From: cyberoid@hitl.washington.edu (Bob Jacobson) Subject: Is the virtual worlds community being given short shrift by the Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1991 07:01:07 GMT Organization: HIT Lab, Seattle WA. This original post prompted the discussion with Professor Biocca that follows. I hope you will feel free to join in. >Topic 53: Resources: Books, Articles, Tapes, etc., about VR >#112: Howard Rheingold (hlr) Fri, Dec 13, '91 (14:12) 39 lines > > CALL FOR ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS > > The Journal of Communication and the University of North Carolina at > Chapel Hill are organizing an issue on Virtual Reality. The editor is > Dr. Frank Biocca, UNC: Bitnet: UNCFAB@UNC TEL: 919 962 1204 > > Submissions are requested for articles on the implications of virtual > reality technology for all forms of communication. > [Stuff deleted] > >DEADLINE: MARCH 15, 1992 And herein follows our debate... Date: Mon, 16 Dec 91 09:15 EST From: "Frank Biocca UNCFAB@UNC" To: cyberoid%milton.u.washington.edu-hlr@well.sf.ca.us Subject: More info on JCOMM special issue PLEASE POST Bob: I thank Howard for posting the Journal of Communication announcement, and I appreciate you picking it up. But, Bob, lighten up! Here's some further information, and another invitation to join the expanding discussion of VR and its potential. THE VR COMMUNITY IS GROWING As VR starts to leave the lab and diffuse into society, it becomes increasingly a psychological tool, a "mass" medium, and a social phenomenon. The community of scholars focusing on the social effects of VR is growing as the technology matures. Communication researchers have always been interested in the interaction of communication technology, psychological processes, and social processes. The Journal of Communication special issue will provide a forum for all reseachers who are interested in addressing these and other communication issues. Communication researchers, like many other research communities, will be joining computer scientists, educators, and psychologists in considering VR in light of what we have learned about other media and communication in general. DEADLINES AND THINKING ON PAPER The March 15 deadline reflects the academic publishing cycle. To get an issue to readers by the fall of 1992, we need to start deciding on articles in the late spring. I am sure there are many scholars who have given a great deal of thought to the topics covered by the issue - some are reading this note. I am sure that they are eager and capable of committing some of those thoughts and findings to paper, and providing an excellent contribution to the growing understanding of VR by March 15. I encourage you and all other scholars reading the nets to contribute their work and join the debate. All the best, Frank Biocca - Journal of Communication Director Center for Research in Journalism and Mass Communication University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill UNCFAB@UNC To: UNCFAB%UNC.BITNET@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu Subject: Re: More info on JCOMM special issue I guess I rile just a bit, Frank, at the suggestion that people on the nets should "join the debate." Where else is the debate occurring? Certainly not in our scholarly journals, unless one counts uninformed speculation as debate. As a former Journal of Communication reviewer, I'm familiar with the quality of the JOC and appreciate the opportunity to submit papers. I also am aware that decisions to dedicate journal issues to particular themes are made well in advance of three months prior to the issue deadline, and am perturbed that the bulk of people actually working in the field, as opposed to commentators on the margin, are getting only a slivver of time in which to make useful contributions. (In my own case, a relatively nonscholarly article on information design, for BYTE, is taking well over five months for the collec- tion of information, editing, reviewing, and reediting. Maybe one can condense the first two activities into only three months, but not all four.) What I'm suggesting is that the deadline be put back to a reason- able date, in order to permit our community of researchers to produce truly edifying contributions. Otherwise what you'll get is another collection of speculative essays. Personally, as a communication scholar and activist for the last 20 years, I think the questions you are posing in your call for papers are not on the money, so far as the real technology is concerned, but deal in a more conventional way with "media." You can substitute "media" for "VR" anywhere in the call and you will get the same questions that are asked on a perennial basis in the JOC of what- ever medium is au courant: TV, cable, computer communications... and now "VR." You should know that many of those working in the scientific domain of virtual worlds in fact do not call their work "virtual reality." This term is an artifact of popular culture, the popular press picking up on a hawker's phrase and making it contempo. That's an interesting query in its own right, but one that is negated by a call that does not recognize the problematic nature of the term, "virtual reality." So, my request for a moratorium is reciprocal, in that it might behoove the editors to spend a bit more time familiarizing themselves about the topic which they purport to understand. Is Marsha Siefert still master editing the JOC? Maybe she should be brought into our discussion, which can profitably hone consideration of the topic at hand. No, I'm not by any means upset that "VR" gets the limelight, only that the "VR" community is sort of being invited in late and after the fact, as if the contents of the discourse were unimportant to its analysis. Creeping Post-Modernism...! Thanks for engaging in this dialogue. Bob Jacobson HIT Lab, Seattle Yeah, so that's it for now. I'll let you know if there are further developments. How do you feel about being asked to "join in the expanding discussion of VR and its implications"? What are we doing right here, right now? Sheesh.