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The German theorist Jürgen Habermas has proposed models of communicative theory that have been applied by critical social theorists to a variety of empirical and historical topics.[2] In that mode, an argument is made here that critical theory, as represented by the works of Habermas and his contemporaries, can be used to better understand the medium of CMC, and the patterns of interaction that have been observed in that medium. From this understanding, more effective participation in the design of the communication system interfaces can result.
I begin by examining recent research and commentary on the effects of CMC on social and organizational interaction. I then outline the major aspects of Habermas's theories of ideal speech situations, discourse, and systematic distortion of communication. I go on to examine some other applications of Habermas's work to technological changes and communication media, and, in turn, apply these ideas to the medium of CMC. Finally, I examine some implications of this work for the development of these information systems.
In their recent book Connections, Sproull and Kiesler (1991) summarize the results of several years of research in this field. They point out although the rationale for implementing CMC systems in organizations is generally to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and that research has thus focused on these aspects, there are significant social effects that occur as a result of that implementation:
The consequences of new technology can be usefully thought of as first-level, or efficiency, effects and second-level, or social system, effects. The history of previous technologies demonstrates that early in the life of a new technology, people are likely to emphasize the efficiency effects and underestimate or overlook potential social system effects. Advances in networking technologies now make it possible to think of people, as well as databases and processors, as resources on a network. (p. 15)It is this role of people "on the network" that provides the most fertile ground for exploration from a critical perspective. They go on to note that "When technological change creates new social situations, traditional expectations and norms lose their power. " (p. 39) However, they fail to explicitly note that the reverse may also be true; that these new expectations and norms may in turn change the technology itself. (Ironically, several of their examples illustrate this very point.)
Sproull and Kiesler place a great deal of emphasis on two characteristics of most CMC: the "plain text" appearance of the messages, which has forced participants to convey non-verbal content in new ways; and the perceived ephemerality of the messages. This theme is echoed in Zuboff (1988). In her consideration of CMC, Zuboff looks also at "orality" vs. electronic "textuality." She notes that orality is by nature not "on the record," while CMC--which can be printed, forwarded, and otherwise manipulated-- is by its very nature always on the record. This contrast is especially important in the informal communication taking place within an organization. In one of her examples, Zuboff describes the implementation of a computer conferencing system at a pharmaceutical company. This system evolved from its original and intended role as a research support tool, to new social milieu with substantial informal participation, and finally to a perceived threat by management:
The social exchanges that surround professional work help constitute an oral culture; they vanish without a trace when the coffee break is over, when a group rises from the lunch table, when people part in the hallway, when the telephone receiver is replaced on its hook, when the meeting room empties. Computer conferencing transformed this transient talk into a concrete presence. It was as if the ether of sociality that once filled the hallways had suddenly congealed. Now there were printouts that could be touched, carried about, and carefully examined. Through participation in DIALOG [a corporate text-based conferencing system], a great deal of the sociality that infuses professional exchanged was committed to text and so made concrete and visible in a wholly new way. (p. 376)Although in many of her examples Zuboff describes a reflexive process in which the employees modify the system to meet their needs while at the same time modifying their behavior to compensate for the effects of the system, she does not directly acknowledge the existence of this bi-directional communication.
Myers (1987) examined the CMC taking place over an electronic bulletin board system. Introducing his research findings, he says that in this medium, "meanings are continuously negotiated through symbolic interaction. Such an interactionist perspective has seemed out of place in one way mass communication systems, but finds new life in heavily interactive, computer based media." (p. 251). Although his conclusions were drawn from an intact, self-selected group, and therefore cannot necessarily be generalized to other forms of CMC, his work is one of the first to directly address the role of the participants in shaping their communication environment.
The "interactionist perspective" described by Myers calls to mind the ideas of critical theory today; the hermeneutic approach to understanding social structures and activities, and the acknowledgment of the individual participant's role in influencing those structure and activities.
The field of critical theory--which originated with the scholars of the Frankfurt school, and has recently been recast by Jürgen Habermas and his contemporaries--has been concerned with both interpreting and influencing the development of social and political institutions. To this end, theorists in this field have sought to define those characteristics which would ensure a free and just--and, in the case of Habermas, more rational--society (Held, 1980).
Very little attention has been paid to the potential role of CMC in shaping our political and social institutions. As noted above, most research has focused on the effects of the medium upon smaller groups and organizations. Even these studies, however, hint at the larger potential. Take, for example, this passage from Sproull and Kiesler (1991):
Predicting the potential consequences of any new technology is an extremely complex problem. Simply forecasting the direct costs of new technology can be hard, and that is the easiest step. Understanding how that technology will lead to long-term changes in how people work, treat one another, and structure their organizations is harder still. (p. 1)What is left out of this model is a consideration of how people can, in turn, effect "long-term changes" in that same technology. It is here that critical theory can be used to provide a new perspective. The majority of research in CMC has presented a clearly deterministic view of the role of technology in influencing communicative patterns. Even when the evidence suggested that the process was bi-directional, the conclusions have been drawn only from the computer => participant perspective. This view is beginning to be challenged in works that address the impact of technology on society, although the majority these works still address the role of CMC only tangentially.
Meyerowitz (1985), although he touches only briefly upon CMC toward the end of his book, is one of the first authors to directly address these points. Saying "The effects of the computer on group identity, socialization, and hierarchy are not unidirectional" (p. 323), he examines the ways in which information systems can be influenced by their users, as well as the effects upon the users. In the following passage, he clearly rejects the more deterministic model of CMC put forth by other researchers:
Individuals behaving in physical or mediated environments still have a wide range of behavioral choices within the overall constraints. . . . On a group level, the situation is even less deterministic. For we design and use our rooms, buildings, media, rituals, and other social environments. We can redesign them, abandon them, or alter their use.
Ultimately, then, the most deterministic perspective may be unwittingly embraced by those who refuse to apply our greatest freedom--human reason and analysis-- to the social factors that influence behavior. We do not retain free-choice simply because we refuse to see and study those things that constrain our actions. Indeed, we often give up the potential of additional freedom to control our lives by choosing not to see how the environments we shape can, in turn, work to reshape us." (p. 329)
Haraway (1991) also addresses the issue of technological determinism, focusing on the importance of communication, and the role of technology in facilitating that communication. She suggests the potential use of political and social theory to both analyze and influence the role of technology in determining power structures:
I used the odd circumlocution, `the social relations of science and technology', to indicate that we are not dealing with a technological determinism, but with a historical system depending upon structured relations among people. But the phrase should also indicate that science and technology provide fresh sources of power, that we need fresh sources of analysis and political action (Latour, 1984). Some of the rearrangements of race, sex, and class rooted in high-tech-facilitated social relations can make socialist-feminism more relevant to effective progressive politics. (p. 165)
In his recent works, Habermas has proposed a model of communicative action--defined as action aimed at reaching understanding (Habermas, 1979)--that presumes four "validity claims" have been met: comprehensibility, sincere intent, true content, and normative correctness (appropriateness). When these claims are challenged, an "ideal speech situation" that encourages discourse ensues. When claims are not challenged, ideology--defined as unexamined assumptions--ensues. A critical aspect of the ideal speech situation, as defined by Habermas, is that participants be fully open about intentions, motives, including attitudes, feelings, and needs. In addition, there must be freedom to challenge any of the four validity claims (White, 1988). The potential for discourse (as defined by Habermas) in the environment of CMC is excellent; however, as is noted later in this paper, this potential is often threatened by technocratic ideologues.
Specifically, White (1988) defines Habermas ideal speech situation as meeting the following criteria:
1) "Each subject who is capable of speech and action is allowed to participate in discourses."
2) a) "Each is allowed to call into question any proposal."
b) "Each is allowed to introduce any proposal into the discourse."
c) "Each is allowed to express his attitudes, wishes, and needs."
3) "No speaker ought to be hindered by compulsion--whether arising from inside the discourse or outside of it--from making use of the rights secured under [1 and 2]."
There is the widespread perception of a "free and open discussion of ideas" among "more intelligent and well educated" telecomputerists with the BBS community. Whether or not this community actually exists is less important than the widespread belief that it does exist. Much of the communication activity within BBS is based on and can be explained by a belief in an ideal context (p. 257).In fact, an organization has been founded specifically to defend the rights to this "ideal context" of free speech in computer-mediated communication. This organization, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, states that its mission is "to civilize the electronic frontier; to make it useful and beneficial not just to a technical elite, but to everyone; and to do this in keeping with our society's highest traditions of the free and open flow of information and communication. (EFF, 1992)
The question to be resolved, then, is whether CMC currently provides an environment satisfying these conditions of an ideal speech situation. And if it does not, is it possible for participants to reshape the medium in order to foster discourse (as defined by Habermas)?
It is possible to argue that no environment, computer-mediated or otherwise, is capable of supporting Habermas' extremely rationalized idea of the ideal speech situation. But, as Thomas McCarthy points out in his introduction to Habermas's Legitimation Crisis (1973), the fact that the ideal is unachievable does not invalidate the concept as a guide for improving and critiquing the quality of discourse.[3]
Although there appears to be a belief among the users of CMC systems that the medium lends itself to democratization of the communication process[4], and a nearly ideal speech situation, this perception may not be entirely reliable. Current CMC systems tend to be used by a technically sophisticated elite, and are often not representative of the geographic or even intellectual community in which they exist (Myers, 1987; Rogers, 1992). In addition, there are both obvious and subtle controls over the interaction that can have a substantial effect upon the quality of discourse and the level of communicative distortion. In order to effectively identify and understand those controlling factors, it is useful to turn to other areas of social study in which critical theory has been successfully applied.
Forester (1985) has compiled a collection of essays applying critical theory (primarily the ideas put forth by Habermas) to various aspects of public life, ranging from the impact of "high technology" upon culture (Agger, 1985; Luke & White, 1985) to the role of the news media in representing information (Hallin, 1985). These contributors, although not commenting directly upon the role of CMC, provide useful models for a consideration of that medium.
In the Forester collection, Agger (1985) discusses the tendency of system managers and computer experts to exert control over--and, as a result, systematically distort--the content of discourse regarding technology. He also warns that the growing opportunity of less technically sophisticated individuals to use these technological tools provides its own trap. Describing what he calls the "dominant technocratic response to deindustrialization," he expresses a concern that sexual and political violence will be systematically reproduced in a technocratically controlled environment.
Current debates about the role of CMC, and about the design of interfaces to the communication systems, highlight some of the ways that scientific expertise can distort and suppress discourse in that medium. A recent exchange on the PACS-L conference (a computer conference for the discussion of automation in libraries[5]) highlighted this conflict. A message sent by someone representing the views of a scientific/technological elite contained the following text:
I sent the message referred to in this post because I am tired of people who have arrived in the land of the nets recently (like last summer) and seem to think nothing existed before them. . . .The following reply was provided by another conference participant:
As for complicated, //DD[6] is no more complicated than anything else if you follow the instructions. We have an online card catalog at our library and I have trouble using it because I don't use it often enough. Its [sic] all a matter of what you get used to doing.
I think it's unreasonable to say "You don't have the right to complain, since you haven't struggled with the system, and finally mastered it the hard way, the way I had to." (And although that may not be what Claudia meant, it's certainly the attitude that's conveyed.) I think we have a *lot* to learn from new users, and their reactions to the system as it stands. That's the best way to write documentation, or to design user interfaces.[7]This exchange spurred a larger debate among the conference participants about the "clash of cultures" occurring in the conference (and in other CMC forums on the Internet, a global collection of interconnected networks). This clash tends to pit technically sophisticated users who have "colonized" the network against less knowledgeable new users of the medium. One of the metaphors used is that of pioneers and settlers; the pioneers have "blazed the trail," and endured hardships in order to do, while the new settlers are more interested in creating a comfortable home than in braving dangers and overcoming obstacles. Often, the reaction of the former group to complaints of the latter is a desire to suppress the discussion of changes to the medium.
Agger's warnings seem applicable in the context of this debate. However, he views computing primarily in terms of what he terms "canned programs" and a "nondialogic relationship" (which he sees as exacerbated by the anthropomorphism and graphic "user-friendliness" of some interfaces). Notably, he also fails to acknowledge the role of computing networks in both increasing consumer power and rejecting the increasing distortion of the medium, through communication and communicative acts,.
One example of the role networks have played in increasing the power of consumers is illustrated by the controversy surrounding a product that Lotus Development Corporation planned to release in 1988. The product, a CD-ROM database entitled "Lotus Marketplace: Households" was to contain detailed demographic information on thousands of households across the United States. Although the information would ostensibly be searchable only by zip code, the potential for researching individual households using this tool was enormous. After the product was announced, but before it was released, a grass-roots movement of computer users concerned about this perceived intrusion on privacy began spreading information about the product and its potential effects. The information was circulated quickly, inexpensively, and efficiently, spreading across electronic bulletin board and conferencing systems by users who shared these concerns. The messages urged readers to contact Lotus directly to express their unhappiness with the product, and to request that their household information be deleted. As a result of the thousands of calls received, Lotus canceled introduction of the product.
It is examples such as the one described above that highlight the positive aspects of the potential of CMC. While the environment lends itself easily to distortion, it also lends itself to reflexive critique and empowerment of its users. Given that these choices exist, what are the implications for the ideas of discourse, distortion, and the ideal speech situation in the design of CMC systems?
Mr. Vidler's quarry, pursued with prestidigital skill, is not really architecture as structure, still less architecture as service, but architecture as image: a shadowy construct lodged in a conceptual limbo midway among esthetics, psychology, and linguistics. And all this is light years away from the physical realities of urban existence. . . .
The result dazzles and confuses. Unless architectural criticism can get its feet back on the terra firma of good building and plain speaking, we are faced with the prospect of an endless dialogue of the deaf. (p. 28)
Although CMC is clearly shaped in some ways by its participants, the character and level of that interaction is significantly affected by the interfaces between the user and the computer system. It is possible, through the manipulation of visual imagery, to substantially change the perceptions a computer user has of the CMC environment.
In the discipline of Computer Science, there has been a great deal of interest in a relatively new field--that of human-computer interaction (HCI). Researchers in this field are moving away from the technocratic viewpoints described by Agger[8]. One of the foremost authorities on user interface design, Ben Shneiderman, opens his book Designing the user interface: strategies for effective human-computer interaction (1992) with the following lines: "Frustration and anxiety are a part of daily life for many users of computerized information systems. They struggle to learn command language or menu selection systems that are supposed to help them do their jobs. Some people encounter such serious cases of computer shock, terminal terror, or network neurosis that they avoid using computerized systems." (Shneiderman, 1992, p. iii)
If the design of CMC systems leaves potential users feeling intimidated, they are unlikely to participate in a free-flowing discourse through that medium. The ideal speech situation cannot be achieved, because users are unable to freely participate in the discussion and express their ideas. That the compulsion results from poor design rather than a desire to suppress or shape discourse is irrelevant; in either case, discourse becomes distorted. It is therefore in the best interests of the users and of those who wish to foster that discourse to participate in the redesign of these interfaces, working toward a truly user-centered design.
As the field of HCI moves toward a new paradigm of user-centered (rather than system- or programmer-centered) design, there will be expanded opportunities for social theorists to participate in the development of interfaces to CMC systems. However, in order to be effective participants in that development, both designers and users of the system must have a thorough understanding of the effects of poor design on the quality of communication CMC provides. Further research must be done to analyze the effectiveness of current interfaces on the content and process of communication, and the results of this research must be incorporated into the design process, in order to ensure that CMC help rather than hinder the development of a better, more democratic and just communicative process.
Crook, J. M. (1992, October 11). Only disconnect [Review of The architectural uncanny ]. The New York Times Book Review , p. 28.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. (1992). Mission statement. Available via electronic file transfer over the Internet from ftp.eff.org.
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