Media spaces are "electronic settings in which
groups of people
In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...
can work together, even when they are not present in the same
place
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own Municipality, municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road ...
and
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
. In a media space, people can create real-time
visual
The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the ...
and
acoustic environments that span physically separate areas. They can also control the recording, accessing and replaying of images and sounds from those environments."
Media Spaces were the subject of research during the mid- and late-1980s, led by Robert Stults and Steve Harrison, in the
Smalltalk
Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan Ka ...
group at
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
The research was carried out in the Design and Media Spaces Area of the Software Concepts Laboratory, as part of a larger inquiry into systems and media to support the social process of
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
.
The Media Space at Xerox PARC was implemented in laboratory sites in Palo Alto, California, and Portland, Oregon. These employed live and recorded audio and video, video and audio switching, networked workstations and servers, and inter-site network connection, in order to provide for a form of
telepresence
Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location.
Telepresence requires that the user ...
within offices and work areas at the two sites. Interactions among staff at the sites were conveyed in real time by video and audio, and by the networked workstations; and the interactions were recorded and played back, and digital indexes of the records were prototyped. The live and recorded interactions permitted communications among the connected spaces, as well as asynchronous participation. Recording and retrieval, integrated with persistent live connection, was a major distinguishing feature between Media Space and
videoconferencing
Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...
as it was understood at the time.
References
Further reading
* Aoki, et al., Media Spaces in the Mobile World, CSCW 2006.
* Beirne, et al., Issues in Deploying the Technology for a Media Space Field Study, University of Toronto, 1994.
* William Buxton, Space-Function Integration and Ubiquitous Media, Toronto, Canada 2005.
*
Steve Harrison, ed.
''Media Space: 20+ Years of Mediated Life'' London, Springer, 2009. DOI 10.1007/978-1-84882-483-6 ; eBook ; Hardcover ; Softcover
* Rachel Lori Kern, Monkey Business, Thesis for MS in Media Studies, MIT, Cambridge 2006.
* Marilyn M. Mantei, et al., Experiences in the Use of a Media Space, University of Toronto, Ontario 1991.
* Carman Neustaedter,
Steve Harrison, Tejinder Judge, eds (2012). ''Connecting Families: The Impact of New Communication Technologies on Domestic Life''. London: Springer CSCW book series.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4192-1_1; Online ; Print
*Nitin Sawhney, Situated Awareness Spaces, MIT Media Laboratory, October 2000.
* Konrad Tollmar, et al., VideoCafe, Stockholm, Sweden 1999
External links
VisAge Original current implementation of a Media Space.
User interface techniques
Collaborative software
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