Mediated Relationships

1.  Types of Relationships Online

  1. Offline à online (distance relationships such as when people leave their hometowns to go away to school)
  2. Online à online (people meet online with no intention of ever meeting offline such as with gamers or online social support groups; this is more common with social networking)
  3. Online à offline (people originally meet online and then continue the relationship offline such with dating or romantic relationships)
  4. Offline à online à offline à online à offline à (people stay in touch with their circle of friends and family using a mix of F2F and mediated interactions)

2.  At first relationships online were considered:

  1. Less real, meaningful, productive… than F2F relationships.
  2. An outlet for social misfits (empowering the un-empowered through anonymity). People who couldn’t handle F2F interactions could suddenly freely express themselves online. à Actually, lack of communication skills exists regardless of medium.
  3. Flaming: angry personal attacks. (These can be pretty creative at times though are really nothing new: “poison pen”).
  4. Trolling: deliberately instigating conflict. Often requires excellent communication skills and understanding of human behavior.

3.  Now mediation is a part of life: more of a lifestyle choice.

  1. In the study (Kim, H., Kim, G. J., Park, H. W., & Rice, R. E. (2007). Configurations of relationships in different media: FtF, email, instant messenger, mobile phone, and SMS. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 3. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/kim.html):
  2. Students are more likely to use texting and IM’s.
  3. Housewives are more likely to use cell phones.
  4. Businesspeople are more likely to use email.
  5. It’s not so much that mediation makes relationships better or worse, it’s more that ICT provide more ways to keep in contact and that match lifestyle choices.

4.  Korzenny’s (1978) Theory of Electronic Propinquity (http://korzenny.comm.fsu.edu/Propinquity.pdf): relationships are more likely to occur among people who are closer together in time and space (proximity).

  1. There is a belief among Communication scholars that F2F maximizes the information transfer (the more bandwidth [number of cues], the less errors in information transmission).
  2. The underlying assumption is that more = better. Is this true?
  3. The more cues, the better the communication.
  4. The more communication, the better the relationship.
  5. The more we have in common (similarity), the more likely we are to be attracted to someone.
  6. Korzenny claims that the higher the perceived propinquity [sense of physical or psychological closeness], the more likely a relationship will develop. Regardless of actually bandwidth, if people feel like they are close (in spite of physical or temporal distances), then a relationship is more likely to develop.
  7. The more complex the information being exchanged, the more time it takes to achieve a state of propinquity.
  8. Feedback is important to achieving a sense of propinquity.
  9. People with greater communication skills can use even lean media to develop propinquity.
  10. Propinquity may be more difficult to achieve in situations controlled by social rules (formality, formulas, patterns of interaction à as social distance increases, propinquity decreases).

5.  Immediacy: Mehrabian (1967) = the degree to which communication behaviors enhance physical or psychological closeness in interpersonal interactions.

  1. Verbal immediacy: using “we” instead of “you”, calling people by name…
  2. Nonverbal immediacy: eye contact, smiling…

6.  Social Presence Theory (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976): media differ in terms of their social presence (ability to support feelings of closeness, immediacy, warmth, and rapport: how real someone is perceived as being or how real the interaction is perceived as being). Different tasks require different amounts of social presence.

7.  Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE) [Lea & Spears, 1991]: there is a dialectical tension between individual identity and social identity (membership in a group). As people socialize into a group, they assume certain characteristics of the group. People are more likely to identify and define themselves based on group norms if social identity cues are emphasized and individual identity cues are deemphasized. Anonymity increases the likelihood of adoption of a social identity. Relationships between group members are framed in terms of group defined cues (for example: “newbie” vs. “oldbie”).

8.  Social Information Processing Theory (Walther, 1992): relationships online can be impersonal, personal, or hyperpersonal. Basically, people are able to extrapolate social information through their interactions with others online: it just takes longer. Sometimes, the lack of individual identifiers can lead to hyperpersonal relationships: relationships that are more real, more intense, which develop faster than offline relationships, and which has a deeper level of disclosure more quickly. Leaving out certain cues may actually be more influential in engaging the brain and creating a sense of immediacy (like reading a book can be more engaging than watching a movie). Online relationships are just as real (if not more so) than offline relationships.


Online Dating

1.  15% (30 million) Americans say they know someone who met online that is in a long-term relationship or marriage. 11% of all internet users and 37% of those who are single and looking say they have gone to dating websites. A majority of them say they have had positive experiences and believe their use of such sites helps them to find a better match. A notable number of these online daters have found firsthand that lasting romance can be forged online; 17% of them say they have entered long-term relationships or married someone they met through the services. (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/Online-Dating.aspx)

2.  Originally, there was a social stigma attached to finding romance online (needy, desperate, can’t find romance any other way…).

  1. Now, it is considered a viable alternative for busy people who are serious about getting serious (it is difficult for professionals to meet: lack of opportunity, time, difficult to find someone with similar interests)
  2. Traditionally people relied on match makers (friends and family who set you up with someone that they thought would be good for you).

3.  Challenges facing online daters (based on: Ellison, N., Heino, R., & Gibbs, J. (2006). Managing impressions online: Self-presentation processes in the online dating environment. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/ellison.html.):

  1. Identity management: how to present one’s “real” or “ideal” self online based on the expectation that one will eventually meet the person offline.
  2. Falsification of information
  3. Age
  4. Physical appearance (weight, height, beauty…)
  5. Hobbies/activities and degree of interest in them
  6. Occupation/social status
  7. What are people’s expectations? Don’t we expect people to fib just a little bit?