THEORETICAL MODEL OF MEDIATED SHARED SPACE FOR SUPPORTING INFORMAL INTERACTION AT A DISTANCE

Abstract

The focus of this study is on creating a mediated shared space for supporting natural informal interaction among geographically distributed people. This research argues that, a mediated setting is required for supporting the sense of co-presence and co-location which are the two aspects necessary to build up shared social context of informal interaction process. Therefore, a theoretical model of Mediated Shared Space using spatio-temporal approach is proposed. The model consists of three factors (continuously open, mutually shared, concurrently convergent) that characterize the function of the mediated setting in enabling informal interaction to occur throughout three stages of interaction (encounter, initiation and communication). Two instances of the model which support different degrees of co-presence and co-location were then implemented and tested. The results showed that the instance with a higher degree of co-presence and co-location achieved better context-awareness in the three stages of informal interaction as compared to another.