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Two reflections on Janet Fulk, Peter Monge, and the future of communication research. 0/9 Two reflections on Janet Fulk, Peter Monge, and the future of communication research. 2019-06-03 Presentation Title I’m going to spend my four minutes working up to two reflections on the topic at hand.

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Page 1: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle · Title: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle Author: Benjamin Mako Hill makohill@uw.edu Created Date: 6/3/2019 10:48:29 PM

Two reflections on Janet Fulk, Peter Monge, and thefuture of communication research.

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Two reflections on Janet Fulk, Peter Monge, and thefuture of communication research.

2019-06-03

Presentation Title

I’m going to spend my four minutes working up to two reflections on the topic at hand.

Page 2: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle · Title: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle Author: Benjamin Mako Hill makohill@uw.edu Created Date: 6/3/2019 10:48:29 PM

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I am not, as the program suggests, Aaron Shaw because I am Benjamin Mako Hill. But I am herein his place as a representative of the Community Data Science Collective which I started withAaron.

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The collective is a multi-institution network with students and faculty at the University of Wash-ington (where I am) and Northwestern University, the University of North Carolina, Carleton Col-lege, and (in a few months) Purdue.

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Communal Public Goods

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Communal Public Goods

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Our research focuses on the production of communal public goods and the social and commu-nicative dynamics that support the production, organization, and maintenance of knowledgebases and online communities.

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This is a sampling of the communities we’ve studied. They are all online communities involved inthe collaborative production of knowledge bases and as sites for connections. And today, thesetypes of communities are producing some the world’s most popular and important informationgoods (like Wikipedia and Linux).

Page 6: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle · Title: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle Author: Benjamin Mako Hill makohill@uw.edu Created Date: 6/3/2019 10:48:29 PM

Communication Theory

Six: One .

Janet Fulk Andrew Flanagin

Peter R. Monge Timothy Ryan

Michael k . Kalman

February 1996

Pages: pp. 60-87

Connective and Communal Public Goods in Interactive Communication Systems

This paper extends theories of public goods to interactive communication systems. Two key public communication goods are identified. Connectivity provides point-to-point communication, and communality links members through commonly held information, such as that often found in databases. These extensions are important, we argue, because communication public goods operate differently from traditional material public goods. These differences have important implications for costs, benefits, and the realization of a critical mass of users that i s necessary for realization of the good. We also explore multifunctional goods that combine various features and hybrid goods that link private goods to public ones. We examine the applicability of two key assumptions of public goods theory to interactive communication systems. First, jointness of supply specifies that consumption of a public good does not diminish its availability to others. Second, impossibility of exclusion stipulates that all members of the public have access to the good. We conclude with suggestions for further theoretical development.

Public goods theories grapple with the age-old problem of how to induce collaborative problem solving and other forms of collective action among self-interested individuals, groups, or organizations, assuming, of course, that they share at least some common goals. When successful, such collective action generates so-called public goods, such as parks, roads, libraries, neighborhood brush removal for fire prevention, beach cleanups, or other organized collective goals. Inducing collective action for interorganizational efforts is also a formidable challenge, applied in such diverse arenas as the United Nations, business cartels, conglomera- tions of charitable organizations, the Japanese keiretsu, and health ser- vice provider networks.

Possibilities for collective action have expanded with recent advance- ments in information and communication technologies such as electronic mail, cellular telephones, and fax machines as well as the increased avail- ability, complexity, and linkages of database systems, electronic bulletin boards, and other public and private information forums. These new capabilities can, in certain contexts and with appropriate inducements, support electronic communities such as the City of Santa Monica’s Public

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Communication Theory

Six: One .

Janet Fulk Andrew Flanagin

Peter R. Monge Timothy Ryan

Michael k . Kalman

February 1996

Pages: pp. 60-87

Connective and Communal Public Goods in Interactive Communication Systems

This paper extends theories of public goods to interactive communication systems. Two key public communication goods are identified. Connectivity provides point-to-point communication, and communality links members through commonly held information, such as that often found in databases. These extensions are important, we argue, because communication public goods operate differently from traditional material public goods. These differences have important implications for costs, benefits, and the realization of a critical mass of users that i s necessary for realization of the good. We also explore multifunctional goods that combine various features and hybrid goods that link private goods to public ones. We examine the applicability of two key assumptions of public goods theory to interactive communication systems. First, jointness of supply specifies that consumption of a public good does not diminish its availability to others. Second, impossibility of exclusion stipulates that all members of the public have access to the good. We conclude with suggestions for further theoretical development.

Public goods theories grapple with the age-old problem of how to induce collaborative problem solving and other forms of collective action among self-interested individuals, groups, or organizations, assuming, of course, that they share at least some common goals. When successful, such collective action generates so-called public goods, such as parks, roads, libraries, neighborhood brush removal for fire prevention, beach cleanups, or other organized collective goals. Inducing collective action for interorganizational efforts is also a formidable challenge, applied in such diverse arenas as the United Nations, business cartels, conglomera- tions of charitable organizations, the Japanese keiretsu, and health ser- vice provider networks.

Possibilities for collective action have expanded with recent advance- ments in information and communication technologies such as electronic mail, cellular telephones, and fax machines as well as the increased avail- ability, complexity, and linkages of database systems, electronic bulletin boards, and other public and private information forums. These new capabilities can, in certain contexts and with appropriate inducements, support electronic communities such as the City of Santa Monica’s Public

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Many of you will realize that the term we use to describe our work is a concept defined by Janetand Peter and it’s difficult to overstate the importance of their work in the context of our group.

None of the founding members of the collective have PhD’s in communication.

And although none of us has worked with Janet or Peter directly, I think it’s not exaggeration tosay that the work our group is housed in communication departments, published in communi-cation journals, is producing a new generation of communication scholars, because of Janet andPeter. Not just this study, but their body of work.

We came to communication from sociology, organization science, and computing because thebest theoretical tools for understanding the organization of knowledge bases and online commu-nities are communication theories. And they are communication theories in large part becauseJanet and Peter were involved in much of the most important work.

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The path to the future of communication research wascreated by Janet and Peter.

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The path to the future of communication research wascreated by Janet and Peter.

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That’s observation 1:

The future of communication research—at least from themyopic view of our research group—isstudying of new forms of production of connection that are increasingly at the center of our livesand experience of the world.

And it’s a path blazed by Janet and Peter.

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This is a picture of the whiteboard in my lab at UW as it has been for the last year or so.

Kaylea Champion, a PhD student at UW explained that the were “three successive heuristics forgraduate school.”

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DYR

Do Your Research

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DYR is Do Your Research is reminder that one will be judged by one’s research output.

This is obviously a criteria by which Janet and Peter will do very well.

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ATOTI

Aslo True On The Internet

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Aslo True On The Internet

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ATOTI is “Also True On The Internet” and it’s cautionary acronym. It’s a thing not to do.

Understanding that things that are true offline are also true online has been an important partof Internet research. But we should aspire to go further beyond that, especially with severaldecades of such research behind us.

One of themost important features of Janet and Peter’s work about the Internet is that it is neverATOTI. And not only because quite a bit of was before the Internet was widespread.

Janet and Peter’s has used technology, and Internet-mediated communication, as opportunitiesto build new theory about organization in general. We aspire to follow their lead.

Page 11: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle · Title: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle Author: Benjamin Mako Hill makohill@uw.edu Created Date: 6/3/2019 10:48:29 PM

AAPMDITYA

As Always PeterMonge Did It TwentyYears Ago

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As Always PeterMonge Did It TwentyYears Ago

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AAPMDITYA is As Always Peter Monge Did It Twenty Years Ago.

For example, there was that time that we were struggling with framing hypotheses about dy-namic organizational processes... And then found a Peter published paper about it in 1990.

The third or fourth time this happened, somebody wrote it on the board to help short-circuit theprocess.

As Kaylea explained over chat last week (and I paraphrase) “When you’re stuck, don’t worry. Peterand Janet solved your problem for you when you kindergarten.”

Page 12: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle · Title: Presentation Title - Presentation Subtitle Author: Benjamin Mako Hill makohill@uw.edu Created Date: 6/3/2019 10:48:29 PM

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When we arrive in the future, Janet and Peter arewaiting for us.

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When we arrive in the future, Janet and Peter arewaiting for us.

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And so my second reflection is really a prediction:

When we arrive at the future of communication research—Janet and Peter are weirdly somehowalready there.