Chapter 1: What is CMC? Flashcards
What is NOT defined as CMC?
FtF communication.
Mass-medication communication (e.g. tv, radio, newspaper, and other forms of one-to-many communication).
Types of communication that occur via the Internet and computers (like online newspapers, podcasts, and Skype phone calls).
Explain: Taking 1 of the 2 approaches, explain the current role of Facebook in society.
You’re on your own champ.
But, examples:
Techno - Hitting the like button on a post merely because it’s there and everyone does it.
Social - Hitting the like button on a post because it was decided in some group fashion that it ment it had been seen or valued.
Define CMC
The transmission of meaning between 2 or more humans via digital technologies and emphasizing the effects of mediation on human communication processes over specific technological processes.
When did CMC emerge as it’s own field?
Within the past 4 decades.
What are some psychological components that make it challenging to study CMC?
- Self presentation and online identity-management.
- The cues we use to encode and decode messages and how that process is different online.
- How we perceive and communicate with others and ourselves.
True or False: Technology advances at a steady pace that we have plenty of time to adapt CMC methods.
False, idiot
Why study CMC with a functional approach?
It helps us be flexible and broad and apply ideas to specific technologies and devices.
It is also timeless, we can continue to use the approach in the future.
What are some challenges to focusing on specific technologies instead of taking a general/theoretical approach?
- There are too many technologies to focus on each.
- Focusing on 1 limits how applicable the findings are. Especially because each site has different functions.
What kind of questions did early CMC scholars ask?
Mainly wanted to know the ways that communicating through chat/email was different from FtF communication.
How is CMC similar to other fields, and how is it unique?
It is similar in that it focuses on a specific set of questions, variables, and theories of human communication.
But, it is unique in that it readily spans other subdisciplines and fosters new ways to think about the fundamental nature of human interaction.
How is CMC convergent?
- CMC can often be used as a way to understand other parts of the field, specifically how the online word can change or maintain communicative processes.
- Connects multiple different subdisciplines.
How is CMC divergent?
- It explores how humans adapt to a new means of communication and take advantage of new channels and cues.
- Possesses distinct communicative possibilities that are more common/normal online. E.g. masspersonal communication.
What approach did early CMC research take?
It stripped the message of extra information and cues, and instead focusing/isolating the area of interest.
Define Masspersonal Communication (three different ways)
(1) interpersonal communication over a mass medium
(2) mass communication via an interpersonal medium, or
(3) the convergence and combination of the two.
How can we study CMC in a functional/theoretical way?
By first explaining at the conceptual level and then connecting them to specific examples and experiences.
The two approaches to understanding how we use and are used (mutual influence) by technology.
Technodeterminisim and Social Determinism.
Define Technodeterministic Approach
Idea that the mere presence of technology changes society.
This view suggests that the medium comes first and we adapt our communication to it.
Define Social Deterministic Approach
Idea that society guides how technology is adopted and used.
Why is there interest in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction)?
There are some times when communicating with computers may be more natural or less stressful (e.g. virtual assistants).
Times when it can be less stressful or stigmatizing to communicate with a machine vs a person (e.g. therapy).
What question can you ask to know if it’s CMC?
“Can I look at the same phenomenon in another channel?”
What are some fundamental elements of CMC?
Interactivity and identifiability
