Intercom Ontario: a community experiment in media affordances

摘要

Intercom Ontario is a four-year study with the objective of determining what services Ontarians want, need, and will use on the information superhighway-and how to deliver them. Now in its second phase, the trial is moving to Newmarket, Ontario, a residential community where detailed usage data regarding which appliance is used in which location to perform which application will be captured. Each trial defines a media space whose possibilities for action are more or less rich. A longitudinal study exploring individuals' behavior within each media space is proposed. The motivation behind the study, underlying theory, and research methodology are described.