Overview of My Research

The major thrust of my program of research is based on a model of communication and information technologies that I have been fine-tuning for several years. What follows is a detailed summary of the Communication and Information Technology (CIT) Model.

Communication and Information Technology (CIT) Model

The Communication and Information Technology Model is a conceptual framework for organizing all communication and information technologies (CITs) along five basic dimensions that are argued to be common to all CITs. This model has its roots in an earlier model devised with the help of Leah Lievrouw (Lievrouw & Finn, 1990), and revised with the help of Derek Lane (Finn & Lane, 1998).

The five dimensions of the CIT Model must be examined within the context of the three types of interaction and the three stages of content (explained below). This approach views the channel as a physical and electronic system that determines a variety of the specific attributes of the communication and information it carries. Some of these attributes, such as those related to time and distance, are so commonly accepted as a part of particular CITs that we view them as "given," rather than attributes that vary across communication systems and situations.

The rationale for the CIT Model can be summarized as follows:

• All human communication takes place through a communication technology (though we often do not think of face to face as a "technology").
• Since the invention of the computer, modern electronic communication technologies have merged with information technologies to produce a variety of new channels, or modes of communication.
• Since much of the technology of communication systems and information systems has merged, and many of the functions of each have become blurred, the CIT Model is designed to encompass both communication technologies and information technologies, and their hybrids. Technology convergence has made it quite difficult and not very useful to distinguish between communication systems and information systems today. In addition, many transactions that were traditionally handled by human-to-human contact now involve only human-computer interaction. While interpersonal communication scholars typically do not consider these interactions to be "interpersonal communication," new technologies, as a field, has a different orientation. If we wish to claim (as many of us do) that colleges of communication and information studies, such as ours, are best qualified to tackle the brave new world of late-Twentieth Century telecommunication, we need models that can account for the convergence of communication and information.
• Most communication scholars today ignore "channel" in favor of relational or contextual variables. In this era when constructivism is in vogue, this is a model unabashedly focused on what James Carey referred to as the transmission view of communication rather than the ritual view. While the social context is clearly an important determinant of communication effects (the constructivist focus), we believe that researchers in "new technologies" still have important work to do in uncovering patterns and commonalties in human communication across a variety of technologies and situations.

For the reader interested in additional technical background to this model, based on the capabilities of systems, it should be noted that there are at least Ten Technical Attributes common to all CITs (click the link for a detailed description of each):

1. Type of content
2. Directionality
3. Degree of non-simultaneity
4. Type of conduit
5. Analog/digital representation
6. Number of access points
7. Type of connection
8. Bandwidth
9. Storage
10. User Interface

There are three components to the CIT Model.

The Three Types of Interaction. Most electronic CITs involve interaction with a machine before one can simulate interaction with another person; in fact, there are three types of interaction to be considered:

• Human-human interaction
• Human-computer interaction
• Computer-computer interaction

The Three Stages of Content. Recent technologies featuring non-simultaneous communication highlight the need to examine content at its three different stages:

• Content creation
• Content presentation
• Content preservation

The Five Dimensions of CITs. All CITs share five basic dimensions. The first three are based primarily on the technical attributes of systems. The last two are second-order dimensions, derived from the first three.

1. Temporality

• The degree of non-simultaneity
• Timed vs. untimed communication

2. Space

• Distance
• Interpersonal distance
• Large assembly distance
• Telecommunications distance
• Physical environment & user interface
• Ergonomic issues
• Input/output devices
• Navigation & user interface issues

3. Capacity

• Type of content
• Volume of content
• Flexibility of handling content
• Fidelity of content

The first three dimensions are directly concerned with basic attributes of the technology. The next two are essentially "higher-order" dimensions, derived from the first three.

4. Interactivity

• In its simplest form, interactivity is the rate of exchange of content. There are two type of interactivity in human communication:
• Human to human interactivity
• Human to computer interactivity
• In addition, interactivity can vary across the three stages of content:
• Content creation
• Content presentation
• Content preservation

5. Control

• Sender/receiver ratio in:
• Content creation
• Content presentation
• Content preservation

The CIT Model makes several useful contributions to the discussion of channel.

1. After years of relative neglect, the importance of "channel" as a communication variable is addressed in this model. Not in the sweeping, technological-deterministic, tradition of Innis and McLuhan, but at a micro level of analysis
2. The dimensions of temporality, space, and capacity provide a framework that is expected to account for much of the variance in technology choice and use
3. The dimensions of control and interactivity are essentially "second-order" dimensions, since 1) they follow directly from the first three more "technical" dimensions, and 2) on the human communication side, they are often studied as communication process variables
4. The communication system is literally a part of the social context (in much of the literature on "new technologies" it is typically viewed as a source of variance, but outside the social context)

There are several useful research applications for this model, including:

1. In-depth examination of particular CITs, to determine what types of human communication and what types of information processing are facilitated or constrained by the design of the technology
2. Uncovering similarities and differences among any existing or proposed CITs
3. Use in conjunction with existing conceptualizations of human communication (such as communication competence), to assist in clarifying issues as researchers work to extend these concepts beyond their original boundary conditions to additional CITs

References

Finn, T. A. & Lane, D. R. (1998). A conceptual framework for organizing communication and information systems. Paper to be presented at the International Communication Association Conference, Jerusalem, July. (Selected as a "Top Four" paper in the Communication and Technology Division.)

Lievrouw, L. and Finn, T. A. (1990). Identifying the common dimensions of communication: The communications systems model. In B. Ruben & L. Lievrouw (Eds.), Mediation, information and communication: Information and behavior, Vol. 3, 37-65, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Other publications and presentations.