Talk:The Media Equation

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 13 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rorogaga. Peer reviewers: Wwwei x, YiwenWu777.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism?[edit]

I notice that this article is almost exactly the same as the entry for Media Equation in the Encyclopedia of Communication Theories. The headings are all the same, in the same order, cover the same research articles, etc. But things have been reworded slightly to appear different. This looks borderline plagiarism to me. Should the structure of this article be changed? SOFTero (talk) 05:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Possible alt title[edit]

Should this be called "media anthropomorphism"?©Geni 04:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is an actual theory that was named "Media Equation", so I think the title should follow that. Though perhaps "media anthropomorphism" could redirect here? SOFTero (talk) 00:17, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Original research, written style, and notability issues with this article[edit]

All of the references in this article refer to original research or research by people associated with Nass (by doing work with him). There is no neutral third party cited.

The article lacks a neutral voice. It makes claims of the "equation"'s "profound" effects, but provides no verified/verifiable evidence. Further, there is no clear explanation of what the equation is except that it is a theory put forth by Nass on which propositions were made and results were published by Nass or people associated with him. (By the way, where is the equation? Is it mathematical in any way?) In fact, it reads like a student's notes on Nass's papers, books, and perhaps even lectures. (Note the "Bibliography" at the end.)

The article is poorly cited. Several sentences end in MLA or APA style references, which are inappropriate for Wikipedia. 67.164.92.202 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC).[reply]


An huge amount of research has been done on the media equation since the publication of Reeves and Nass' book in 1999. The book itself has been cited more than 4000 times. There is no question that it has been a hugely influential and important concept in HCI research.

Additionally, the "equation" refers to the theory's argument that human brains "equate" mediated representations of humans with real humans, to the extent that our automatic social responses to computers are equivalent to those had in reaction to F2F interactions. Arkhetypon (talk) 04:07, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wei Xiao's Peer Review[edit]

I notice that this Wikipedia page is missing several key findings about Reeves and Nass's empirical studies that conducted through 1980s to 1990s. Their major findings include following aspects: manners, personality, emotion, and social roles.

Also, I think this page can include an "Implications" or "Application" sector to show how the media equation can be apply in practice and what further discussions are aroused by this theories. For example, the media equation can be used in the field of educational technology to examines how the teaching and learning successfulness can be impact by the personalities and manners of softwares. Also, it can be used in the design of user-friendly technologies.(Wwwei x (talk) 21:01, 16 October 2021 (UTC))[reply]

Yiwen Wu's Peer Review[edit]

First, the introduction to the 1996 Media Equation test is very detailed, but most of this page just introduces the research process and results of Reeves and Nass, lacking more expenditures, criticism or neutral comments from other scholars. Second, some of the quoted content has not been reorganized, basically the original words in the books or articles. Therefore, some sections may need to be rephrased. Third, propositions are very detailed, but lack a summary. For example, we could use the words like “anthropomorphism”, “computer-as-proxy” and “mindless” as the summary instead. This might be helpful when the reader scans quickly. Forth,the references are all before 2010, and the research in the last 10 years has not been mentioned.(User:YiwenWu777 (talk) 23:03, 19 October 2021 (UTC))[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Communication Theory and Frameworks Fall 2022[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 6 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ema554 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Impulsivemk, CloudyMineral.

— Assignment last updated by Turnj (talk) 16:56, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Communication Theory and Frameworks Fall 2022 Peer Review[edit]

The introduction is well-organized and offers an overview of the theory. However, there are several things that I want to point out about the current page. First, “The Media Equation Test (1996)” subsection only has one reference, and it needs a short introduction about the test. For example: why it needs to be discussed before we dive into the theory and why this test significantly contributes to the theory. Second, many references in the references are incomplete, and some only have names and years of publication. Then, consider dividing the “Propositions and Explanations” section into two sections instead, or just split them apart, because there is a lot of information on the page right now. CloudyMineral (talk) 01:27, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

CCTP 752 - Peer Review - Fall 2022[edit]

This article provides a good overview of this theory. The content is detailed, and I especially like the "propositions" list, as it provides a structured overview of the eight propositions so the reader doesn't have to look for or look up these elsewhere. An improvement I think would be beneficial to the reader, would be to link all the authors names to their wikipedia pages as keywords. Ex. I don't know who "Lee" is under the "Media Equation and Presence" section. "The Application and Extensions" section is quite short, and more examples of research could benefit this theory page well. I'm also curious if there are more recent studies done on utilizing this theory, as most of the sources are old. Impulsivemk (talk) 00:58, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]