CMC

• Examples of computer mediated communication

  Email, instant messaging, blogs, websites with interactive elements, text messaging, internet forums, social media and video calls
• Synchronous CMC

  Real time communications where participants interact simultaneously

  E.g instant messaging, video calls, online gaming chats, live streaming with chats
• Asynchronous CMC

  Communication that doesn't require participants to interact in real time

  E.g Email, online forums, social media posts or comments, blogs and blog comments, discussion boards in e-learning
• Text based CMC

  Communication primarily through written text

  E.g Text messaging, chat platforms, online collaborative tools, microblogging
• Multimedia CMC

  Communication incorporating images, video, and audio

  E.g Video sharing, image based social media, voice messaging, VR platforms.
• Professional and Transactional CMC

  Communication focussed on work or business

  E.g professional networking platforms, project management tools, customer service chat bots.
• Educational CMC

  Communication in academic or training contexts

  E.g E-learning platforms, Virtual classrooms, Collaborative tools for learning
• Informal/Community-Based CMC

  Casual communication for socialising or hobbies

  E.g Online communities, Dating apps, Fan platforms
• Affordances

  Things that a particular text allows you to do

  E.g an affordance of a blog is it has the ability to communicate an opinion to a wide audience
• Constraints

  Things that a particular text restricts you from doing

  E.g a constraint of text messaging is the lack of paralinguistic features to help convey meaning in the conversation
• Persistence

  Refers to how long the act of communication lasts for after it is created
• Permanence

  A news paper article is permanent as the text/speech stays
• Transience

  A spoken interaction is transient as the text is there and can’t be kept
• Planned texts

  A planned text would be written, edited and revised

  before publication
• Spontaneous texts

  A spontaneous text would be a text without any planning
• Anonymity in CMC

  Allows anonymous responses by using a username not affiliated with your actual idenduty.
• Benefits of anonymity

  freedom of expression
• Negatives of anonymity

  Less accountability - leading to problems such as cyber bullying.
• Multimodality

  A text that contains two or more communication modes to create meaning
• Examples of Mulitmodality

  A website containing images and videos along with the text

  or

  a text message including emojis, pictures and emphatic stress with change of fonts
• Codes of conduct

  In many environments for communication there are certain expectations of how language should be used to communicate
• Informalisation

  The process by which language is becoming less formal over time
• Comversationalisation

  Involves the spread into public domain of linguistic features generally associated with conversation
• Affordances of CMC

  • allows communication between people who aren't physically sharing the same place
  • Allows formation of communities with common interests and intentions regardless of location
  • Allows greater self-disclosure and self expression