Backchannel

This article is about backchannels in conferencing and information technology. For unofficial diplomacy, see Track II diplomacy. For other uses, see Backchannel (disambiguation).

Backchannel is the use of networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks. The term was coined from the linguistics term to describe listeners' behaviours during verbal communication.

The term "backchannel" generally refers to online conversation about the conference topic or speaker. Occasionally backchannel provides audience members a chance to fact-check the presentation.

First growing in popularity at technology conferences, backchannel is increasingly a factor in education where WiFi connections and laptop computers allow participants to use ordinary chat like IRC[1][2] or AIM to actively communicate during presentation. More recent research include works where the backchannel is brought publicly visible, such as the ClassCommons,[3] backchan.nl[4] and Fragmented Social Mirror.[5]

Twitter is also widely used today by audiences to create backchannels during broadcasting of content or at conferences. For example, television drama,[6] other forms of entertainment [7] and magazine programs.[8][9] This practice is often also called live tweeting. Many conferences nowadays also have a hashtag that can be used by the participants to share notes and experiences; furthermore such hashtags can be user generated.

  1. ^ McCarthy, Joseph F., and Danah Boyd. 2005. "Digital Backchannels in Shared Physical Spaces." In CHI ’05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '05, 1641–1644. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1056808.1056986
  2. ^ Yardi, Sarita. 2006. "The Role of the Backchannel in Collaborative Learning Environments." In Proceeding ICLS ’06 Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences, 852–858. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1150034.1150158.
  3. ^ Du, Honglu, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M. Carroll. 2012. "Augmenting Classroom Participation through Public Digital Backchannels." In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication - SIGDOC ’12, 127. doi:10.1145/2389176.2389201
  4. ^ Harry, Drew, Joshua Green, and Judith Donath. 2009. "Backchan.nl." In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 09, 1361–1370. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1518701.1518907
  5. ^ Bergstrom, Tony, Andrew Harris, and Karrie Karahalios. 2011. "Encouraging Initiative in the Classroom with Anonymous Feedback." In Proceeding INTERACT’11 Proceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 627–642. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2042053.2042116.
  6. ^ McPherson, K.; K Huotari; Yo-Shang Cheng; David Humphrey; Coye Cheshire; and Andrew Brooks. 2012. "Glitter: A Mixed-Methods Study of Twitter Use during Glee Broadcasts." In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Companion, 167–170. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2141569
  7. ^ Highfield, Tim; Harrington, Stephen; Bruns, Axel; Industries Precinct, Creative; Ave, Musk; Industries, Creative; Grove, Kelvin (2013). "Twitter as a Technology for Audiencing and Fandom" (PDF). Information, Communication & Society. 16 (3): 315–339. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2012.756053. S2CID 27959441.
  8. ^ Hawthorne, J.; Houston, J. B.; McKinney, M. S. (2013). "Live-Tweeting a Presidential Primary Debate: Exploring New Political Conversations". Social Science Computer Review. 31 (5): 552–562. doi:10.1177/0894439313490643. S2CID 62631987.
  9. ^ Larsson, Anders Olof (2013). "Tweeting the Viewer—Use of Twitter in a Talk Show Context". Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 57 (2): 135–152. doi:10.1080/08838151.2013.787081. hdl:10852/41499. S2CID 53575629.