Nancy Baym
Biographic Data
| ID | 7397699 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nancy Baym |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nancy |
| FAMILY NAME | Baym |
| SIGNATURE | BAYM N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Microsoft Research (United Kingdom) |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 10 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Ai Industry Expectations and Underperforming Imaginaries
The panel takes up AoIR’s theme of how industry pre-mediates the future of internet technology and its effects and inquiries into alternatives. Utilising ideas from the study of sociotechnical imaginaries, it aims to locate, map, and critically examine AI imaginaries together with counter-imaginaries that engage with and intervene in those of the AI industry. First, it maps the discursive landscape of Big Tech ‘AI talk’ as a means to study ‘new m…
Meeting (the) Pandemic
Information sharing in a hybrid workplace
Shifts to hybrid work prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to substantially impact social relationships at work. Hybrid employees rely heavily on digital collaboration technologies to communicate and share information. Therefore, employees’ perceptions of the technologies are critical in shaping organizational networks. However, the dyadic-level misalignment in these perceptions may lead to relationship dissolution. To explore the…
Building relational confidence in remote and hybrid work arrangements
Remote and hybrid workers know fewer of their colleagues and have fewer strong workplace relationships. If strong relationships support knowledge sharing, workers will have a harder time getting knowledge they need. Prior research shows that digital communication technologies increase workers’ network-level knowledge of “who knows what” and “who knows who.” Yet, knowledge seekers may be hesitant to ask for knowledge, particularly when they have c…
Managing collapsed boundaries in global work
Global workers have long contended with the challenges of working across geographical, temporal, and cultural boundaries enabled by communication technologies. However, the global work research has rarely intersected with the literature on work–home boundary management—which has been brought to the forefront due to the forced move to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on a qualitative field study of 55 in-depth interviews with glob…
Speech production under uncertainty
Theories and research in human–machine communication (HMC) suggest that machines, when replacing humans as communication partners, change the processes and outcomes of communication. With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly used to interview and evaluate job applicants, employers should consider the effects of AI on applicants’ psychology and performance during AI-based interviews. This study examined job applicants’ experience and speech f…
Navigating the empty shell
This article explores platform workers’ strategies for producing sustainable, quality services within platform structures that simultaneously over- and under-determine their work. We present findings from interviews with U.S.-based mental health professionals (n = 48) working on teletherapy platforms. These therapists describe navigating both the presence of platformic controls and the absence of features supporting professional best practices an…
Transparency, openness and privacy among software professionals
Research on the groupware calendar system (GCS) has sought to understand its situated use in workplace contexts, revealing insights around design, culture, and self-understanding. A critical look at how knowledge workers use the GCS, and conceptualize of this use, reveals often overlooked sociotechnical values that figure prominently in workers’ lives. At a time when the public–private entanglement has become top-of-mind, this article adds to res…
Surveillance and the future of work
The future of work increasingly focuses on the collection and analysis of worker data to monitor communication, ensure productivity, reduce security threats, and assist in decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic increased employer reliance on these technologies; however, the blurring of home and work boundaries meant these monitoring tools might also surveil private spaces. To explore workers’ attitudes toward increased monitoring practices, we pr…
Positioning in a collaboration network and performance in competitions
Online innovation competitions are ecosystems where institutions source numerous solutions from knowledge workers through a platform intermediary. By considering how an individual competitor’s performance varies based on their social positioning in a competition ecosystem’s collaboration network, we illustrate the value of social networks for individual outcomes in online competitions. The study reports results from Kaggle, a popular online compe…
Signaling and meaning in organizational analytics
The future of work will be measured. The increasing and widespread adoption of analytics, the use of digital inputs and outputs to inform organizational decision making, makes the communication of data central to organizing. This article applies and extends signaling theory to provide a framework for the study of analytics as communication. We report three cases that offer examples of dubious , selective , and ambiguous signaling in the activitie…
Community health workers and the communicative transformation of work-life interrelationships during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study focuses on work-life interrelationships for community health workers (CHWs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. CHWs serve as liaisons between marginalized communities and health and human service organizations to facilitate access to services. Required physical distancing transformed their work from embodied, face-to-face interaction to almost wholly mediated by communication technologies. Interviews were conducted with 52 participants to i…
In(ter)dependence in Platformed Creation
In recent years, a variety of cultural industries have been transformed by platformization – a process in which technology companies serve as intermediaries connecting different parties (most importantly cultural producers and audiences) through websites and applications. From music to book publishing, movie production, and the visual arts, cultural production has undergone massive changes due to platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Go…
Music fandom in the digital age
In the context of cultural commodities, music has undergone some of the most striking changes in the digital era. To discuss the impact of music&s;s changing technologies on fans and fan cultures, we brought together three phenomenal music scholars, Nancy Baym, Daniel Cavicchi, and Norma Coates. Together, these scholars discuss how digital technologies have influenced (and continue to influence) music fandom. In their exchange, they explore a wea…
Communication Theory and Research in the Age of New Media
The Communication Monographs Cafe has become a neighborhood fixture—a spot for conversation about ideas that are circulating in the discipline and that have the potential for shaping scholarship in
Tune in, Log on
Introduction Introduction Three Tales of One Community The Soap Opera and Its Audience TV for the Less Intelligent? Interpreting and Comparing Perspectives in the Audience Community It's Only a Soap Criticism, Creativity and Solidarity 'I Think of Them as Friends' Interpersonal Relationships in the On-Line Community The Development of Individual Identity Futureflash Five Years Later Conclusion Tune In Tomorrow
Surveillance and the future of work
The future of work increasingly focuses on the collection and analysis of worker data to monitor communication, ensure productivity, reduce security threats, and assist in decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic increased employer reliance on these technologies; however, the blurring of home and work boundaries meant these monitoring tools might also surveil private spaces. To explore workers’ attitudes toward increased monitoring practices, we pr…
Information sharing in a hybrid workplace
Shifts to hybrid work prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to substantially impact social relationships at work. Hybrid employees rely heavily on digital collaboration technologies to communicate and share information. Therefore, employees’ perceptions of the technologies are critical in shaping organizational networks. However, the dyadic-level misalignment in these perceptions may lead to relationship dissolution. To explore the…
Building relational confidence in remote and hybrid work arrangements
Remote and hybrid workers know fewer of their colleagues and have fewer strong workplace relationships. If strong relationships support knowledge sharing, workers will have a harder time getting knowledge they need. Prior research shows that digital communication technologies increase workers’ network-level knowledge of “who knows what” and “who knows who.” Yet, knowledge seekers may be hesitant to ask for knowledge, particularly when they have c…
Navigating the empty shell
This article explores platform workers’ strategies for producing sustainable, quality services within platform structures that simultaneously over- and under-determine their work. We present findings from interviews with U.S.-based mental health professionals (n = 48) working on teletherapy platforms. These therapists describe navigating both the presence of platformic controls and the absence of features supporting professional best practices an…
Positioning in a collaboration network and performance in competitions
Online innovation competitions are ecosystems where institutions source numerous solutions from knowledge workers through a platform intermediary. By considering how an individual competitor’s performance varies based on their social positioning in a competition ecosystem’s collaboration network, we illustrate the value of social networks for individual outcomes in online competitions. The study reports results from Kaggle, a popular online compe…
Tune in, Log on
Introduction Introduction Three Tales of One Community The Soap Opera and Its Audience TV for the Less Intelligent? Interpreting and Comparing Perspectives in the Audience Community It's Only a Soap Criticism, Creativity and Solidarity 'I Think of Them as Friends' Interpersonal Relationships in the On-Line Community The Development of Individual Identity Futureflash Five Years Later Conclusion Tune In Tomorrow
Communication Theory and Research in the Age of New Media
The Communication Monographs Cafe has become a neighborhood fixture—a spot for conversation about ideas that are circulating in the discipline and that have the potential for shaping scholarship in
Music fandom in the digital age
In the context of cultural commodities, music has undergone some of the most striking changes in the digital era. To discuss the impact of music&s;s changing technologies on fans and fan cultures, we brought together three phenomenal music scholars, Nancy Baym, Daniel Cavicchi, and Norma Coates. Together, these scholars discuss how digital technologies have influenced (and continue to influence) music fandom. In their exchange, they explore a wea…
In(ter)dependence in Platformed Creation
In recent years, a variety of cultural industries have been transformed by platformization – a process in which technology companies serve as intermediaries connecting different parties (most importantly cultural producers and audiences) through websites and applications. From music to book publishing, movie production, and the visual arts, cultural production has undergone massive changes due to platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Go…
Meeting (the) Pandemic
Information sharing in a hybrid workplace
Shifts to hybrid work prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to substantially impact social relationships at work. Hybrid employees rely heavily on digital collaboration technologies to communicate and share information. Therefore, employees’ perceptions of the technologies are critical in shaping organizational networks. However, the dyadic-level misalignment in these perceptions may lead to relationship dissolution. To explore the…
Building relational confidence in remote and hybrid work arrangements
Remote and hybrid workers know fewer of their colleagues and have fewer strong workplace relationships. If strong relationships support knowledge sharing, workers will have a harder time getting knowledge they need. Prior research shows that digital communication technologies increase workers’ network-level knowledge of “who knows what” and “who knows who.” Yet, knowledge seekers may be hesitant to ask for knowledge, particularly when they have c…
Managing collapsed boundaries in global work
Global workers have long contended with the challenges of working across geographical, temporal, and cultural boundaries enabled by communication technologies. However, the global work research has rarely intersected with the literature on work–home boundary management—which has been brought to the forefront due to the forced move to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on a qualitative field study of 55 in-depth interviews with glob…
Speech production under uncertainty
Theories and research in human–machine communication (HMC) suggest that machines, when replacing humans as communication partners, change the processes and outcomes of communication. With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly used to interview and evaluate job applicants, employers should consider the effects of AI on applicants’ psychology and performance during AI-based interviews. This study examined job applicants’ experience and speech f…
Navigating the empty shell
This article explores platform workers’ strategies for producing sustainable, quality services within platform structures that simultaneously over- and under-determine their work. We present findings from interviews with U.S.-based mental health professionals (n = 48) working on teletherapy platforms. These therapists describe navigating both the presence of platformic controls and the absence of features supporting professional best practices an…
Transparency, openness and privacy among software professionals
Research on the groupware calendar system (GCS) has sought to understand its situated use in workplace contexts, revealing insights around design, culture, and self-understanding. A critical look at how knowledge workers use the GCS, and conceptualize of this use, reveals often overlooked sociotechnical values that figure prominently in workers’ lives. At a time when the public–private entanglement has become top-of-mind, this article adds to res…
Surveillance and the future of work
The future of work increasingly focuses on the collection and analysis of worker data to monitor communication, ensure productivity, reduce security threats, and assist in decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic increased employer reliance on these technologies; however, the blurring of home and work boundaries meant these monitoring tools might also surveil private spaces. To explore workers’ attitudes toward increased monitoring practices, we pr…
Positioning in a collaboration network and performance in competitions
Online innovation competitions are ecosystems where institutions source numerous solutions from knowledge workers through a platform intermediary. By considering how an individual competitor’s performance varies based on their social positioning in a competition ecosystem’s collaboration network, we illustrate the value of social networks for individual outcomes in online competitions. The study reports results from Kaggle, a popular online compe…
Signaling and meaning in organizational analytics
The future of work will be measured. The increasing and widespread adoption of analytics, the use of digital inputs and outputs to inform organizational decision making, makes the communication of data central to organizing. This article applies and extends signaling theory to provide a framework for the study of analytics as communication. We report three cases that offer examples of dubious , selective , and ambiguous signaling in the activitie…
Community health workers and the communicative transformation of work-life interrelationships during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study focuses on work-life interrelationships for community health workers (CHWs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. CHWs serve as liaisons between marginalized communities and health and human service organizations to facilitate access to services. Required physical distancing transformed their work from embodied, face-to-face interaction to almost wholly mediated by communication technologies. Interviews were conducted with 52 participants to i…
Ai Industry Expectations and Underperforming Imaginaries
The panel takes up AoIR’s theme of how industry pre-mediates the future of internet technology and its effects and inquiries into alternatives. Utilising ideas from the study of sociotechnical imaginaries, it aims to locate, map, and critically examine AI imaginaries together with counter-imaginaries that engage with and intervene in those of the AI industry. First, it maps the discursive landscape of Big Tech ‘AI talk’ as a means to study ‘new m…
Computer Science (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Work (physics (7 works) · Business (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Knowledge management (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works)