Chapter 8: Computer Mediated Communication

Question 1

CMC for work

Answer 1

• (Smolensk, Carmody, and Holcomb ‘90) confirmed an INVERSE r/s btw freq of personal remarks and decision-making success in CMC.
• CMC discussions feature more equal members participation than do comparable FtF discussions.
• CMC’s ability to “democratise” communication.

Question 2

Social presence theory

Answer 2

The fewer channels or codes available within a medium, the less attention that is paid by the user to the presence of other social participants in an interaction.

-As social presence declines, messages are more impersonal.

Question 3

Information richness theory (Daft & Lengel)

Answer 3

Media vary in richness according to:

1. Number of cue systems they convey
2. Immediacy of feedback
3. capacity for natural language.

-Rich media are better suited to highly equivocal tasks.

–Appropriate match of medium and task was related to greater managerial effectiveness.

Question 4

Cues-Filtered-Out theory

Answer 4

• Online users seen as deprived of social cues, which enable interactions to identify correctly the kind of interpersonal situations they find themselves in.
• It opens up new potential r/s.
• Ppl become less inhibited when talking online.
• CMC occurs in a social vacuum where the personal identities of subjects tend to fade and vanish.

Question 5

Diff btw CMC and FtF communication

Answer 5

• Imptce is not the AMOUNT of social info exchanged but the RATE of which social info is exchanged.
• Less social information exchanged in CMC but it’s due to the absence f nonverbal cues.
• CMC communicators’ interpersonal impressions would be less developed than those in FtF initially, develop more gradually, and finally come to equal to those in FtF groups in their level of development.
• Expectation of future interactions are crucial in developing more relationally positive communication.

Question 6

4 elements that define hyper personal communication (Walter, 1996)

Answer 6

1. Idealised perception of the receiver.
2. Idealised image of ourselves to receivers. (since we can select what we reveal to them)
3. Asynchronous channel of communication= more time to self-edit than FtF comm.
4. Feedback loop.

• Similarities magnified and differences minimised.
• This identification as a very powerful therapeutic tool. (online support groups!)
• Development of an overly intimate relationship with the other individual.

Danger: online predators!

Question 7

Social identity-deindividuation (SIDE) theory

Answer 7

Predicts that in the absence of face-to-face cues and prior personal knowledge, social context cues present in CMC take on particular value and may lead over attribution of similarity.

• Ppl build stereotypical impressions of their partners without qualifying the strength of such impressions.
• This over reliance on minimal cues is more pronounced when they have no physical exposure to one another, aka “deindividuated”.