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The Annenberg School at USC


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9(2) January 2004        Margaret McLaughlin and Sheizaf Rafaeli, Editors

    While some earlier research on avatars concluded that more anthropomorphic images are more engaging, interesting and attractive, the author reports that the features that lead to engagement and interest are more complicated than simply the extent to which an image is anthropomorphic. In this study, looking 'more human' did not make the partner more engaging or attractive.

    Virtual communities may be understood as operating within an emerging environmental form: virtual behavior settings, a construct which takes into account considerations of the distinctive qualities of time, place, and objects in CMC. Virtual behavior settings are examined in terms of the emergence and maintenance of setting programs, their participants, and their operation within physical behavior settings.
   Burnett's typology of information exchange in virtual communities attempts to provide a framework for examining the range of their activities. The typology is applied to two online health support groups. Revisions are proposed which reflect more accurately activities found within the communities. By providing a metric through which to address such questions, the revised typology will allow a richer understanding of virtual communities as social information environments.


An official publication of the International Communication Association
Susan Herring, Indiana University
Editor-Elect


    As more and more consumers spend more money on the Internet, traditional retailers and manufacturers as well as entrepreneurial dot-coms are jousting to explore and shape this new business opportunity. Their long-term survival and profitability may be determined by how well the Web site helps form and sustain positive attitudes toward the site and utlimately toward the product or the company.

     The authors present a lifestyle-based approach for the delivery of personalized advertisements in digital interactive television. Results from an empirical validation provide evidence for the effectiveness and usefulness of the approach when compared with machine learning algorithms and user modeling evaluation methodologies, as well as traditional marketing targeting practices.