From CASA to TIME: Machine as a source of media effects

Historically, research on social and psychological effects of communication, be it mass communication or interpersonal communication, has focused on messages rather than the medium of communication. The attributed source of these messages has always been one or more human beings, labeled variously as senders or communicators. Around the turn of the century, when much of our communication began to be mediated by computers and related smart technologies, we started orienting to these machines as sources (Sundar & Nass, 2000). We exhibited social responses to them, much like we do with other human beings (Nass & Moon, 2000). As a result, the medium of communication became the source of communication, leading to a groundswell of human–computer interaction (HCI) research on the psychological effects of a wide range of computer-based technologies, such as mobile phones, robots, and conversational agents. As this research matured, attention turned toward specific attributes of these media technologies, and new theoretical frameworks were proposed to guide empirical research on the role of technological affordances in shaping users’ cognitions, emotions, and actions (Sundar & Oh, 2019).

A new subdiscipline called “human machine communication” or HMC (Guzman, 2018) was proposed, with a deliberate focus on the communicative aspects of technological sources, ranging from information transmission to meaning-making. Given the increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) in the past decade, scholars came to view communication technologies as being more autonomous and capable of communicating rather than merely interacting. Emergent AI-based media devices such as smart speakers, with their unique affordances, came to be seen as qualitatively different communicators than simply imitators of human communicators (Guzman & Lewis, 2020). However, their superior ability to personalize communications, often by invading one's privacy, led some to worry that the notion of machines as sources may have gone too far, raising concerns about machine agency undermining human autonomy (Sundar, 2020). The future trajectory of scholarship in this area is one that promises to interrogate this emerging tension between machine agency and human agency, as machines become the default sources of communication.

We begin by reviewing classic studies under the CASA (Computers Are Social Actors) paradigm, which demonstrated that individuals apply social rules of human–human interaction to human–computer interaction. Building on this, we discuss computer-as-source studies following the object-centered view of technology, address their critical limitations, and briefly introduce the variable-centered approach. In the next two sections, we will highlight theoretical models and studies focused on unpacking computer-based media into affordances, such as interactivity, and examine their attitudinal and behavioral effects. This line of research shows that technological affordances serve as the source of media effects via different psychological mechanisms. The chapter will conclude by articulating how the affordances of emergent AI-based media serve to make machines overly agentic, and present our latest theoretical framework on human–AI interaction (HAII-TIME) as emblematic of the future trajectory of inquiry by scholars in this area of research. Taken together, the extension of computer-as-source studies in terms of a focus on communicative affordances and recognition of the autonomous nature of AI-based media lay the theoretical foundation for HMC research on machines as sources of psychological effects.

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Work Title From CASA to TIME: Machine as a source of media effects
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. S. Shyam Sundar
  2. J Chen
Keyword
  1. computers
  2. human-computer interaction
  3. media effects
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Part Of Book
Publisher
  1. The SAGE Handbook of Human--Machine Communication
Publication Date 2023
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529782783.n9
Deposited October 14, 2024

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  • Added Guzman_et_al_Chapter_7_Styled_edited_cleaned.pdf
  • Added Creator S. Shyam Sundar
  • Added Creator J Chen
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  • Updated
  • Updated Description Show Changes
    Description
    • Historically, research on social and psychological effects of communication, be it mass communication or interpersonal communication, has focused on messages rather than the medium of communication. The attributed source of these messages has always been one or more human beings, labeled variously as senders and communicators. A vast literature in social psychology and communication has documented that these sources determine how receivers of communications are affected by messages. This is because we all have a natural tendency to orient toward the source when processing a message. Around the turn of the century, when much of our communication began to be mediated by computers and related smart technologies, we started orienting to these machines as sources. We exhibited social responses to them, much like we do with other human beings. As a result, the medium of communication became the source of communication, leading to a groundswell of research on psychological effects of a wide range of computer-based technologies, such as mobile phones, robots and conversational agents. As this research matured, attention turned toward specific attributes of these media technologies, and how they influenced the social and psychological responses of users. Affordances such as interactivity were identified as being important for promoting the perception of machines as sources. New theoretical frameworks were proposed to guide empirical research on the role of affordances in shaping users’ cognitions, emotions and actions. As communication technologies advanced rapidly in the first two decades of this century with the increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI), scholars began to worry that the notion of machines as sources may have gone too far, raising concerns about machine agency undermining human autonomy. The future trajectory of scholarship in this area is one that promises to interrogate this emerging tension between machine agency and human agency, as machines become the default sources of communication.
    • Historically, research on social and psychological effects of communication, be it mass communication or interpersonal communication, has focused on messages rather than the medium of communication. The attributed source of these messages has always been one or more human beings, labeled variously as senders and communicators. A vast literature in social psychology and communication has documented that these sources determine how receivers of communications are affected by messages. This is because we all have a natural tendency to orient toward the source when processing a message. Around the turn of the century, when much of our communication began to be mediated by computers and related smart technologies, we started orienting to these machines as sources. We exhibited social responses to them, much like we do with other human beings. As a result, the medium of communication became the source of communication, leading to a groundswell of research on psychological effects of a wide range of computer-based technologies, such as mobile phones, robots and conversational agents. As this research matured, attention turned toward specific attributes of these media technologies, and how they influenced the social and psychological responses of users. Affordances such as interactivity were identified as being important for promoting the perception of machines as sources. New theoretical frameworks were proposed to guide empirical research on the role of affordances in shaping users’ cognitions, emotions and actions.
    • As communication technologies advanced rapidly in the first two decades of this century with the increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI), scholars began to worry that the notion of machines as sources may have gone too far, raising concerns about machine agency undermining human autonomy. The future trajectory of scholarship in this area is one that promises to interrogate this emerging tension between machine agency and human agency, as machines become the default sources of communication.
    • The chapter will start by reviewing classic studies under the CASA (Computers Are Social Actors) paradigm, which demonstrated that individuals apply social rules of human-human interaction to human-computer interaction. In exploring the mechanism of this socialness in human responses, it will introduce the concept of source orientation. Building on this, we will discuss computer-as-source studies following the object-centered view of technology, address their critical limitations, and briefly introduce the variable-centered approach. In the next two sections, we will highlight theoretical models and studies focused on unpacking computer-based media into affordances such as interactivity, and examine their attitudinal and behavioral effects. This line of research shows that technological affordances serve as the source of media effects via different psychological mechanisms. The chapter will conclude by articulating how the affordances of emergent AI-based media serve to make machines overly agentic, and present our latest theoretical framework on human-AI interaction (HAII-TIME) as emblematic of the future trajectory of inquiry by scholars in this area of research.
  • Updated Keyword, Publisher Identifier (DOI), Publication Date Show Changes
    Keyword
    • computers, human-computer interaction, media effects
    Publisher Identifier (DOI)
    • https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529782783.n9
    Publication Date
    • 2023-01-01
    • 2023
  • Updated Description Show Changes
    Description
    • Historically, research on social and psychological effects of communication, be it mass communication or interpersonal communication, has focused on messages rather than the medium of communication. The attributed source of these messages has always been one or more human beings, labeled variously as senders and communicators. A vast literature in social psychology and communication has documented that these sources determine how receivers of communications are affected by messages. This is because we all have a natural tendency to orient toward the source when processing a message. Around the turn of the century, when much of our communication began to be mediated by computers and related smart technologies, we started orienting to these machines as sources. We exhibited social responses to them, much like we do with other human beings. As a result, the medium of communication became the source of communication, leading to a groundswell of research on psychological effects of a wide range of computer-based technologies, such as mobile phones, robots and conversational agents. As this research matured, attention turned toward specific attributes of these media technologies, and how they influenced the social and psychological responses of users. Affordances such as interactivity were identified as being important for promoting the perception of machines as sources. New theoretical frameworks were proposed to guide empirical research on the role of affordances in shaping users’ cognitions, emotions and actions.
    • Historically, research on social and psychological effects of communication, be it mass communication or interpersonal communication, has focused on messages rather than the medium of communication. The attributed source of these messages has always been one or more human beings, labeled variously as senders or communicators. Around the turn of the century, when much of our communication began to be mediated by computers and related smart technologies, we started orienting to these machines as sources (Sundar & Nass, 2000). We exhibited social responses to them, much like we do with other human beings (Nass & Moon, 2000). As a result, the medium of communication became the source of communication, leading to a groundswell of human–computer interaction (HCI) research on the psychological effects of a wide range of computer-based technologies, such as mobile phones, robots, and conversational agents. As this research matured, attention turned toward specific attributes of these media technologies, and new theoretical frameworks were proposed to guide empirical research on the role of technological affordances in shaping users’ cognitions, emotions, and actions (Sundar & Oh, 2019).
    • As communication technologies advanced rapidly in the first two decades of this century with the increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI), scholars began to worry that the notion of machines as sources may have gone too far, raising concerns about machine agency undermining human autonomy. The future trajectory of scholarship in this area is one that promises to interrogate this emerging tension between machine agency and human agency, as machines become the default sources of communication.
    • A new subdiscipline called “human machine communication” or HMC (Guzman, 2018) was proposed, with a deliberate focus on the communicative aspects of technological sources, ranging from information transmission to meaning-making. Given the increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) in the past decade, scholars came to view communication technologies as being more autonomous and capable of communicating rather than merely interacting. Emergent AI-based media devices such as smart speakers, with their unique affordances, came to be seen as qualitatively different communicators than simply imitators of human communicators (Guzman & Lewis, 2020). However, their superior ability to personalize communications, often by invading one's privacy, led some to worry that the notion of machines as sources may have gone too far, raising concerns about machine agency undermining human autonomy (Sundar, 2020). The future trajectory of scholarship in this area is one that promises to interrogate this emerging tension between machine agency and human agency, as machines become the default sources of communication.
    • The chapter will start by reviewing classic studies under the CASA (Computers Are Social Actors) paradigm, which demonstrated that individuals apply social rules of human-human interaction to human-computer interaction. In exploring the mechanism of this socialness in human responses, it will introduce the concept of source orientation. Building on this, we will discuss computer-as-source studies following the object-centered view of technology, address their critical limitations, and briefly introduce the variable-centered approach. In the next two sections, we will highlight theoretical models and studies focused on unpacking computer-based media into affordances such as interactivity, and examine their attitudinal and behavioral effects. This line of research shows that technological affordances serve as the source of media effects via different psychological mechanisms. The chapter will conclude by articulating how the affordances of emergent AI-based media serve to make machines overly agentic, and present our latest theoretical framework on human-AI interaction (HAII-TIME) as emblematic of the future trajectory of inquiry by scholars in this area of research.
    • We begin by reviewing classic studies under the CASA (Computers Are Social Actors) paradigm, which demonstrated that individuals apply social rules of humanhuman interaction to humancomputer interaction. Building on this, we discuss computer-as-source studies following the object-centered view of technology, address their critical limitations, and briefly introduce the variable-centered approach. In the next two sections, we will highlight theoretical models and studies focused on unpacking computer-based media into affordances, such as interactivity, and examine their attitudinal and behavioral effects. This line of research shows that technological affordances serve as the source of media effects via different psychological mechanisms. The chapter will conclude by articulating how the affordances of emergent AI-based media serve to make machines overly agentic, and present our latest theoretical framework on humanAI interaction (HAII-TIME) as emblematic of the future trajectory of inquiry by scholars in this area of research. Taken together, the extension of computer-as-source studies in terms of a focus on communicative affordances and recognition of the autonomous nature of AI-based media lay the theoretical foundation for HMC research on machines as sources of psychological effects.