Comm. type

Definition

Example

OVC

Media

Substrate for information and communication.

Printed matter, film, radio, television, telephone, CD-ROM, the Internet (computers plus telecommunications)

Online: video, text, internet link/navigation

Perceptive modality

Meaning implied by the reception of information

Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. Kinesthesia

Sight, sound

Language

Type of representation

Spoken languages, music, photographs, drawings, animation, symbols, dance

Speech (spoken language), text, video image, music,

Encoding

Method of recording and transmitting information

Analog, digital

Digital

Information System

Relationships among elements of information

Linearly structured messages (conventional text, music film), networked messages (dictionaries, hyperdocuments), virtual worlds (information is the continuous space, the explorer or representative is immersed in this space), information streams

It is, essentially, a networked, virtual world in that there are many individuals conversing within a specific online page. That they are communicating via video and can experience this multimodality creates a certain virtual level and awareness of the other speaker(s).

The video structure is such that it could almost be consumed linearly, since it conversations are threaded and posts often/generally respond to a preceding one. However, such a post is not necessarily in response to the post immediately preceding it. Additionally, the addition of the in-timeline comments make a linear experience impossible, since the in-timeline comment creates a fork in the delivery, which one must chose to go down or not and perhaps come back to the other fork at some future point.

Communication System

Relationship among participants in a communication

One-to-many system in a hub-and-spoke arrangement (press, radio, television), one-to-one networked system (post office, telephone), many-to-many system in space (mailing lists and newsgroups, systems for learning or collaboration, multiparticipant virtual worlds, WWW)

In the classroom setting, it is a one-to-many system in that the instructor leads discussions and manages the site that houses the video files. However, once a conversation begins, the system quickly becomes a many-to-many setting with students each posting responses that take the conversation in new direction and also initiate new topics.