The psychology of cyberspace: A socio-cognitive framework to computer-mediated communication

Abstract

The authors outline a framework for the study of computer-mediated communication defining three psychosocial roots by which the subjectivity of user is constructed-networked reality, virtual conversation and identity construction. This has resulted in new ways of describing Cyberspace, the virtual space inhabited by electronic network users. Community, for persons interacting in a technological environment, is shifting from culture-defining mass media to that of a proliferation of media as alternative sources of mediated experience. In fact, the key feature of Cyberspace is interaction, from which a new sense of self and community can be built. The authors also consider some implication of this approach for current research in communication studies, with particular reference to the role of context, the link between cognition and interaction and the use of interlocutory models as paradigms of communicative interaction.