Pragmatic web as communication design practice

Abstract

The Pragmatic Web is seen as a direction for realizing the vision of the Semantic Web. Realizing the vision of the Pragmatic Web, however, requires a shift in thinking about technology as a means for designing communication (which is making forms of interactivity possible that may otherwise be difficult or impossible). Some lessons from theory and research on Pragmatics provide grounds for understanding how technology plays a role in constructing contexts of interactivity. Similar to ordinary interaction strategies and the intervention practices of communication professionals, technologies provide ways to solve the practical puzzles of action, meaning, and coherence in interaction. Technologies are hypotheses about solving interactional problems that are built on assumptions about how interaction works and ought to work. To better understand the Pragmatic Web it is necessary to articulate and assess these assumptions. Two plausible, complementary approaches are suggested.