From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

In content analysis and similar methods, data are typically generated by trained human observers who record or transcribe textual, pictorial, or audible matter in terms suitable for analysis. Conclusions from such data can be trusted only after demonstrating their reliability. Unfortunately, the content analysis literature is full of proposals for so-called reliability coefficients, leaving investigators easily confused, not knowing which to choose. After describing the criteria for a good measure of reliability, we propose Krippendorff's alpha as the standard reliability measure. It is general in that it can be used regardless of the number of observers, levels of measurement, sample sizes, and presence or absence of missing data. To facilitate the adoption of this recommendation, we describe a freely available macro written for SPSS and SAS to calculate Krippendorff's alpha and illustrate its use with a simple example.

/pdf/answering-the-call-for-a-standard-reliability-measure-for-15yf50gc9e.pdf

Answering the Call for a Standard Reliability Measure for Coding Data

In a recent article in this journal, Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken (2002) surveyed 200 content analyses for their reporting of reliability tests, compared the virtues and drawbacks of five popular reliability measures, and proposed guidelines and standards for their use. Their discussion revealed that numerous misconceptions circulate in the content analysis literature regarding how these measures behave and can aid or deceive content analysts in their effort to ensure the reliability of their data. This article proposes three conditions for statistical measures to serve as indices of the reliability of data and examines the mathematical structure and the behavior of the five coefficients discussed by the authors, as well as two others. It compares common beliefs about these coefficients with what they actually do and concludes with alternative recommendations for testing reliability in content analysis and similar data-making efforts.

https://faculty.washington.edu/jwilker/559/Krippendorf.pdf

Reliability in Content Analysis: Some Common Misconceptions and Recommendations

Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes for such data. It involves standardizing the units of text on which coders work and then improving the coding scheme’s discriminant capability (i.e., reducing coding errors) to an acceptable point as indicated by measures of either intercoder reliability or intercoder agreement. This approach is especially useful for situations where a single knowledgeable coder will code all the transcripts once the coding scheme has been established. This approach can also be used with other types of qualitative data and in other circumstances.

Coding In-depth Semistructured Interviews Problems of Unitization and Intercoder Reliability and Agreement

Content analysis is a highly fl exible research method that has been widely used in library and information science (LIS) studies with varying research goals and objectives. The research method is applied in qualitative, quantitative, and sometimes mixed modes of research frameworks and employs a wide range of analytical techniques to generate fi ndings and put them into context. This article characterizes content analysis as a systematic, rigorous approach to analyzing documents obtained or generated in the course of research. It briefl y describes the steps involved in content analysis, differentiates between quantitative and qualitative content analysis, and shows that content analysis serves the purposes of both quantitative research and qualitative research. The authors draw on selected LIS studies that have used content analysis to illustrate the concepts addressed in the article. The article also serves as a gateway to methodological books and articles that provide more detail about aspects of content analysis discussed only briefl y in the article.

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/3670/WhiteMarch551.pdf?sequence=2

Content Analysis: A Flexible Methodology

As a method specifically intended for the study of messages, content analysis is fundamental to mass communication research. Intercoder reliability, more specifically termed intercoder agreement, is a measure of the extent to which independent judges make the same coding decisions in evaluating the characteristics of messages, and is at the heart of this method. Yet there are few standard and accessible guidelines available regarding the appropriate procedures to use to assess and report intercoder reliability, or software tools to calculate it. As a result, it seems likely that there is little consistency in how this critical element of content analysis is assessed and reported in published mass communication studies. Following a review of relevant concepts, indices, and tools, a content analysis of 200 studies utilizing content analysis published in the communication literature between 1994 and 1998 is used to characterize practices in the field. The results demonstrate that mass communication researchers often fail to assess (or at least report) intercoder reliability and often rely on percent agreement, an overly liberal index. Based on the review and these results, concrete guidelines are offered regarding procedures for assessment and reporting of this important aspect of content analysis.

/pdf/content-analysis-in-mass-communication-assessment-and-3l6g5t7rnd.pdf

Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability

Practical Resources for Assessing and Reporting Intercoder Reliability in Content Analysis Research Projects

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence. To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point-of-view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small screen (12 inches [30.5 cm], measured diagonally) or a large screen (46 inches [116.8 cm]). Participants' responses were measured via a questionnaire and a computer-based recording of arousal (electrodermal activity). Viewers of both televisions reported an enjoyable sense of physical movement, excitement, involvement, and a sense of participation. Furthermore, as predicted, participants who watched the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, experienced a greater sense of physical movement, enjoyed the movement to a greater extent, found the viewing experience more exciting, and were more physiologically aroused. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

/pdf/presence-and-television-the-role-of-screen-size-30j4ab3p87.pdf

Presence and Television: The Role of Screen Size.

This study examined the fear control/danger control responses that are predicted by the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM). In a campaign designed to inform college students about the symptoms and dangers of meningitis, participants were given either a high-threat/no-efficacy or high-efficacy/no-threat health risk message, thus testing the extreme assumptions of the EPPM. Although the study supports the main predictions of the EPPM in the context of meningitis, the results provide new evidence that only a marginal amount of threat is necessary in a health risk message to move the target audience toward the desired protective measures. In addition, the results also suggest that the messages containing only threat may only scare the target audience further into fear control. Implications and future research are discussed.

Testing the Theoretical Design of a Health Risk Message: Reexamining the Major Tenets of the Extended Parallel Process Model

Previous research has demonstrated that form variables can increase television viewers' sense of presence. The current broadcasting of high-definition television (HDTV) programming makes testing this relation between form and presence possible in a new context, image quality. In this experiment, television viewers watched either HDTV or standard-definition television images and then rated their viewing experience on a pencil-and-paper questionnaire. The results demonstrate that HDTV provided viewers with a greater sense of presence than the current standard, thus providing empirical evidence for the claim that improved image quality will lead to television viewers' experiencing presence. Additionally, the results suggest that with the coming of HDTV, sensations of presence will be both stronger and more common.

/pdf/presence-and-image-quality-the-case-of-high-definition-5a8a40fbdk.pdf

Cheryl Campanella Bracken

Papers

Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability

Practical Resources for Assessing and Reporting Intercoder Reliability in Content Analysis Research Projects

Presence and Television: The Role of Screen Size.

Testing the Theoretical Design of a Health Risk Message: Reexamining the Major Tenets of the Extended Parallel Process Model

Presence and Image Quality: The Case of High-Definition Television