Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Race is an important social identity particularly for understanding communication behaviors of minorities such as Blacks. Ethnic identity is a key moderator for facilitating self categorization at the race level and ingroup favoritism. Growing prevalence of digital virtual humans offers a new venue for comparative analysis of racial processes. Study 1 (N=53) first confirmed the moderating effects of ethnic identity, demonstrating ingroup favoritism among strong ethnic-identity Blacks but not among weak ethnic-identity Blacks. Study 2 (N=64), however, found both strong and weak ethnic identifiers exhibited ingroup favoritism to virtual Black versus White entities. The difference lies in dampened responses to the virtual White entity among weak ethnic identifiers. Prototypicality and ingroup bias are suggested as explanations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Previous work on human memory has shown that prompting subjects with false events and self-relevant information via narratives, mental imagery, and edited two dimensional images creates false memories. Using immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) this study examines how memory is affected by witnessing a dynamic simulation of an avatar bearing physical resemblance to oneself performing a novel action never performed by the physical self. Fifty-five pre-school and elementary children were randomly assigned to one of four memory prompt conditions (idle, mental imagery, IVET simulation of another child, or IVET simulation of self). Results showed that pre-school children were near ceiling and developed false memories regardless of condition. For elementary children the mental imagery and IVET self conditions caused significantly more false memories to emerge than the two control conditions. Implications are discussed regarding the use of digital media in the courtroom, clinical therapy settings, entertainment, and other applications.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Much of the popular media commentary overstates the extent to which computer games and cybercafes
isolate people from each other or promote violence. Internet games and cybercafes provide vehicles for
positive identity construction, as well as beneficial social skill and status development. While there are
limits to these benefits, these constraints may not necessarily originate from games or cybercafes but are
manifestations of more general social problems writ-large. The physical environment of the LAN centers
themselves are important factors in shaping the quantity and quality of the social interactions that take
place inside and outside the context of game-playing.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Organizational trends toward team-based structures, globalization, and reliance upon communication technology have spurred research that examines the communication processes of virtual teams. However, much of the extant research focuses more upon the ways virtual teams differ from other team forms--most often conventional, face to face teams--and neglects the possibility that virtual teams may have distinctive configurations of organizational members, varying structural characteristics, and diverse communication needs. This paper reports the analysis of data from two separate studies of virtual organizational teams. A first study (n = 121) reveals that virtual teams vary in terms of their use of communication media and the outcomes of team communication processes (identification, cohesiveness, trust, and satisfaction). A second study (n = 98) focuses within a diverse set of virtual teams emphasizing how differences in unique teams' communication considerations and structural features explain variation in media use and communication outcomes. Findings from these studies are then discussed in relation to existing organizational and group communication literature with a focus upon identifying implications for research and organizational application.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The Internet technology has increasingly required the ways of doing research into the use, interaction, and meaning-making in relation to the technology an emergent means of communication. In the efforts, there has been a rising interest in ethnographic research of the Internet as an alternative way to the systematic or quantitative methods, which enables us to achieve the understanding of the Internet uses and practices in the context of everyday life. This paper suggests directions for, as a new area of inquiry, ethnographic research of the Internet, based on the lessons from the development of ethnography in anthropology and related disciplines, and on a review of studies into the Internet under the title of “ethnography” or “ethnographic.” It argues that the recent efforts in related disciplines to innovate ethnographic methods in terms of its epistemological assumptions and fieldwork practices give much more useful guidelines for the directions of Internet ethnography than experiential or interpretive paradigms that media studies has been limited to. Therefore, Internet ethnography should reflect on the self-reflexive phase of the development of ethnography. In addition, even though Internet ethnography has to be flexible and strategic in order not to be limited any ideals and formulas, the quality of contextuality should not be lost in any attempts to develop methods suitable to the phenomenon under scrutiny. This paper suggests that as one of the ways to achieve it we need to develop methods that can take both online and offline contexts into consideration.