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Open Problems in Online Communications

These are evergreen problems of online communications. Naming the problems is where any results framework begins — and in online communications, such a framework has proven elusive

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Results Framework

Anyone working on these problems should be able to point to a results framework: a recognized set of problems, objectives for addressing them, and a way to track progress. This is standard practice in business and government. In public health, the Healthy People initiative has maintained exactly this since 1980 — naming problems, setting measurable targets, and reporting progress across five decades of iteration — and has published it online since 2000.

The Missing Framework for Online Communications

The fields that study online communications — computer-mediated communication, computer-supported cooperative work, social computing — each cover part of the landscape, but a comparable framework across them has proven elusive. The nearest efforts show why.

HCI's Seven Grand Challenges (2019, revisited 2025) names the field's priorities at continental scale, in a journal article rather than a living instrument. The Center for Media Engagement's Civic Signals project produced 14 design principles, but has not been adopted as a shared framework. There may be others unknown to us.

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