Text-based interaction among humans connected via computer networks, such as takes place via email and in synchronous modes such as “chat”, MUDs and MOOs, has attracted considerable popular and scholarly attention. This collection of 14 articles on text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), is the first to bring empirical evidence from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to bear on questions raised by the new medium.
The first section, linguistic perspectives, addresses the question of how CMC compares with speaking and writing, and describes its unique structural characteristics. Section two, on social and ethical perspectives, explores conflicts between the interests of groups and those of individual users, including issues of online sex and sexism. In the third section, cross-cultural perspectives, the advantages and risks of using CMC to communicate across cultures are examined in three studies involving users in East Asia, Mexico, and students of ethnically diverse backgrounds in remedial writing classes in the United States. The final section deals with the effects of CMC on group interaction: in a women’s studies mailing list, a hierarchically-organized workplace, and a public protest on the Internet against corporate interests.
Table of contents
Foreword
vii
Introduction
1
I. Linguistic Perspectives
Electronic Language: A new variety of English
Milena Collot and Nancy Belmore
13
Oral and written linguistic aspects of computer conferencing
Simeon J. Yates
29
Linguistic and interactional features of Internet Relay Chat
Christopher C. Werry
47
Functional comparisons of face-to-face and computer-mediated decision making interactions
Sherri L. Condon and Claude G. Cech
65
Two variants of an electronic message schema
Susan C. Herring
81
II. Social and Ethical Perspectives
Managing the virtual commons: Cooperation and conflict in computer communities
Peter Kollock and Marc Smith
109
Our passionate response to virtual reality
Nancy R. Deuel
129
Cyberfeminism
Kira Hall
147
III. Cross-Cultural Perspectives
Computer-mediated conversations as a new dimension of intercultural communication between East Asian and North American college students
Ringo Ma
173
Perceptions of American culture: The impact of an electronically-mediated cultural exchange program on Mexican high school students
Mary Elaine Meagher and Fernando Castanos
187
Visible conversation and academic inquiry: CMC in a culturally diverse classroom
Gregory G. Golomb and Joyce A. Simutis
203
IV. CMC and group Interaction
Group dynamics in an e-mail forum
Joan Korenman and Nancy Wyatt
225
Writing to work: How using e-mail can reflect technological and organizational change
Oren Ziv
243
The rhetorical dynamics of a community protest in cyberspace: What happened with Lotus Marketplace