Joseph Walther

Joseph B. Walther (born 1958) is the Mark and Susan Bertelsen Presidential Chair in Technology and Society and the Director of the Center for Information Technology & Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

His research focuses on social and interpersonal dynamics of computer-mediated communication, in groups, personal relationships, organizational and educational settings.

He is noted for creating social information processing theory in 1992[1] and the hyperpersonal model in 1996.

[3] Walther continued at the University of Arizona, earning a master's degree in speech communication in 1984 and a doctorate in 1990.

Based on his research into computer-mediated communication, Walther introduced social information processing theory in 1992.