Communication Research in the Design of Communication Interfaces and Systems

In order to reconquer the machine and subdue it to human putposes, one must first understand it and assimilate it. So far we have embraced the machine without fully understanding it. (Mumford, 1934, p. 334) In order to understand the phenomena surrounding a new technology, we must open the question of design-the interaction between under-standing and creation. (Winograd Flores, 1987, p. 4) Communication research seems forever ordained to consider and recon-sider the means of communication, the machinery with which we create meaning. In many ways, communication research is about how humans create techniques and technologies to turn each others thoughts into each others experiences. Lately, our attention has been drawn to the circuits, interfaces, and fiber-optic cables that increasingly bind our minds together into giant net-works-the giant sea of information and codified experiences recently dubbed cyberspace (Benedikt, 1992). The introduction of virtual reality technology spurs us to think once again about the relations between thought, the senses, and the machinery that facilitate communication ex-pression and distribution (e.g., Biocca, 1992aj Biocca Levy, in press). Before each new communication technology becomes an invisible part of our second nature, its novelty increases our awareness of how much communication is socially constructed (e.g., Biocca, 1987, 1988). As in The Wizard of Oz, the flutter of the curtain makes the human operator of the giant machinery of communication suddenly visible: He is us.