Presence in Mediated Instruction : Bandwidth , Behavior , and Expectancy Violations

This paper proposes an integrated model of the development of social presence in mediated communication whereby the level of intimacy in a mediated interaction is a function of the bandwidth and immediacy behaviors. In such a model, the affective reactions of users should be a joint function of the degree to which the combined effects of bandwidth and immediacy violate equilibrium, with respect to the reward valence of the communicator(s) involved. The paper reports on preliminary research that supports an equilibrium model with respect to bandwidth and immediacy behaviors and proposes research that would investigate equilibrium taking into consideration reward valence as well. Among the concerns facing distributed education using telecommunication media is the degree of presence or “personalness” that students at a distance experience. Whether through interaction with peers in constructivist group-based learning processes, through interactive web-based content delivery, or through video-mediated interaction, the degree to which students experience that almost intangible aspect of the traditional classroom—the presence of others—is often seen as a critical affective dimension that is requisite to effective learning. Presence has long been a central topic in the evaluation of telecommunication systems. Short, Williams, and Christie’s (1976) seminal work on this topic defined the construct as pertaining to the involvement, warmth, and immediacy that communicators experience during interaction that may be limited by the bandwidth, or cue-carrying capacity, of various telecommunication systems. While Short et al. (1976) focused on audioand video1 Presented at the ALN 2001 Conference, Orlando, FL, November, 2001 Presence in Mediated Interaction, p. 2 teleconferencing, the social presence construct has been imported into theorizing Internet-related communication systems as well (e.g. Rice & Case, 1983). Early research contended that presence is diminished by text-based computer-mediated communication, since it is devoid of the visual and vocalic cues that higher-bandwidth and faceto-face systems provide. Recent research has challenged this contention (e.g. Fulk, Schmitz, & Steinfield, 1990) or established its validity in certain specifiable conditions related to the longevity of online relationships (e.g. Walther, Slovacek, & Tidwell, 2001). A new approach to the presence/bandwidth question has been tendered in the idea of a medium’s “affective channel capacity” (Picard, 1997). Affective channel capacity is defined as how much affective or emotional information a channel lets through as compared to the total amount of information is passed. It may or may not be synonymous with bandwidth. Pointing a camera at a wall uses the bandwidth, but does not transmit any affective information. Among the challenges to the notion that bandwidth alone determines presence has been a growing recognition that the active behaviors of telecommunicators are quite amenable, and spontaneously adaptable, to the communication of such functions as may be referred to as presence. The Social Information Processing Theory of mediated communication (Walther, 1992) contends that even in strictly textual media such as email or computer conferencing, participants are able to acclimate to the restrictions of the media by adapting their language behavior to fulfill the functions of missing nonverbal cues in such ways as to build interpersonal impressions, build mental models of their colleagues, and develop relationships marked by affective exchange. While several mechanisms have been suggested to accomplish these functions, little research has concentrated on a theoretical specification of the interdependent roles of such variables as immediacy behaviors, bandwidth, equilibrium and communicator expectations and how these three dimensions interplay to predict students’ affective reactions. This research attempts to bring together principles from each of these domains, and develop a model of behavioral, technical, and cognitive/affective systems that interact in predictable ways in the production of student affect in distributed education settings. Bandwidth Bandwidth, while technically speaking refers to the speed and information-carrying capacity of an electronic conduit, has come to represent the number of communication cue systems that different media may carry. Low-bandwidth systems are restricted to digitally-encoded text alone, whereas higher bandwidth systems allow audio (voice). Even higher bandwidth may describe video or two-way video. While technically not correct, face-toface communication has the greatest “bandwidth” of all. According to social presence theory, the higher the bandwidth, the more the salience there is of another person involved in a conversation, and the greater the warmth, liking, and involvement of participants (Short et al., 1976). Social presence theory posits this relationship regardless of the content or other dynamics of communication episodes.