This volume represents the papers reviewed and accepted for the HOIT2007 conference held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the city of Chennai, India in August 2007. This volume addresses many of the major themes of current interest in the field, with a particular focus on community-based technologies. This comprehensive book is divided into five different sections reflecting the most up-to-date research on computers and society.

This volume represents the papers reviewed and accepted for the HOIT2007 conference held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the city of Chennai, India in August 2007. This volume addresses many of the major themes of current interest in the field, with a particular focus on community-based technologies. This comprehensive book is divided into five different sections reflecting the most up-to-date research on computers and society.

Technologies that electronically mediate conversation, such as text-based chat or desktop video conferencing, draw on theories of human human interaction to make predictions about the effects of design decisions. This lecture reviews the theory that has been most influential in this area: Clark's theory of language use. The key concept in Clark's theory is that of common ground. Language is viewed as a collaborative activity that uses existing common ground to develop further common ground and, hence, to communicate efficiently. The theory (a) defines different kinds of common ground, (b) formalizes the notion of collaborative activity as a "joint action," and (c) describes the processes by which common ground is developed through joint action. Chapter 1 explains why a purely cognitive model of communication is not enough and what is meant by the phrase "collaborative activity." Chapter 2 introduces the idea of common ground and how it is used in language through an example of two people conversing over a video link. Chapter 3 indicates where the interested reader can find out about the antecedents to Clark's theory. Chapter 4 sets out the fundamental concepts in Clark's theory. Chapter 5 uses five published case studies of electronically mediated communication to illustrate the value of the theory. These include studies of a computer-supported meeting room (Cognoter), a video tunnel that supports gaze awareness, video conferencing in medical consultation, and text chat. Table of Contents: Motivation - Conversation as a Collaborative Activity / Overview - Developing Common Ground, An Example / Scientific Foundations / The Theory in More Detail / Case Studies - Applying the Theory to Electronically Mediated Communication / Current Status