CHI 2004 paper (pdf)

Thesis publication (pdf)

Anthropomorphic Visualization
Sociable Media Group

Researchers:		Judith Donath Ethan Perry
Project Web site:		http://smg.media.mit.edu/~ethanlp/research/AV_overview.htm
Group Web site:		http://smg.media.mit.edu/

This is a series of visualizations, called Anthropomorphs, that focus on newsgroup participants. The simulations improve our ability to understand who is participating in a particular newsgroup, and to compare one group to another.

While Usenet newsgroups contain a wide variety of participants and patterns of social interaction, this can be very difficult to glean from current newsreaders. The personalities of the posters and their previous patterns of participation are only discernible by reading through previous messages one-by-one. Creating a visual representation of the people and messages in this space can help to provide a sense of the social behaviors and conversational activity.

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