It's an impossible framework — just as a framework for film is impossible, or a framework for music, etc etc. There's no accounting for the possibilities of a form if it's approached from the perspective of experience alone, insofar as each user experiences something unique. But we're after a framework of observable patterns, accurate descriptions, and to the extent that a theory of social interaction design can be prescriptive, a range of anticipated outcomes. The design side itself is fairly constrained, so, like architects, we can use convention in our urban planning… As much as social media can seem like a very limited world of experience, I think we're just beginning to learn how it works, what works, what it works for, and for whom. We're developing tv shows in the 50s and most of us know more about building a tv than writing a show. So my take on this is that we are using a very limited set of “best” practices — repurposed because they provide a familiar experience but selected only because they exist. I think it's worth stepping out of the box and teasing out the principles of interactions because they offer the possibility of at least thinking, if not creating, something different. A design culture (and social media business culture) oriented to making copies would be a sad thing.

Also, ambiguity needs to be accounted for in the creation of any artistic expression meant to communicate with a public, whether you're designing interfaces, paintings, or brand presences in social and distributed media. Right now, planning and executing in social feels like a combination of screenwriting, radio, and impressionism/pointillism. But that's just me.

Isn't developing a framework for this our journey without a destination? Is it really possible to nail-down a comprehensive understanding of these nuances? Or is it too idiosyncratic? Just as we continue to understand the ways people interpret communications, the media themselves continue to evolve and change.

Interesting question that. I think ambiguity is intersubjective — it describes meaning for two or more users, not one. If you're suggesting that ambiguity is one user being vague, we would locate ambiguity in linguistic intent, in the content itself, in the form of the expression. All are distinct and we use these together to great effect, all the time, without even thinking about it. But ambiguity seen as a relational attribute (which is more powerful I think and is maybe more accurate, for a person being intentionally ambiguous is not really being ambiguous unless you take the interpreter's position, in which case you now have an intersubjective view!) gets closer to how social media transform communicative acts. Another reason that I think we need an N user or multiple user model for social interaction design.

We need to see meanings (IMHO) as negotiations and mutual (if not reciprocated) productions — not as stable and clear expressions of user intent. Linguistics has shown that a model of meaning based on user intent doesn't work. (Nor does a model, such as cybernetics, that locates meaning in the content or information). All social action is interpreted. That's the action domain. Ambiguity then describes the negotiation (read: compelling, engaging!) involved in non face to face social interaction. Each tool used introduces its own unique qualities. These create arbitrary connections, discontinuities, views, presentation, and order of individual statements/acts and responses. Using a tool well, then, and to your point, is about being competent in the medium and knowing how to participate in ways that engage different kinds of users in ways that are compelling for different reasons (being personal, responsive, factual, informative, reciprocating, generous, and so on).

If we could have a view of mediated ambiguity that provides us w insight into online social practices we would have a framework for describing if not understanding the different competencies involved in online social participation. Tuned sometimes to resolving ambiguity, but sometimes to stretching it out.

cheers!
adrian