Insanity's Claw

On the last course we separated in two groups. One talking about about group communication in chats, the other about group communication in discussion boards. I was in the discussion board group. We were supposed to talk about our experiences and collect examples that explain disinhibition, deindividuation, polarisation, cohesion, interactivity and identity, which are the downsides and upsides of group dynamics. And lurking.

First I want you to give a short explanation of what this terms mean.
Downsides:

• Disinhibition: Means that the concern for self-presentation and judgment of others reduces. It's the stop of worrying what others think about one.
• Deindividuation: When disinhibition is about group than deindividuation is the reduction in self-focus.
• Polarisation: When the behavior and opinion of members of one group are focused on one end of a bipolar continuum. It's no phenomenon of CMC, it's also common in offline-groups.

Upsides:

• Cohesion: It's just the tendency to stick together. It doesn't matter if it's physically or logically.
• Interactivity: It's how the messages relate to each other and how details of earlier messages are recount.
• Identity: In this case group identity. It doesn't have to be related on similarities or shared interests. It's just the feeling that one is connected with another. In CMC it can be stronger than in RL

Lurker: This are people who regularly visit a discussion board but don't post. They just read. It's said it is good to start as a lurker, because so one get used to the style of the board and can decide if he likes it.

After the group session we came up with our examples for the plenum. The chat group had focused on ICQ. They explained how it worked, how communities formed there and the use of emoticons.
The forum group first talked about facebook as an example for cohesion and identity. How it is important, especially for the foreign students of my university, to form a community so they can help each other (on the search for the next good party ). For polarisation we took a forum where a group constantly mob an other user. Naturally it is hard to find a example for lurkers, because they usually don't left a sign. But one of us knows this Swedish board, which is about everything. It's so big, that it's obvious there are many lurkers. After that I talked about the death of a forum as an example for disinhibition, deindividuation and cohesion.

It's one or two month ago as I was able to watch it. The moderators there were very strict with spam (no one-liners) and flame. Non the less it was very relaxed and I liked it. Now and then there were rumors that the mods play unfair to some users. “Just rumors, nevermind†, I thought. But it was obvious that the go quiet. On the other hand, the numbers of posts each day stay constant. In the end it was just one mod, who has the guts to wrote controversy posts.
And some day her account was deleted. With it all of her posts - over 2500. There were no cues left that they had ever exist. Some of them were important to understand a number of threads.
A friend of her couldn't stand this, so she started a thread to say that she thread to say that she doesn't like this style. Other users, like myself, took the opportunity to wrote what we think was a problem on this forum. In no time this thread was over 3 pages long. (That's funny because the administrator regularly started feedback-thread, but no one responses.) After on day the thread was deleted without any cue of it's existence.
That was the turning point. Most of the mayor users (all of them with 3000+ posts of no spam) and lots of the normal ones choose to leave the forum. I didn't leave, but I also stopped posted and became a lurker.
It looked like it was able to survive. But it was also obvious that the administrator lost his will and two weeks later he closed the forum and deleted everything.

Thomas Templ 0002079

CMC provides a wide array of forms of group communication. If it's IRC, discussion board, mailing lists or Usenet. There are many other different names, but in fact these are the main ways for group communication in CMC.
Well, I have to say that the difference between discussion board Usenet isn't that big. It's manly that discussion boards are centralized and Usenet is not. Centralized means that the software to watch is based on the server and works with a browser. You also have moderators and admins there. In Usenet you don't have. You need a special client software to read, because on the server is plain text. Usenet was first and it exits long enough to build it's own culture. So did discussion boards. Because these cultures are different they usually don't mix.

IRC or Internet Relay Chat is a chat system which works with special server and client-software, just like Usenet. On the other hand it provides a real time communication - which is way to fast for me. IRC isn't that different from Webchat and Instant Messaging. Webchat is based on one Website and has a far smaller community. Instant Messaging is the same as IRC, but just between friends.

Mailing list is the archetype of Usenet and discussion boards. It is to send e-mails to a bunch of people and the send e-mails back to another bunch. It is not a newsletter, where you have a sander and a lot of listeners. In mailing lists everyone is sender and listener. Today it is not used often but sometimes they are the matter of choice.

All these ways of communication have their own culture, their own way of talk and their own style. It's recommended to think about the Netiquette. Some of the general guidelines of One-to-Many Communication, which I think they are important are:


Readings:
Turlow, C.; Lengel, L. & Tomic, A. (2004): Explaining CMC: group dynamics. In: Computer mediated communication. Sozal interaction on the internet (pp. 58-68). London: Sage.

Stegbauer, C. & Rausch, A. (2002): Lurcers in Mailing Lists. In: B. Batinic; U.-D. Reips & M. Bosnjak (Eds.): Online Social Sciences (pp. 263-274). Ashland (OH): Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

Christopher C. Werry (1996): Linguistic and Intaractional Features of Internet Relay Chat. In: Susan C. Herring (Ed.): Computer-Mediated Communication. Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (pp. 47-63). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Thomas Templ 0002079

Due to an external appointment I was not able to visit this course. I have asked a friend to tell me what tell me what we did. Unfortunately he hasn't mentioned anything yet.

Thoms Templ 0002079

Most people think, they are good in CMC. Their messages are clear to everyone. There should be no problem with misunderstanding, but there is. Why is that so?
There are studies which suggests that social judgment is incredibly egocentric. In other words: “I am the best and you are nothing.† In this case a lot of people act like this. It's like you tapping the rhythm of a song. In your mind you hear the entire song, but your friend just hear the taps.
To give you a clue I want to discuss those five studies in short:

Study 1
Students had to read 10 topics and write 2 statements of each - one serious and one sarcastic. Scientist think that the writers overestimate their ability to communicate sarcasm. In fact 84% of the statements were correctly encoded, but the writers thought that 97% would.

Study 2
They wanted do display the contrast between the overconfidence in e-mail and in face-to-face in sarcasm. There it was different. In face-to-face 73% of the sarcasm was found, in e-mail just 56%. There the ones who talked or mailed to them suggest that 78% was found. It doesn't matter if it's e-mail or face-to-face.

Study 3
They thought that not only the voice transports info, it's also gesture and mimic. And that it's easier to communicate with people you know than with strangers. The effect is, that knowing each other makes a different in CMC. There 62% of the sarcasm was found. But in voice-only and face-to-face it doesn't matter. Both are 73%. The suggested accuracy was a lot higher: 88-90%

Study 4
Scientists thought that the overestimation is part of egocentric behavior. So they want to test it by giving students a list with half serious and half sarcastic statements. They had to found out which was what and than talk them in a microphone. One half of the students should say as they thought, and the other half the other way round. The talking doesn't effect the accuracy (both 62%), and the partners, who should anticipate the accuracy overconfidence it in the same talking (81%) but were nearly right in the opposite talking (62%).

Study 5
In this study scientists want to took a view on an other source of misunderstanding in e-mail: humor. One half read the jokes and mailed them, the other half saw a video of the jokes and than mailed them. Than they had to suggest who funny they are for the other person. The video-group suggested the jokes a lot more funnier than they were for the others, while the read-group shows no difference with the others.

These studies show that we overestimate our selfs. It should be in mind for everyone, that just 50% of what is said is understand - especially in such complicated things like humor or sarcasm. Quite astonishing this is.
On the other hand, I thought it was even worst, because in the writing-communities I am it's common word that just 30% of that you think you write reaches the mind of the audience and the true art is to make this percentage as high as possible.

Readings:
Truger, J.; Epley, N.; Parker, J. & Zhi-When, N. (2005). Egocentrism Over E-Mail: Can We Communicate as Well as We Think?. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89(6), 925-936.
Byron, K. (2008). Carrying too heavy load? The communication and miscommunication of emotion by email. In: Academy of Management Review 33(2), 309-327.

Thomas Templ 0002097

The last course was all about the good and the bad sides of CMC - Ying and Yang you may call it. It's obvious that everything has this and so we were divided in two groups to collect these on base of the texts I mentioned in the last reading reflection. Well, if I had known how our instructor want to use them, I had read them in an other way. But she didn't and so I think the whole class was struggling with this task. My group we tried to find them in the texts. We worked quiet, which surly isn't the style our instructor prefer. The other group was discussing very much but fact is, in the end we both found rather the same six good and six bad things. It was too less for her. She said that there are dozens of things mentioned in the texts. Well, I'm sorry, we don't find them.

Here a quick list of the good and bad sides as far as I remember. I didn't have the time to write it down in course - sorry.
Positive sides:

• It's easy to hide your identity
• CMC lacks emotional expressions
• no social boundaries

Negative sides:

• It's easy to hide your identity and make a new one
• It feels private, but it's not

Shame on me, I don't remember anything

After that we discussed our collection with the whole class. I remember that I was really astonished as someone mentioned that she never think about the Internet was not private, even it feels so. OK, I am used to check my profile with Google and 123people every two or three month. I think it's necessary to know your profile, because that is what the others will know about you.

In the end our instructor asked us certain questions about our social behavior in the net. I now give you the questions and my answers.

Do you use certain cues in CMC?
Yes. I use emoticons and certain smilies, if there are some.
I also use tags, especially in BB-Code to mark something as, lets say, sarcasm. This will look so: [sarcasm]...[/sarcasm]
I also use other markers, like setting something between stars to show that I am actually doing this, not saying. I also use normal formating styles, like italic, bold or underline, and I only write in capitals when I'M ANGRY AND WHANT TO SHOUT. OK - mostly And I also use these shortcuts like mfg, cu, wtf, lol, omg, ...

Do you think your messages are clear?
The better part of them? Yes. (If anyone read this and think different pleas correct me.)

Do you follow certain norms?
Yeah. When I write e-mail I write it like a letter. Especially in the first time. When it starts to be a conversation I get rid of things like “Hi† or “CU†, because than I think it's not necessary to write this.
When I'm in a discussion board or a chat I write like I talk. I also want to make it easy to read, so I use paragraphs. Because I think without this free lines it's makes you tired when you read. Yeah, and I use the German Rechtschreibung, especially the Groß-und-Kleinschreibung. Well, it's nothing I do conscious, it just seems right to me.

Thomas Templ 0002079

Ende Mai (29. - 31. Mai) startet das Summerrise Festival beim Böllerbauer. Es wird vom Wiener Verein Fröschelgasse ausgerichtet. Ich war letztes Jahr schon dort und es war ein sehr feines Festival. Sehr cool fand ich, dass nach den Live-Konzerten eine Lesung stattfand, die mehr als sehr gut besucht war. Da wollte ich natürlich unbedingt mitmachen und hab etwas Vitamin B spielen lassen. Ich kenne schließlich den Besitzer der Location sehr gut, mache ich dort auch meine Lesungen. Wie es sich herausstellte war es nicht wirklich nötig denn die Fröschelgasse wollte einen Autor aus der Gegend. Wer bietet sich da an?

Vor kurzem habe ich mich mit Nikolaus Fennes, einem der Organisatoren, getroffen und haben besprochen, wie wir uns das vorstellen. Er möchte die Lesung live mit Musik begleiten. Das will ich auch unbedingt mal machen. Witzig ist, dass es unser beide erstes Mal sein wird, also haben wir es einmal ausprobiert.
Ich habe aus Zepharinon gelesen und er hat auf dem Klavier dazu improvisiert. Der Text bekam eine ganz neue Qualität. Die Geschichte ist vor allem am Anfang witzig, durch ihn wurde sie aber sehr creepy. Das gefällt.
Dann sind wir zusammen mit dem Besitzer die Location abgegangen. Die Lesung wird im Teezelt stattfinden und das wird gleich neben dem Eingang stehen. Ein guter Platz.
Zum Schluss haben wir es noch mit Ghetto Edukation und Gitarre probiert. Da lief es nicht so gut. Nikolaus meinte, er hätte zu sehr Melodien spielen wollen. Er muss es wissen, denn er ist der Musiker, ich nicht.
Wir haben uns dann ausgemacht, dass ich ihm ein paar Geschichten schicke, die ich gerne lesen möchte, und er überlegt was er dazu spielt.

Ich weis zwar noch nicht an welchem Tag ich genau lesen werde, aber ich bin schon neugierig und wie es wird und hoffe, dass ich ein paar von Euch dort sehe.

www.froeschelgasse.org
www.summerrise.org
www.myspace.com/summerrisefestival

Communication is divided in qualities. From high quality communication, like face-to-face, to low quality communication, like a latter. In high quality communication you have not just words, you also have the pitch of your voice and facial expressions, which communicate. So you're able to show someone your emotions or, for example, make sure that what you said is ironic.
Theory says, that people prefer the highest quality possible to communicate. And because it's just text related, CMC is low quality.

Well, if I go after that theory, I have to make a phone call before I write an e-mail. But I take a look at my phone bill and on my e-mails and it is just the other way round. How is this possible?

People try to idealize offline communication. But research show that users invented a new form of emotional expressions: emoticons and tags. So CMC turned form low quality to high quality and it is not asocial or even antisocial. In fact internet is a new way to create and maintain relationships - it is very social.

It has also shown, that people feel very safe, secure and private in internet. I think it is because you don't see the others, so you have the illusion to be alone. So you starting to write everything that comes in your mind, which could be very rude, leading into a flame war.
But keep in mind that CMC has the feature to save every word typed in as long as the provider likes. So you are not that private.

Readings:
Thurlow, C.; Lengel, L. & Tomic, A. (2004). Describing CMC: interpersonal dynamics. In: Computer mediated communication. Social Interaction and the internet (pp. 45-57). London: Sage.
Sproull, L. & Kiesler, S. (1998). Do You Know Who You're Talking To? In: Connections. New Ways of Working in the Networked Organisations (pp. 37-55). Cambrige, MA: MIT Press.

Our fist unit was about learning to know each other. Who we are, what are our experience with computer and internet in general and CMC in special.
In my case, my first computer was an Amiga 500 with 512 KB RAM an 250 MB of external hard disk space. That was 1992 I think. Since than I am used to graphical interfaces, but DOS was never a problem. My first experience in internet was also my first experience in CMC. It was 1996 and I was doing research for a presentation in history. Long before Wikipedia I found a discussion board and stayed. I have to say, that I like boards because of the feeling and you are also able to read and participate on really old discussions. On the other hand I hate chats. I was also never good in doing small talk and in fact chat and small talk is the same for me. 2005 I become member of my first social network, 2007 my HP started and last I began this blog.
We discussed our experiences in smaller groups first and than with the whole class. It showed that there are differences depending on age and country of origin. For example there was a Russian student her first experience with the internet was 2002. Nealy everyone of us is in chats, discussion board, social networks and so on. But we are only 3 who are in blogging.

Than we talk about our positive and negative experiences with CMC. In my mind it is very positive that CMC is a tool to build up a community. And a community will help its members. So if you have a problem and don't know how to deal with it ask the communities you are a member. At least you find one who knows what to do and tell you the tricks.
What I don't like are flame wars. OK, they are funny if you're just a visitor and not involved but if you are involved it is a pain in the as. Especially if you see that the discussion will lead in a flame war and you don't know how to put it in the other direction, as I experienced one day. Or it is also very easy to mob someone in the internet.
Well, of course my group mates didn't make my negative experience. They are mostly worried about the time the internet needs, especially the social networks. You can spend hours with them and I have to say, that I have to be careful, because I am close to an internet junkie. I've recognized it just in this discussion.

After that we should collect our questions to this course, so our instructor could see if she has the right topics. Well, my group was tired of talking and discussing so a small talk about the last Mensaparty started
My only question was about how to avoid a flame war. This will be discussed in unit 5. And also the other questions were all related to the topics our instructor has planned.

Freitag, 1. Mai 2009
19:00
Böllerbauer / Stadt Haag

Eintritt: 4€

Die Initiative Kulturvogel und Earth Rocks laden wieder zu einem Abend voller Fantasie und Außergewöhnlichem. Kommt vorbei, macht es euch gemütlich, genießt die Atmosphäre und lasst euch auf einen Trip in fremde Welten entführen.

Es lesen:
Mark-Denis Leitner
Mark-Denis Leitner, der Shootingstar von Earth Rocks, ist begeisteter Wakeboarder. Sollte er mal nicht über diverse Obstacles tanzten, widmet er sich seiner Familie oder entschwebt beim Schreiben ins Reich der Phantasie. Dem perfekten Ride über die Untiefen der Grammatik jagt der Dreiunddreißigjährige auf seinem Laptop in der sonnigen Weststeiermark nach - mit den Gedanken irgendwo jenseits der Sterne, wo die Träume einen Namen haben.

Thomas Templ
Geboren 1980 studiert Thomas Templ derzeit Soziologie an der Johannes Kepler Universität in Linz. Wenn er sich nicht gerade an seiner Diplomarbeit schreibt ist er ein aktives Mitglied der Jugendkulturszene des Bezirks Amstetten und organisiert unter anderem Lesungen. Seit 2000 schreibt er Geschichten, die das gesamte Spektrum der phantastischen Literatur abdecken, fühlt sich aber literarisch vor allem in der Science Fiction zuhause.

Besucht auch
www.boellerbauer.at
www.earth-rocks.at

First of all it is all about definition. This may be a boring part, but it is necessary to understand the rest. So, what is CMC? In fact it is all communication between people that works over computers. When I say computer I mean internet, because without the net CMC won't work. So that means, that CMC is nearly everything on the net, especially on web 2.0 based applications, like chat, discussion board, blog, e-mail, skype, video blog and chat or every MMO. In my course we focus on text based applications, that means chat, discussion board and blog.

Communication
Although everyone seems to know what communication is, it is not that easy to define. Communication is the very base of social interaction between people. You can't not communicate. So communication means everything from mimic to spoken or written words.
The standard way of communication is sender → message → receiver. Well, it is not that easy, because words have many meanings. So you also need the context to decode the message. And the way you send your message effects also the massage that answers yours.
With communication you can do a lot of things. Not only inform people or seek information, you can also influence peoples behavior or exert control over them.
Communication is necessary to express ones identity and building relationships and communities. All things web 2.0 is famous for.

Mediated
To mediate means to act as a medium for something. That's it. So CMC means that the computer is a medium for communication. Great thought, isn't it?

Computer / Net
You all have to know what a computer or the net is, otherwise you can't read this blog. So why define? I really don't know. So I just give you an interesting fact. With every new communication technology human invent, communication moves farer away from the origin - face-to-face communication. But with the computer, and everything that comes after, it turns the other way. Webcams and other things we are able to talk face-to-face with someone from the other side of the world. That's cool.


The other part of this reflection deals with communication technologies and their history, especially the internet. Well, I think I don't have to write about the history of the internet. If someone wants to know about it go and ask Wikipedia. But it has to be said, that communication technology starts with the invention of writing.
Technology is from the Greek word techne, which means art, artifice or craft.

Although we all know the internet and the world wide web and use the one for the other, the net and the web are not synonymous. In fact the web is just a part of the net. Well, it is the biggest part that is able to host many others, but it is just a part. Applications like chat, discussion board or e-mail are part of the net, not the web, even they are hosted by the web. You don't need to open your Firefox, when you use Outlook, do you? Or if you use a torrent.

And now it is time to use the word 'cyberspace'. First mentioned by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer ten years before the net started to get popular, it is now a common term for the net as a palace of social interaction. That means CMC is a necessary part of the cyberspace. But cyberspace is more. It also includes or evolve to peoples real world, not just interact with it. So the cyberspace is a sociologists first aim on research the internet.

As mentioned before CMC is build up of various parts or subsystems. These are [copy-paste]chat, discussion board, blog, e-mail, skype, video blog and chat or every MMO[/copy-paste]. So it's obvious that the net is not one single communication technology, it's more a vast universe. Continuously evolving and one of the fastest media ever the research of the Cyberspace has started just a few years ago.


Readings: Thurlow, C; Lengel, L. & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer mediated communication. Social interaction and the internet. London: Sage.