Introduction to the subject of cmc discourse

1. ENGL316
Computer-mediated
Communication
Introduction

2. 1.What is communication? Who
communicate?
 The interactions/communication of people: “Who
does what, when, where and how"
 Who communicate?
 Human beings, animals, birds, fish, insects…
 To attract mates, defend territories, maintain coordination in
groups…
 What is communicated?
 Give or demand information
 statements, question
 Give and demand goods-&-services
 offer, demand
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3. When, where and how?
 Real-time or delayed?
 Face-to-face or distant?
 Spoken, written, computer-mediated?
 Text or multimodality?
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4. 2. Communication and technology
 The history of communication always
involve the development of communication
technologies
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5. Pictograph
3500 B.C. Emergence of written language in the Middle West
Inscription
ideograph
Elitist education
Oracle bone inscriptions Handwriting
1500s B.C.
Language
bamboo slips; papyrus rolls and parchments
Typing &
Text
&
printing
0 society ?
Human messengers, postal system; paper (105)
Printing press (305)
Movable type (1049)
Text
Audio
Modern media: newspaper Mass education
Digital writing
Video
1900s Typewriter (1867); telephone (1876); telegraphy (1884)
Multimodality
and printing
04/02/12 Radio (1902); television (1927), cell phone (the 70s); 5
Computer (the 80s); Internet (the 90s)

6. 3. What is CMC concerned about?
 Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is the use of
an application computer to control multimedia interactive
and message-based communication to provide more
effective ways of doing things.
(Rob Walters)
 Computer-Mediated Communication is a process of
human communication via computers, involving people,
situated in particular contexts, engaging in processes to
shape media for a variety of purposes.
(John December)
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7. 3.1 CMC Involves People
 The CMC contexts for human participation follow the
offline human communication contexts: individual, group,
mass; organizational, or societal.
 At the individual level, people use Internet tools to retrieve
information, and communicate with others. Electronic mail
is probably the most prevalent form of this kind of
communication.
 There's a wider range of activity in group communication
on the Internet. Electronic mail, and other forms of text,
audio, and video means exist.
 To communicate at the mass level, it is often simply a
matter of taking the tools from the group or individual level
and applying them to larger numbers of people.
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8. Con’t
 People go online for one reason or
another. It may be “to work”, "to play," "to
kill time," or even "to be cool," but there is
a reason.
 Moreover, the purposes people give for
using the Net and Web relate to their
context, with factors such as peer
pressure and social context influencing
online behaviour.
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9. 3.2 CMC Involves Processes Online
 People might:
 Create meaning by writing emails, posting
articles to Internet, writing in real-time chat
environments, creating websites, and preparing
multimedia files.
 Disseminate meaning through point to point
communication (email), point to multipoint
(Internet Relay Chat, email lists, Web forums,
Web sites), and multipoint to multipoint (within
email lists, Chat, or IRC when many people are
involved in a discussion).
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10. Con’t
 Perceive meaning in text and multimedia on
Web sites, email, Usenet, etc.
 Continuously participate in forums for
communication that begin to exhibit
characteristics of community--including a
shared sense of purpose, norms for
behaviour, and traditions.
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11. 3.3 CMC is Situated in a human context
 All acts themselves are situated in a social
context.
 The human relationships surrounding
CMC.
 No particular act of CMC can be
understood without considering the social
systems in which it takes place.
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12. Mode: Spoken/written/picture/
video/sound/animation/emotic
Communication components
Personal: person-person on, etc
Communal: person-group Style: Formal/informal
Mass: accessible to everyone Language: monolingual,
bilingual, or multilingual
Receive
Sender Message
r
Context: place,time, technology
race, age, social status etc
Synchronous/Asynchronous
Media types: oral, grass, stone,
paper, electronic.
Recording method: drawing,
04/02/12 handwriting, printing, digital, etc
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13. Context for communication
 Field
 The topic being communicated
 Tenor
 The participants, and the relationship between
them
 Mode
 The channel for communication: spoken, written
or multimodal
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14. 4. Synchronous vs. asynchronous
 The exchange of information can be real time or
synchronous communication; this means that
people are communicating with each other at the
same time.
 Asynchronous communication means that
people are communicating at different times.
They can send and receive their messages at
any time they want.
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15. 4. What’s needed for CMC?
 For all of the CMC systems you will need
a common computer, a network
connection, and special software.
 If you want to use audio conferencing or
voice mail you also need a microphone
and a soundcard.
 For video conferencing you will need a
video camera.
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16. 5.Multimedia
 Text (letters, numbers, punctuation, special characters,
and controls)
 Graphics (lines, circles, boxes, shading, fill colors etc.)
 Images (still pictures, expressed as the colors of many
small individual picture elements (pixels), either
photographs or paintings)
 Audio (sound, including voice, music, and special
effects)
 Video (successive pictures presented sufficiently
rapidly to give the appearance of smooth motion)
 Animations, flashes, 3D…
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17. 6. Some CMC Systems
 World Wide Web
 E-mail
 Newsgroups
 Instant Messengers
 Blog
 Computer conferencing
 Audio conferencing
 Video conferencing
 Whiteboard environments
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18. World Wide Web
 WWW is the part of the Internet that brings together all of
the different kinds of online resources available (e.g.. File
archives, remotely accessible databases, newsgroup
discursions) via word processor-like documents.
 Web documents, which can integrate text, graphics,
sound, and motion, usually contain links to other Internet
resources.
 On the WWW, some communication facilities are
available. For instance, it is possible to put your
comments on a web-page in a synchronous or
asynchronous manner and other people can add their
comments.
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19. E-mail
 The users produce, send and receive mail at
a computer. The messages will be stored on
a server and the users can get their mail
when they want to.
 Usually the message will
contain only text, but it’s also
possible to attach files to the
messages with images,
audio, etc. although this
feature isn’t supported by all
email software.
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20. Newsgroups
 A newsgroup is a repository usually within the
Usenet system, for messages posted form many
users at different locations.
 Newsgroups are public discussion on more than
100,000 different topics on the Internet.
 With a newsreader program, users can read
what others have written, respond publicly or
privately to the article's author, and post new
ideas, questions or requests to the newsgroup.
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21. Major Newsgroups:
 These discussions cover the full range of human
discourse and provide a fascinating look at
evolving viewpoints, debate and advice on every
subject from politics to technology.
 alt. Any conceivable topic.
 news. Info about Usenet News...
 biz. Business products, services, reviews...
 rec. Games, hobbies, sports...
 comp. Hardware, software, consumer info...
 sci. Applied science, social science...
 humanities. Fine art, literature, philosophy...
 soc. Social issues, culture...
 misc. Employment, health, and much more...
 talk. Current issues and debates...
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22. Instant Messenger
 Instant messenger is an interactive
communication device.
 A device for communicating with your friends in
typing messages, webcam, microphone to have
real chat.
 It is getting popular as it has multi-functions.
 ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, Window Live
Messenger, and QQ are among the most
popular instant messaging applications.
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23. Blog
 A blog is a personal web site, usually
maintained by an individual with regular
entries of commentary, descriptions of
events, or other material such as graphics
or video. Entries are commonly displayed
in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can
also be used as a verb, meaning to
maintain or add content to a blog. A
person who is blogging is called a blogger.
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24. Video conferencing
 Is real time video and
audio communication
between people in
different locations. A
video camera, a
monitor, and some
features to control
them are needed to
send and receive the
information.
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25. Whiteboard environments
 Are virtual meetings where each
participant can use the mouse to draw
sketches on the whiteboard.
 As each user is drawing, every other user
connected to the server sees the updates
almost immediately.
 Most whiteboard programs also have a
chat window where participants can type
messages to each other.
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26. An example of whiteboard environments
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27. Path of Learning in CMC Context
 Learn about computer:
Computer Technological
learning /
computer
 Learn through computer: literacy
Mediated
 Research on communication meditated with
computer Advanced
learning / CMC
Communication discourse
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28. Path of Learning in CMC Context
 Learn about computer:
Learn out of necessity, e.g.
Computer the operation of computer; the
use of softwares, Internet etc
 Learn through computer:
Applied/pragmatic learning,
Media e.g. online communication,
online searching library,
(Mediated) online gaming, etc.
 Research on communication meditated with
computer
Critical learning, e.g. exploring,
Communication appraising and evaluating the
impact of CMC on the social
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relationships, social values,
language, etc