' in HCI
illustrates the presence of other barriers to be bridged. Chapter 3
proposes that the confluence of the human and of the technological
sciences is not enough to cope with phenomena in which people use and
develop technology to sustain and develop situated activities.
Therefore, it is proposed that the realm usually ascribed to the arts
and humanities intersects with the realm of HCI. Taking in
consideration the domain of the human sciences, the technological
sciences, and the arts and humanities have, a conceptual model of HCI
cultural ecology is introduced. Several examples of HCI schools of
thought, areas and methodologies are instantiated and discussed.
Having covered the problematic relationship between the technocentric
and the anthropocentric approaches, the consideration of an additional
logocentric one does not come without consequences. It is argued that
the consideration of the humanities within HCI represents a challenge
to the HCI community. It is a challenge because the theoretical,
methodological, and practical disparities are even broader than
between the social and the technological sciences. Therefore, ff the
arts and humanities eventually were embraced by the community, the
enrichment that this will generate, will be accompanied by an
inevitable increase in the difficulties that the field is already
experiencing. These problems should not be viewed as insurmountable.
Counter examples abound throughout the history of HCI and related
disciplines. Certain approaches in linguistics, for example, have
contributed and shaped part of the current understanding of
theoretical foundations of computing.
Through the use of conceptual framework proposed in the third chapter,
Chapter 4 situates the cognitive sciences in HCI's cultural ecology.
Approaches such as theory of activity, distributed cognition, situated
action, computer semiotics are discussed and contrasted.
To illustrate the role that the humanities can potentially play within
HCI, a small niche within the HCI cultural ecology is chosen to be
explored in the subsequent chapters. The chosen niche is related to an
understanding of computing technology as media.
The application of the humanities within technology development is
still in its primordial stage. In Chapters 5 and 6, interacting media
is modeled from the perspective of Semiotics, and of Literary
Criticism. In them, the mediatorial and dialogical aspects of
computing technology are explored. Computers and associated technology
are seen as vectors of cultural and environmental transformation, as
ways of making meaning, of sharing experiences, of crossing
boundaries. Transformations that could lead both to the emergence and
to the extinction of established practices and communities. These
sections also explore a history of different taxonomies and models
used within correlated disciplines. A scaffold for media development
is proposed and its use is illustrated and compared to alternative
models.
A framework for interacting media classification and organization is
proposed and compared with existing ones used in the understanding of
communication, semiosis, and cognition. In chapter 5 the field of
Semiotics, with an emphasis on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, is
explored. Chapter 6 examines the contribution of understanding
language as dialogue using the work of Mikahil Mikha\v{\i}lovich
Bakhtin as a scaffold.
As an additional step, it is proposed that interacting media
developmental processes resemble self-organizing processes, with the
particularity that hetero-organizing phenomena also play an essential
role. Traditional semiotic categories and communication architectures
are shown as instances of the proposed framework. The relationship
between Semiotics (Peirce) and Dialogism (Bakhtin) are studied under
the light of complex systems. Hetero-organizing, i.e. the organizing
of the other, is akin to self-organizing. Related terms are
heretopoiesis and autopoieis. In this thesis, hetero and auto are
considered dialogically interdependent, in the sense that the making
or organizing of the other is essential in the process of making and
organizing of the self. This is consonant with the ecological approach
here adopted and introduced in the third chapter.
Chapter 5 introduces the field of semiotics and its possible
applications in HCI. Semiotics is a field that includes many divergent
schools of though. The terminology and the similarity of models are
usually sufficient to enable identification of the theoretical lineage
which a certain semiotician have adopted.
A survey of the literature that explores semiotics within HCI is
presented and several approaches are discussed in relation to HCI
cultural ecology. In the sequel, a generalization of Charles Sanders
Peirce conceptualization of sign categories is proposed and
illustrated. Peirce has developed a myriad of sign categorizations
during his life and they have been broadly discussed by Peirce
scholars. Unfortunately, the uses and misuses of Peirce's sign
categories are usually oversimplifications of signs as meaning
carriers that have a life of their own. Statements such as
``everything is a sign'' illustrate how the humans who interact within
situated cultures have been abstracted away from semiotic analysis. A
restriction to a logocentric approach is as problematic as the
technocentric and anthropocentric ones. The model here introduced is
not intent on solely revising Peirce's contribution, but, instead to
pedagogically represent them as well as associated concepts to accord
the recognition the recognition that they deserve. These limitations
are also used as a springboard to the next chapter, in which media is
approached as dialogical. Although Peirce's models may encompass some
of these issues, in practice, they have not. This does not invalidate
Peirce's work, but it does illustrate the need of reexamining them.
In Chapter 6, the work of Mikhail M. Bakhtin is proposed as a means to
rescue the ecological validity and cultural situadness that an
understanding of mediated communication requires. An historical
overview of several models of communication is presented and
discussed. The survey includes models developed within semiology,
telecommunications engineering, cybernetics, and interpersonal
communication. Their topologies vary within scales that go from the
linear to the chaotic. The linear encompasses a view that messages
flow from senders to receivers, from objects to subjects, etc.
Contrariwise, the chaotic necessarily situates multiple voices within
dialogues. The importance of this approach for HCI is that it
engenders a revision to the boundaries established between the
dimensions that comprise HCI cultural ecology.
Chapter 6 is complemented with how several of Bakhtin's ideas can be
applied in the cultural ecology of HCI. Concepts such
\emph{heteroglossia}, for example, are not only in accordance with the
heterogeneity of the community, but also may encompass the many voices
that design processes have to convey within technology authoring. The
political implications of such inclusion go well beyond the design
process; they come accompanied with a critical perspective of the
parochial hierarchies that are currently in place within HCI's
stratification of competencies. Unfortunately, HCI's strata reproduce
the larger culture and therefore, are rarely questioned within the
community. Concepts such as \emph{unfinalizability} and the
\emph{chronotope} are proposed to rescue an awareness for historical
dynamics required in earnest attempts technological endeavours. In the
sequence, Bakhtin's ideas are discussed in relation to other HCI
approaches. At this point in the document, the reader will have noted
that the whole thesis has a Bakhtinian flavor. Chapter 1 culturally
and historically situates the field of HCI as the result of a dialogue
between communities. These dialogues often demarcate jurisdictions
either by silencing the voices of others, or by respecting their
differences, or by appropriating them, among other possibilities.
Disciplinary power relationships may sustain an organization, but may
avoid developing it. Alternatively, they may develop it, but neglect
to sustain it. Developing sustainability plays with both centripetal
and centrifugal forces; it is a never-ending process. Put in this
light, HCI activities and by similarity other technological and
scientific endeavors, are constructed as an unfinalizable process. The
centres and the periphery of disciplines are in constant negotiation.
Their organizations are constantly maintained and developed in
accordance with situated, historical, cultural, and environmental
contingencies.
Having correlated structural changes to the praxis of interacting
media development, the final chapter is devoted to the context of
information and computing sciences and technology studies. Chapter 7
intends to outline the implications of the conceptual structures
proposed in this work when in cultural ecosystems interventions and
participation. Additionally, specific examples within human-computer
interaction, software design and software engineering are analyzed
from the perspective of media ecology. The historical development of
software lifecycles will be addressed and discussed.
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