Visibility within Mediated Networks: An Exploration of Contextual Factors

Dwyer, C., Hilz, S., Visibility Within Mediated Networks: An Exploration of Contextual Factors, In Workshop on Mobile Social Software, CHI 2006.

This position paper focuses on the concept of visibility and how visibility management patterns translate to ubiquitous, location aware social networks. In face-to-face interactions, social context is shared implicitly, with little effort. In virtual settings, sharing must be explicit. Therefore understanding the dynamics of the contextual factors the influence an individual’s decision to be visible within a mediated network is critical.

Relation to my thesis: The tension between awareness (connectivity, location, …) and privacy is a source of uncertainty. Personal control of location data is crucial for building trust in the system. Related article on location disclosure include Location disclosure to social relations: why, when, & what people want to share and Control, Deception, and Communication: Evalutatin the Deployment of a Location-Enhanced Messaging Service.