Com 473--Baldwin—Communication—Illinois State University

Analyzing CMC (Lindlof & Taylor, Ch. 8)

Questions:

• Types of media
• E-mail
• Bulletin Board Systems
• Internet Relay Chats
• Multiple User Domains (MUDs)
• Webpages
• Games
• Blogs
• Aspects of media one might analyze
• Dimensions on which the media might differ
• Synchronicity
• Media richness (multi-media)
• Text/image
• Motion
• Design
• Paralanguage (emoticons, etc.)
• Convergence
• Hypertextuality/linearity
• Trace-ability [permanence of record of interaction]
• Interactivity
• Applications: e.g., “affiliative” level of Webpages
• “Authority,” both within page/domain
• BBS domain managers?
• Centrality of manager? Censorship?
• Fanzines (e.g., Harry Potter)
• Norms and Meanings
• “Netiquette”
• Uses & Gratifications?

Why study CMC?

• How might it be different from FTF comm.? Mass-media comm.?
• Innovation
• Blurred genres (& roles, & connection b/t user & system)
• Internet & culture
• Postmodern reasoning, “authority” over the text
• Postmodern communities
• Global culture (?); yet reinforced culture
• The changing nature of communication (e.g., letters to e-mail) and that impact on other forms of communication (e.g., FTF)
• Why study it?
• Rapidly changing
• Mystified
• An extension of prior comm. theory (MC or FTF)—or new theory?
• “flattening hierarchies” b/t researcher and participants (?)
• Logistical reasons for and against (pp. 254-255)
• Some areas of traditional CMC research…
• Identity
• Avatars
• Alternative worlds
• Postmodern separation of body from expression
• Politics and ethics of identity
• Relationship
• “Cues filtered out” approach: Are CMC relationships less stable, deep, intimate, or more (or both)?
• The “hyperpersonal”
• Communication & maintenance of expectations?
• Community
• Building (and avoiding?) connections with others
• Inhabitation of a “locale,” social rules
• CMC “settlements”—virtual settlements

Methodological Issues:

• Design: What are the field and site?
• Is it place or artifact?
• Continuity with RL (real life)—both in the comm. itself and in the study of the comm. (i.e., implications are the same as for any qualitative project, with just a new flavor)—is it connected, similar, equivalent—or quite different?
• FTF as the “gold standard” by which other forms of comm. are measured?
• Narrowness of scope of researcher on “whole life” of user?
• Relative consistency of user’s personae on and off-line?
• Qualifying of claims (several issues bottom p. 264)
• Observing and Participating
• To lurk or not to lurk?
• What’s left out of the “contextual” analysis in CMC (p. 266)?
• Missing signifiers of participant identity—and the ethics of hiding identity within an avatar for research (is the deception warranted?)
• Interviewing
• Synchronous or asynchronous?
• E-preferences for short response
• Same time—or is it?
• Multiple postings, new subject lines
• Collecting and Analyzing Data
• “What is won and lost in the apparent ‘shortcut’ to data offered by CMC?” (p. 269)
• Transcription (sometimes) provided, but not fieldnotes!
• Ephemeral/disjointed nature of speech vs. (more) linear conversation—how to record & analyze!?
• Verbalized transcripts plus other documents!
• A new view of DA & listserves….it is naturally occurring—but is different.
• Member checks and ongoing process of a more collaborative research
• Ethical issues
• Interaction v. observation
• Access to your group (“firewalls”)
• Efforts of “informed consent”: Awareness of your presence & purpose
• Revisiting anonymity and confidentiality

Application exercise: