Theory of Robot Communication: I. The Medium is the Communication Partner

When people use electronic media for their communication, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) theories describe the social and communicative aspects of people's interpersonal transactions. When people interact via a remote-controlled robot, many of the CMC theses hold. Yet, what if people communicate with a conversation robot that is (partly) autonomous? Do the same theories apply? This paper discusses CMC theories in confrontation with observations and research data gained from human-robot communication. As a result, I argue for an addition to CMC theorizing when the robot as a medium itself becomes the communication partner. In view of the rise of social robots in coming years, I define the theoretical precepts of a possible next step in CMC, which I elaborate in a second paper.