Understanding context in computer-mediated communication

With unprecedented transformations taking place in the landscape of what to say and how we mean, interactions in the digital age take on various new forms of doing and being. To make sense of “what it is that is going on” requires an understanding of the context wherein the computer-mediated communications take place. Focusing on a burgeoning online video commenting discourse in mainland China called Danmaku (a media feature that projects viewer comments in the form of “bullet chains” overlaid on the video), the present study applies the schematic construct of context of situation and its paradigmatic representations developed in Systemic Functional Linguistics to a functionally-driven discussion of Danmaku context. Drawing on a corpus of comments from 18 well-received videos on Bilibili.com (a major Danmaku site in mainland China), the study provides a fine-grained analysis that highlights emergent technological and semiotic variables in the Danmaku Mode, such as anonymity, invisibility, dynamicity, and pseudo-synchronicity. It then discusses how these variables mediate the properties of Field and Tenor and further impinge upon the experiential and interpersonal meanings made in Danmaku communication. The analysis has also highlighted the carnivalesque nature of Danmaku which makes it an increasingly popular social media platform in mainland China.

Searching for Humor in Dehumanization

During the last two decades, to varying degrees, some American sitcom writers have depicted Nazism and the Holocaust humorously. This sort of activity is visible on such shows as South Park, Family Guy, and Robot Chicken. Many of the writers associated with these comedies are of Jewish heritage; but the joking has stirred only limited controversy. This chapter examines the messaging, delivery, and impact in Holocaust humor. It answers questions such as: What are American comedy writers signaling with these absurd stories? How does their comedic employment contribute to a wider process of misremembering distorting, or diluting known Holocaust accounts? It also analyzes how computer-mediated communications—website like Hulu and Youtube—have transferred these false accounts beyond American audiences.

Do You Need to Travel? Mapping Face-to-Face Communication Objectives to Technology Affordances

Computer-mediated communications (CMC) can be used as a substitute for face-to-face (FtF) meetings but their effectiveness is highly context dependent. This paper describes a theoretical framework and initial experimental design for characterizing a travel replacement threshold. This effort begins with a use case of remote engineering maintenance training, conducted in three conditions: side-by-side (physically proximate), teleconference (using off-the-shelf software), and a custom VR/AR system designed to provide the apprentice with a virtual view of both the instructor’s larger scale lab and smaller scale workbench. The research hypotheses, experimental protocol, and dependent measures are described. The task involves an instructor demonstrating a circuit board troubleshooting task to a remote apprentice. The apprentice then completes the trained task independently, and performance and subject preferences are compared across conditions. The details of this paper, the result of extensive literature review and winnowing of variables, may assist researchers exploring CMC, training, or social communication.

Relations of Computer Mediated Communications and Escalation of Organizational Conflict

The commercial revolution in Technology has reconfigured communication modes into computer mediated communications (CMC). Research studies have been discussing the positive aspects of computer mediated communications socially. However, few studies have discussed the ‘dark side’ in the commercial revolution of technology. As a result of this gap identification, the aim of this study is to see the relationship of CMC with special focus on the emails, chat, groups and Instant text messages with escalation of conflict within the organizations specifically in context of a developing country where historically, the CMC is an emerging field and talk of this decade. This study is experimental in nature and finds positive relationship between escalation of organizational conflict and CMC. Results also show that likeness or dis-likeness, personality dimensions, moods, situation and time of receiving the messages through CMCs also has an impact on escalation of conflict in Organizations