Having described mediated mass communication we are now focussing on a specific type of mediated communication – computer-mediated communication (CMC). Technologies like radio or TV have brought mass means of communication, which changed the way people were communicating and receiving information. The introduction of computers and especially their connection via the Internet brought again new communication conditions. It has capabilities and functions that differentiate it from traditional media and face-to-face communication. While a variety of definitions of the term CMC have been suggested, this study will use two definitions. December (1996) provides a definition of CMC, which incorporates the classical communication theory by Schramm as well as the social exchange of information: “the process by which people create, exchange, and perceive information using networked telecommunications systems that facilitate encoding, transmitting, and decoding messages”. Culnan and Markus (1987) saw CMC as “Interactive, computer-mediated technologies that facilitate interpersonal communication among several individuals or groups” (p.422).
Technology is used for gathering information, stay in contact with distant others, leisure, as well as for social purposes like presenting oneself to others and maintaining relationships (Lea and Spears, 1995; McKenna, Green and Gleason, 2002). CMC offers many services, including, teletext, videotext, facsimile, e-mail, computer conferencing, bulletin boards, electronic databases (Rice, 1990), voice messaging (Gulck, Goliz and Rosenbaum, 1991), Inter Relay Chat (IRC) (Reid, 1991; Halbert, 1999), Mud Object Oriented (MOO) (Jacobson, 1999), Multi-User Dungeons (Mud) (Utz, 2000).
CMC’s properties differ from other mediated or interpersonal communication. In his book Understanding the psychology of Internet behaviour, Joinson (2003) offers five key dimensions helping to understand the link between technology and social behaviour
Synchronicity: Communication can take place synchronously or asynchronously, depending on the communication channel used. Due to speed of reply some asynchronous communication technologies can have the same or similar characteristics as synchronous do, with the exception that a respondent does not have to reply immediately. Thus an individual has more time to plan, reflect on and revise his comments (Joinson, 2003). Walther (1992) refers to CMC as asynchronous channel in which time and geographical space are not relevant anymore. Individuals who communicate via CMC can be geographically dispersed and can send and receive messages at times convenient to them.
The cues transmitted: In contrast to face-to-face communication a main shortcoming of CMC is the lack of nonverbal cues (Joinson, 2003; Short et. al, 1976). The resulting impacts of the lack of “social context cues” in CMC are discussed in more detail later.
Bandwidth and cost constraints: Cost in terms of money, bandwidth and time have an influence on how messages are crafted. If costs are high, users tend to craft short messages. The brevity of a message has an impact on how it is perceived (Joinson, 2003).
Anonymity: Because visual cues are missing others identity cannot be perceived immediately (Joinson, 2003). the more equal participations, less hierarchy, less dominating conversation pattern. Less social information or a low social presence can equalize status difference more equa. Individuals more control over timing and content of their self-disclosures (Wellmann, 1997). The relative lack of social presence online fosters relationships with people who have more diverse social characteristics than might normally be encountered in person.
Exclusivity: A further important point is whether sender and recipients can exchange messages privately (Joinson, 2002).
Furthermore CMC conversations leave a written record. This recorded conversation leads to a “persistent conversation” which “aids the user’s cognitive processing” (Herring, 1999 p. 17). Equally important is the fact that, because individuals can keep track of their conversation they can hold simultaneous conversations and or refer to them later (Herring, 1999).
A research group, called the ‘Communication Research Group’ based at University College London, conducted early research in CMC, focussing on understanding mediated communication. They focused on the characteristics of CMC and how they relate to the perceived presence of the communicating individual. Early findings favour a ‘cue-filtered-out’ interpretation, arguing that less social information is transmitted in CMC, because contextual information, such as physical attributes, non-verbal cues and gestures are lacking (Joinson, 2003). In face-to-face interactions contextual cues (e.g. nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, postures, dress, social status, as well as vocabulary, grammar, tone, accent) influence the ways in which impressions of one another are formed (Goffman, 1959; Lea and Spears, 1995). In CMC many of these contextual cues are absent or strongly attenuated, and scholars are investigating in how people form impressions of one another or how they engage and transmit messages via CMC (Short et al. 1976; Sproull and Kiesler, 1986)? There are three well-established theories related to the ‘cue-filtered-out’ (missing contextual cues) interpretation: social presence theory, media richness theory and social context cues theory. The importance those theories are highlighted by Rice (1993) stating that “the essential underlying principle in both theoretic tradition is that a good match between the characteristics of a medium (such as high in social presence or media richness) and one’s communication activities (such as social-emotional activities like getting to know someone, or equivocal tasks like strategic decision making) will lead to ‘better’ (more effective, satisfying, etc.) performance” (Rice, 1993, p. 453).
The first serious discussions and analysis of social presence merged during the 1970s with a series of experiments conducted by the Communication Studies Group. Short et al. (1976) has developed the Social Presence Theory. If there is little Social Presence, the communication is more impersonal. The theory further explains that media differ in their “capacity to transmit information about facial expression, direction of looking, posture, dress and nonverbal, vocal cues” (Short et al., 1976 p. 65). Fulk et al. (1987) explain social presence as people, who communicate with one another perceive each other to be psychologically present, more friendly and emotional. Short et al.’s (1976) first study analysed the difference between telephone communication and face-to-face communication, focusing on “what people lost” (p. 26) when using a telephone (Joinson, 2003). They argued that if information is only transmitted via an audio channel, compared to face-to-face, social information get lost and only task-oriented messages can be transmitted. Short et al. (1976) suggest that for communication to be successful, ‘intimacy and immediacy’ or the ‘sense of being with one another’ is needed. The concept of ‘immediacy’ has been introduced by Mehrabian (1969) and describes “those communication behaviours that enhance closeness to and nonverbal interaction with another” (p. 203). He suggests that nonverbal cues lead to more intense, affective and immediate interactions. The other important concept to which social presence is related is ‘intimacy’. This concept is based on Argye and Dean’s (1965) intimacy-equilibrium theory, which argues that there is always equilibrium in intimacy between individuals communicating with one another (Joinson, 2003). If one individual reduces or enhances an intimate behaviour the other communicator will compensate for it (Walther, 2002) Since, according to Short et al. (1976), intimacy is especially expressed through nonverbal cues (e.g. eye contact), communication over CMC is less intimate. However, Short et al. (1976) speculated that verbal cues might substitute for missing nonverbal cues: “thus head-nods indicating agreement may be replaced by verbal phrases such as “I quite agree” (p. 64). The ability of a medium to transmit cues determines how much social presence is involved. According to Short et al. (1976) face-to-face communication has the highest level of social presence while electronic medium, due to low capacity to transmit cues, has low social presence.
On the same line as Short et al. (1976), media richness theory (Daft and Lengel, 1984) refers to the number of cues, which can be transmitted through a media. They categorised them classifying face-to-face as being the “richness” - because of numerous channels (verbal, audio, visual, etc.) and immediate feedback - followed by “moderate” media like videoconferencing and telephone. CMC is considered to be ‘lean’ for not being able to transmit nonverbal cues and have slower feedback capabilities, and letters and memoranda have been classified as being the “leanest” media. Daft and Lengel (1984) view the appropriate selection of a medium to convey a message as a rational process, where an individual selects the media most appropriate to transfer a specific message. In other words, the transmission of interpersonal, emphatic or emotional, and complex information requires instantaneous feedback and a higher level of interactivity of a rich medium. Thus it is suggested that CMC is better for lean and task-oriented messages (Daft and Lengel, 1987). In some situations, however, a lean medium can be beneficial:
Social context cue theory (Kiesler et al, 1984, Dubrovsky et. al. 1991) states that it is the medium itself that provides social context cues. Kiesler et al (1984) point out that CMC has “(a) a paucity of social context information, and (b) few widely shared norms governing its use” (p. 1126). The fact that social standards will play a smaller role in CMC has been taken up by Dubrovsky et al. (1991). According to them communication can be influenced by status hierarchy, which can be perceived through static (people’s appearance) and dynamic social cues (people’s behaviour). Kiesler et al. (1984) investigated CMC with a main focus on uninhibited communication and group decision-making. They found that the lack of social context cues could lead to flaming. Because of reduced social context cues the social status of the participants was not obvious anymore and group opinions and agreements became more extreme. The reduced social context cues lead to stronger group norms, de-individuation and group polarisation. For McKenna and Bargh (2000), as for Kiesler et al. (1984), anonymity in CMC leads to de-individuation.
One of the most significant studies in the 1980s was Sproull and Kiesler’s (1986) investigation into Electronic Mail Systems (EMS) behaviour of employees in a Fortune 500 office equipment firm using questionnaire data and EMS samples. They point out that “all communications media attenuate to at least some degree the social context cues available in face-to-face conversation. The telephone reduces dynamic and static cues by eliminating visual information about communicators. Letters and memos reduce static cues by imposing standardized format conventions: they eliminate dynamic cues altogether” (Sproull and Kiesler, 1986 p. 1496). According to Sproull and Kiesler (1986) the lack of social context cues, which fosters a greater anonymity, leads to relatively self-centred behaviour, status equalisation and more extreme communication. It can lead to more extreme communication as individuals are not very much concerned about their appearance and use intense language (i.e. flaming: antisocial messages). They further found that people overestimate the value of their own contribution in contrast to the value of a message of their group. Further, they proposed that due to status equalisation, individuals might have access to information to which they would not have had access before. Status equalisation also leads to communication on more equal terms with all kind of participants. Additionally they state that the uninhibited communication behaviour leads to more idea sharing and generating across organisational boundaries what would not have been possible using face-to-face communication (Sproull and Kiesler, 1986).
After early research focussed on technology’s impact on, scholar’s attention moved to social aspects of CMC.
Fulk at al. (1990) introduce the Social Influence Theory, which sheds a different light to media richness theory. Media selection is not solely considered to be a rational process but takes the social content of an individual as well as its perception and preferences of media into consideration. Thus, taking the context and use of media into consideration extends the view of richness to be an innate property of a media.
The aforementioned literature suggests that CMC does not have the ability to convey social context cues and thus CMC is not an appropriate medium for social interactions. However, contradictory theories and empirical findings appeared and more recent studies questioned if this findings are generalisable to all CMC and their applications. It is criticised that most research was conducted in controlled laboratory experimental settings, which often does not have the same dynamics as real-world interactions. Group structures and the diversity of participants are often different to real-world compositions. Another aspect that has been criticised is the time allocation, as experiment duration has often been less than one hour (Walther, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996). Additionally he questions if group CMC is equalising statuses. Walther (1992) argues that for the “operational definition of dominance” (p. 65), higher participation has been attributed to equality. Other approaches, such as “content and linguistic construction of speech” (Walther, 1992 p. 65) have not been widely considered. Walther (1992) introduced the social information processing theory (SIP), and claimed that CMC users have the same interpersonal needs as individuals communicating face-to-face (Walther, 1992). He discusses the fact that “humans are driven to interact with one another” (p.68) and are seeking social rewards. Those drivers are the same, regardless if someone is communicating face-to-face or through computer mediated channels. He further states, that even if nonverbal cues are filtered out, CMC is able to carry the exchange of social cues. The lack of social context cues can be overcome through “various linguistic and typographic manipulation, which may reveal social and relational information in CMC” (Walther, 1995 p. 190). To do so, a certain “paralanguage” (Carey, 1980 cited in Walther, 1992) such as emoticons, has been created and people have learned to verbalise nonverbal cues (Walter, 1992). Walther (1992, 1995) notes that CMC communication needs more time than face-to-face does, as it takes longer to decode verbal cues compared to multichannel (spoken as well as nonverbal) cues. Time is a crucial variable in CMC because the number of messages exchanged in CMC is lower that in face-to-face. Walther (1995) found that it takes four times longer to convey a message via CMC compared with face-to-face. Thus, time spent to send messages and the amount of sent messages via CMC is an important determinant of whether a message can achieve the same intimacy as face-to-face communication. Since it takes longer to convey messages, unfamiliar users need to send more messages to obtain personal information about each other and draw on that information to form impression of each other. Time has another important aspect: “longitudinal groups have something that one-shot groups do not have: the anticipation of future interaction” (Walther, 1996 p.12). Anticipation of future interaction leads communicators to be more friendly and to seek more information about one another (Walther, 1996). In his meta-analysis of 21 experiments Walther (1994) concludes there is higher social involvement in longer conversations compared to brief conversations. Walthers’s findings are supported by Utz (2000), who found support for the SIP theory. She points out that when individuals (German college students) spend longer computer-mediated conversations they developed a paralanguage that leads to friendships and developments of emotions. Walther (1995) develops these findings by claiming that computer-mediated conversations rate higher in social behaviour than face-to-face conversation do, regardless of time.
Drawing on SIDE theory, Walther (1996) developed an explanation for the phenomenon of “hyperpersonal” communication. Hyperpersonal communication can create a greater sense of intimacy then what can be experience in face-to-face interactions (Walther, 1996). Hyperpersonal communication offers a fully integrated view of CMC, suggesting that a sender of a message optimises its self-presentation, while the receiver idealises the perceived image of a sender. It is fully integrated because it not only takes the sender and receiver but also the channel and feedback into account (Walther, 1996).
Based on the findings deindividualisation described in SIDE theory any personal cues that is transmitted is likely to be “over attributed” by the receiver of a message. Additionally similarities and shared norms are perceived when individuals experience salient group identity (Walther, 1996). In absence of other cues a receiver is prone of stereotyping impressions and attribution of similarity. Thus an idealised image of the sender is created (Walther, 1996). While the SIDE theory takes the receiver’s view into account, the SIP theory also integrates the sender’s view, which is described further below.
A sender has the opportunity to carefully construct his messages with goal of providing a positive impression. This process has been named: selective self-presentation (Walther, 1996). This self-disclosure can be edited without having to deal with “noise” (nonverbal cues) that could disturb their self-presentation. Walther (1996) described this process as follows: “They were better able to plan, and had increased opportunity to self-censor. With more time for message construction and less stress of ongoing interaction, users may have taken the opportunity for objective self-awareness, reflection, selection and transmission of preferable cues” (Walther, 1992b, cited in Walther, 1996 p. 19).
In terms of channel users of asynchronouse tools do not have any time and space constrains. Thus, “they can concentrate on both the task and the social dimensions of communication because the time spent on one function need not reduce time for the other. As a result, CMC should allow more intended and desirable message construction” (Walther et al., 2001, p. 110).
An individual’s perception of its communication partner leads to evoke an answer and act towards what was anticipated. This feedback process is called self-fulfilling prophecy and increases the hyperpositive image which is again fed back to the other person.
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