Computer-mediated Communication (Week 7 - John Geraghty)
Through the broad range of tools and technologies that have emerged with the Internet, communication is now mediated in, and works through new media environments. With the advent of social media, things like instant messaging, emoticons, and forums have a strong influence on how we communicate and shape our discourse – both online and off.
Online communication, or ‘computer-mediated communication’ blurs the line between speech and writing. Crystal, (2006) refers generally to this type of communication as ‘written speech’, suggesting the words are written but are intended to have a conversational tone. This is exemplified through the process of instant messaging; a type of conversation that originally stemmed from formal emails, in which the prose is relaxed and is more similar to physically speaking with someone. These new creative ways of engaging allow us to connect with our self, each other and the world, but does this new form of mediated communication enhance or impoverish human communication as a whole?
(Sourced from www.theverge.com)
Emotion is a very important factor in human interaction and is a source of heated debate when discussing the benefits of computer-mediated communication. Emoticons are a virtual representation of facial expressions that are formed by keyboard characters, with the intention of conveying feeling and tone in an online conversation. These ‘graphic signs, which are used to indicate an emotional state’, allow the author to simply communicate specific emotion through text, whether it be happy, :) or sad, :( or any other general feeling. This shortened and fragmented way of conversing is often referred to as the ‘language of immediacy’ in which text and time constrictions are shortened, often due to the discomfort of writing out full sentences on a mobile device (Skovholt, et. al. 2014).
(Sourced from www.emotasia.com)
Many argue that emoticons are a crude way of portraying emotion and are even ‘eroding’ written and spoken language. The forums in which both instant messaging and emoticons are used are also scrutinized for impoverishing human communication. Both Baym (2010) and Crystal (2006) suggest that the nature of certain online conversation circles is mean and aggressive and abandons social etiquette; there is no denying that many threads on sites such as ‘reddit’ contain a plethora of inappropriate, politically incorrect and offensive discourse.
Baym (2010) further contends however, that certain social norms are beginning to establish online and an understanding of appropriate behaviour is spreading. She suggests that computer-mediated communication is beginning to develop etiquettes that are similar to those in real life. Sometimes in conjunction with formal rules and terms, such as the banning of offensive videos on Facebook etc., ‘netiquette’ is often displayed, enforced and managed by communities in order to ensure that communication is not inappropriate.
So does this language adapt to us? Or are we adapting to it?
While many factors such as instantaneous messaging, emoticons and etiquette can suggest that new media is impoverishing communication, Baym (2010) suggests that we are not negatively effected by new media and that we use it to ‘work around barriers, rather than submitting ourselves to a context- and emotion-free communication experience.’ If the developing idea of ‘netiquette’ is any indication, it could be contended that the nature of the messages we send to each other will determine the nature of the medium we send them on. As Pinch and Bijker (1984) suggest, ‘Technologies come to meet the needs of the social groups that use them. We discover technologies as much as invent them, and the social environment in which a technology diffuses influences the way in which it evolves’. Computer-mediated communication does not impose or determine our communication; it merely gives us a new way of doing old things.
Reference List
Baym, Nancy. 2010. “Ch 3: Communication in Digital Spaces.” In Personal Connections in the Digital Age, 50-70. Cambridge MA: Polity Press.
Crystal, David. 2006. “Ch 2: The Medium of Netspeak.” In Language and the Internet. 2nd ed, 26-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skovholt, Karianne, Anette Grønning and Anne Kankaanranta. 2014. “The Communicative Functions of Emoticons in Workplace E-Mails: :-).” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Published online before print. January 10, 2014. doi: 10.1111/jcc4.12063