Definition: An anchored discussion system integrates a document such as a research article into a threaded discussion by cross-linking both items to each other [10]. In other words, this technology allows comments to be attached to a particular part of a document (a specific word, sentence, or paragraph). Thus, it is possible to view a document and comments on it from various users in a single window with an anchored discussion system.
Enzenberger’s 1970 essay Constituents of a Theory of The Media suggests 7 characteristics that qualify the use of medium as emancipatory.
The first two characteristics concern about the freedom to publish without a centralized authority and major technical obstacles.
1. Decentralized program: In a centrally controlled program, only a few people have the power to decide who may publish, what is published, and who may receive. This environment may be appropriate for learning when students take a passive role in a class and not engage in critical thinking (questioning assumptions). However, it does not motivate students to engage actively in critical thinking to understand a subject matter.
With anchored discussion technology any participant within a community can freely
write on what he or she thinks incorrect or incomplete. Therefore, the knowledge
repository within this technology grows through a decentralized effort.
2. Each Receiver a Potential Transmitter: This criterion indicates that for a medium to move beyond one transmitter-many receivers, it requires active participation of the many.
This is one of the goals of the anchored discussion technology because an anchor
aims to motivate participants articulate their reasoning processes, conflicts, values,
experiences, and interpretations of facts through argumentations and negotiations.
Furthermore, creating and publishing content is as easy as Wiki. Hence, every receiver
is a potential transmitter within this technology.
3. Mobilization of the Masses: Mobility means that individuals should not be isolated.
To facilitate this criterion, a medium should be able to allow any participant the ability
to read, write, and comment upon existing ideas. In this context, Enzenberger
suggests individuals to take a part in a social process to overcome ignorance. Anchored
discussion technology satisfies this criteria because it allows each participant to
contribute to a discussion in his or her own way. For instance, a student who is new to
research may not contribute much to a discussion ,but he or she could learn through
reading the comments of other students who are more experienced with research while reading a research paper online.
4. Collective Production: This criterion places emphasis on the importance of collaborative work which is related to the idea of distributed cognition because this idea suggests that that new knowledge could be constructed collectively by group members when they could not achieve the same individually. In this context, anchored discussion technology has the potential to allow participants to see various views and perspectives on a topic while reading an article.
5. Interaction of those involved, feedback: