Miscommunication in CMC

There are numerous issues that can go wrong in the human communication and CMC introduced more of those. In CMC people are usually distanced from their opponents by the computer screens and limited to text as the only communication method. Of course there are systems that make video conferencing possible but most of the CMC is still happening in the text-only systems.

So, what are the main problems we have in CMC: there are people flaming, trolling, lurking and even those who use fake identities to deceive people. When you are not face-to-face with another person you cannot know for sure if the person is actually telling you the truth or is it who you think it is.

I will not fill this blog entry with copypasta, you can look all the terms definition on the appropriate wiki or dramatica web pages. I would like to mention though, that modern CMC may also be very ambiguous if you don't know at least the most popular memes, especially if you are on the Anonymous-occupied board like 4chan.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming_(internet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Copypasta

PS:

A nice reading piece on miscommunication:

http://www.neurovr.org/emerging/book3/3CHAPT_09.PDF