A Set of Categories for the Analysis of Small Group Interaction

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Wed,

Asking and sharing information in the blogosphere: The case of slimming blogs

“…For example, these issues included diet and problems faced in the slimming efforts. Thereafter, to study the nature of interaction in blogs, the category system of Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) developed by Robert F. Bales (1950) was employed in the coding. IPA was originally developed to examine problem solving discussion groups set up for research purposes in a laboratory setting.…”

“…Importantly, as demonstrated by Rice and Love (1987) and Schoch and White (1997), IPA can also be used in the study of interaction taking place in computer-mediated communication forums. Bales (1950) conceptualized the interaction process as an interplay of acts that in IPA are described by a theoretically grounded category system (Peräkylä, 2004, p. 2). IPA consists of 12 distinct acts.…”

“…21-22), it it important to explore the nature of such interactivity in greater detail. To this end, the present study makes use of Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) developed by Robert F. Bales (1950). As specified in section 5.2. below, IPA enables a detailed study of the acts constitutive of interaction in small groups in particular.…”

Multi-team Facilitation of Very Large-scale Distributed Meetings

“…Postings were coded into one of six categories (adapted from Bales Interaction Process Analysis (Bales, 1950). The results can be seen in Table 3.…”

Towards investigating the social dimensions of using locative media within the urban context

“…Accordingly, Thackara [27] talks about the 'Post-spectacular' city and Tuters [28] about a 'Locative Commons". Of course any answer to whether the public space, which has so much been bemoaned by urban theorists and sociologists as lost in the last decades 3 , can be truly restored by the use of locative media, cannot but remain purely speculative at the moment. Many years of thorough research are definitely needed to even approach an answer.…”