A4. Rice,
R.E. (1980). Impacts of organizational and interpersonal
computer-mediated communication. In M. Williams (Ed.), Annual
review of information science and technology,
15, 221-249. White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications.
With the emergence of computer-mediated
information processing and
communication,
strong prophecies have been voiced about their implications for
individual,
institutional, legal, economic, and cultural effects. Wild information
based
utopias, in which no one has to travel to work, are pitted against
nightmares
of corporate-controlled electronic surveillance and wholesale
extermination
of privacy. The extremes may be just that-possibilities but not
probabilities
given the forces in society.
This chapter reviews the effects of computer-mediated
communication and a few areas of particular interest to information
scientist, communication researchers, and policy makers -- i.e.,
information exchange and communication as mediated by organizational
information and word-processing systems and computer conferencing.
Empirical research may influence the likelihood of
some of the prophecies about the effects of computer mediated
communication and may indicate how easily varies technologies can be
redirected to fit chosen,
informed policies during these times of technological and institutional
change.
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