Forms Of Computer-mediated Communication Research Articles

Marketing Communication Barriers in Computer Mediated Communication with Chat Features in E-commerce Applications


 
 
 
 The role of media connected to the internet has resulted in many changes, especially in the communication process through this media. Communication carried out through e-commerce is a form of computer-mediated communication, abbreviated as CMC, which is a communication process between two or more people via digital or computerized channels. This was stated by Carr (2021:4) that CMC is a process of exchanging meaning between two or more humans via digital channels. Barriers to marketing communication in CMC that occur through the seller's chat feature on the Shopee application show that there is the use of more than one account by the buyer, there is paralanguage in communication in the form of information from the seller to the buyer, the use of emoticons and emojis and stickers as communication which is considered a representation of feelings in nature. temporary or small talk, light interactions in the form of words of encouragement from buyers to sellers, phatic communication, communication that moves using other applications, information extraction carried out by sellers by looking for information about buyers who make large purchases, limited identification because only can see the name the buyer uses and how the buyer uses words or sentences in the conversation text and does not use the real name on the buyer's account.
 
 
 

"Thoughts & Prayers" or " ❤️ & 🙏 ": How the Release of New Reactions on CaringBridge Reshapes Supportive Communication in Health Crises

Following Facebook's introduction of the "Like" in 2009, CaringBridge (a nonprofit health journaling platform) implemented a "Heart" symbol as a single-click reaction affordance in 2012. In 2016, Facebook expanded its Like into a set of emotion-based reactions. In 2021, CaringBridge likewise added three new reactions: "Prayer", "Happy", and "Sad." Through user surveys (N=808) and interviews (N=13), we evaluated this product launch. Unlike Likes on mainstream social media, CaringBridge's single-click Heart was consistently interpreted as a simple, meaningful expression of acknowledgement and support. Although most users accepted the new reactions, the product launch transformed user perceptions of the feature and ignited major disagreement regarding the meanings and functions of reactions in the high stakes context of health crises. Some users found the new reactions to be useful, convenient, and reducing of caregiver burden; others felt they cause emotional harms by stripping communication of meaningful expression and authentic care. Overall, these results surface tensions for small social media platforms that need to survive amidst giants, as well as highlighting crucial trade-offs between the cognitive effort, meaningfulness, and efficiency of different forms of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). Our work provides three contributions to support researchers and designers in navigating these tensions: (1) empirical knowledge of how users perceived the reactions launch on CaringBridge; (2) design implications for improving health-focused CMC; and (3) concrete questions to guide future research into reactions and health-focused CMC.

Classroom Discourse Analysis of Computer-Mediated Communication during COVID-19

In March 2020, the Saudi government announced that school and university courses were to be held online to control the COVID-19 outbreak. A sudden yet smooth movement occurred from traditional face-to-face classrooms to online courses. This shift influenced the nature of classes, the nature of the interaction, and the participants’ roles. Interaction in online classes is viewed as a form of computer-mediated communication. This paper explores the nature of computer-mediated communication in online courses at one of the major research universities in Riyadh during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an in-depth qualitative analysis of Walsh’s (2006) framework of Self-Evaluation of Teacher talk, this study examines the nature of classroom discourse and interactions among level six students who took a content course in English and lectures were transcribed for this study. Results answer questions regarding the common interaction modes and features and how efficient they are to encourage participation during Computerized Mediated Communication. Analysis reveals that using traditional interactional features is not suitable in virtual classes.Teacher dominated classes with excessive IRFs patterns do not cultivate interaction in Computerized Mediated Communication. New modes of communication and discursive features using more interactive tools and engaging features such as referential questions promote interaction. Results provide an insight into the nature of interaction in online university classrooms. It also adds to the current literature on Computerized Mediated Communication interaction to enhance the existing practices done in classrooms.

Students' Digital Competence and Perceived Learning: The mediating role of Learner Agility.

Background: The ravages of COVID-19 escalated the penetration of online education and usage of digital technologies. While educational institutions across the globe adopted different forms of computer-mediated communication, the institutes in India have gradually attuned to the new normal, notwithstanding the initial glitches of adopting new technology and shifting to blended. It became increasingly significant to gain a better understanding of students' perspectives of newly emerged learning environment. This motivated the researchers to study the digital competencies (DC) and their impact on students' learning agility (LA) and perceived learning (PL) in professional/technical education. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a DigiComp 2.1 framework was attempted to investigate the relationship between DC and PL among higher education students in India. The data from 359 graduate and post-graduate students were analyzed using Structural equation modelling and Process Macro 4.0. Results: The findings of this study revealed that DC has a significant positive impact on PL (b = 0.33; p < 0.001), indicating that higher learners' DC leads to higher learning outcomes. Similarly, DC also had a significant positive impact on LA (b = 0.59; p < 0.001), suggesting that the higher DC of learners leads to higher learning agility. Further, a positive significant relationship was also found between LA and PL (b = 0.21; p < 0.001). This significant positive path reveals that higher learners' agility leads to higher student learning outcomes. Discussion: Post-COVID, DC, a technology-related skill set is linked to the academic performance of teachers and students. Our findings reveal that DC significantly positively impacts PL and LA. Therefore, we recommend that the higher educational institutes in India consider the inclusion of DC in their curriculum as a fundamental competence for a better learning outcome for learners.

ELEKTRONIESE POS AS REKENAARBEMIDDELDE KOMMUNIKASIE

Electronic mail as computer mediated communication: new research possibilities in Communication Science. Electronic mail refers to the transfer of one·way electronic messages from one person via an intennediate electronic communication system to one or more identrtied receivers pn many cases via computer linked networks such as Internet.] Electronic mail is one form of computer-mediated communication. It has become one of the most powerful and useful ways of sending and processing information in the era of the Information Super Highway. Electronic mail is not interpersonal communication because of it 's aSinchronic nature but there area number of similarities between these modes of communication. Furthennore is the demassification nature of the new medium not comparable to traditional mass communication systems. Users of electronic mail does not regard themselves as part of a faceless mass of people being bombarded with numerous messages because they exercise some control over messages received. Electronic mail will have a profound influence on interpersonal as well as mass communication In future. Information on a large variety of matters will be available to selected receivers on request and this phenomenon will decrease the dependency of some people of the mass media. Control over the free flow of information is a thorny ethical issue in the light of the current availability of pornographic material via Internet. Computer mediated communication seems to open new posibilities in fhe fields of education and development and Communication Science researchers should take note of these opportunities to reach disadvantaged people. Research in the field of computer mediated communication has just started in South Africa and require the attention of social and natural scientists alike to ensure that the country will not be reduced to the status of a hitch hiker on the Information Super Highway. This article examines the state of the art in electronic mail research from a communication science perspective and theoretical explanantions that could be used to study this "new medium".

Students' Digital Competence and Perceived Learning: The mediating role of Learner Agility

Background: The ravages of COVID-19 escalated the penetration of online education and usage of digital technologies. While educational institutions across the globe adopted different forms of computer-mediated communication, the institutes in India have gradually attuned to the new normal, notwithstanding the initial glitches of adopting new technology and shifting to blended. It became increasingly significant to gain a better understanding of students’ perspectives of newly emerged learning environment. This motivated the researchers to study the digital competencies (DC) and their impact on students’ learning agility (LA) and perceived learning (PL) in professional/technical education. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a DigiComp 2.1 framework was attempted to investigate the relationship between DC and PL among higher education students in India. The data from 359 graduate and post-graduate students were analyzed using Structural equation modelling and Process Macro 4.0. Results: The findings of this study revealed that DC has a significant positive impact on PL (b = 0.33; p &lt; 0.001), indicating that higher learners' DC leads to higher learning outcomes. Similarly, DC also had a significant positive impact on LA (b = 0.59; p &lt; 0.001), suggesting that the higher DC of learners leads to higher learning agility. Further, a positive significant relationship was also found between LA and PL (b = 0.21; p &lt; 0.001). This significant positive path reveals that higher learners' agility leads to higher student learning outcomes. Discussion: Post-COVID, DC, a technology-related skill set is linked to the academic performance of teachers and students. Our findings reveal that DC significantly positively impacts PL and LA. Therefore, we recommend that the higher educational institutes in India consider the inclusion of DC in their curriculum as a fundamental competence for a better learning outcome for learners.

What consumers really feel about corporate apologies. A discourse analysis of reactions to apologies on economic and financial scandals in tweets

The economic, financial and environmental crises that have involved many international companies over the past twenty years have been the concern of various disciplines, e.g. Genre Studies (Rutherford 2005; Zanola 2010), Critical Discourse Analysis (Howcroft 2012) and Crisis Communication (Coombs and Holladay 2012). Interestingly, the number of studies carried out in these academic areas have paid attention to the linguistic and discursive strategies adopted by managers to persuade their audience to trust them. In particular, they have focused on apologia and apology as activities of trust-building, while neglecting the audience’s actual reactions to corporations’ suasive attempts. These responses are remarkable in blogs, social networks, and other forms of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) genres (Puschmann 2010). Adopting an approach which integrates Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (Herring 2001; Androutsopoulos, Beiswenger 2008), Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 2003; van Dijk 2006) and Pragmatics (Austin 1962; Searle 1975), the paper focuses on the perlocutionary acts enacted in blogs, tweets and user-generated articles that respond to corporate apologies. In particular, it investigates how corporate scandals and wrongdoings are experienced by readers. To achieve this goal, the paper is carried out on a corpus consisting of tweets disputing the Volkswagen (VW) diesel scandal over the period 2015 to 2017. Findings show that customers tend to react with anger, disappointment and irony to the crisis communicative stances enacted by the VW management.

Social Presence Theory: The Effects of Changing Communication Mediums on Judgment and Decision Making in the Audit Environment

The audit environment has recently undergone many changes related to communication. Due to the recent health concerns, interactions between all parties involved in an audit (e.g., auditors, clients, specialists) have been forced to be conducted virtually or using some form of computer-mediated communication (CMC). Further, partner level auditors have previously commented that the auditors entering the profession have not only become accustomed to communicating using CMC, but often prefer it over traditional face-to-face communication methods to interact with clients. Given the multiple mediums of communication present in the auditing environment, it is critical to understand how the communication medium might influence the various elements of judgment and decision making in an audit setting. This area has just begun to be explored in the auditing literature. We contend that Social Presence Theory is a particularly appropriate theory to be used in the audit setting and is important for future research. We provide a review of research utilizing Social Presence Theory and we suggest possible future research questions throughout the paper in order to promote research that examines the important impact of communication medium on judgment and decision making in auditing.

Putting Research into Practice: Beyond Textbook Email Task Design for Pre-experience Business English Learners

One of the consequences of the digital era has been the undeniable rise in the use of English in business. Studies have shown that large numbers of people in the business community now rely on English to get their work done, and at the same time, that many business transactions now take place through digital technologies in the form of computer mediated communication (CMC). In this study, we will be discussing a recent project carried out with high-proficiency learners of business English located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with no previous business experience, which aimed to help our learners to develop the CMC skills they will need to succeed in the contemporary UAE workplace, with specific reference to email. In doing so, it went beyond what is normally included within the textbook and attempted to place our learners in a writing space more similar to that of the modern business context.

Interaction Analysis of FAIMER Mentor-Learner Web Online Collaborative Learning Session

This report presents the compilation of interaction analysis of a month long online discussion that supplemented regular FAIMER fellowship programme for health professional teachers. Online discussion forums are considered as an effective means and if conducted using appropriate protocols and activities will help learners to share and gain knowledge from each other. Research on interaction analysis stresses the need for proper protocols to evaluate online discussion for meaningful learning. For preparing this report Henri’s (1992) model for interaction analysis of computer-mediated communication was used for the qualitative analysis of electronic discourse that held as part of FAIMER programme among the 2015 and 2016 FAIMER fellows. The key domains examined for reporting are electronic interaction, social cues, cognitive skills and depth of information processing and metacognitive skills and knowledge. Transcript of interaction analysis of 454 mails posted for the entire month revealed most of the interactions were linear and some are of branching type. The social cues used during this computer mediated communication gave recognition to the moderators. Around 60% of participants’ information were at the surface level, 25% were at an in-depth level of information processing, and nearly 15% were of both surface and deep information processing. The metacognitive activities identified by Henri, such as planning, self-awareness, and evaluation were also witnessed in this online discussion making the discussion forum learner-centered. The outcomes of this maiden attempt on the interaction analysis supports the assumption of online discussion forums as an important component of online courses, and the need for usable protocols for analyzing the effectiveness of online discussions as a form of computer-mediated communication. Thus, the FAIMER online discussion forum that was created for collaborative learning on the topic “Giving Feedback” fulfils the criteria proposed in Henri’s protocol for evaluating meaningful collaborative learning through online discussions. Online discussions if conducted following appropriate protocols will have greatest potential on the impact of learning and can serve as easy and effective means of capacity building of health professional educators.

ASINHRONA I SINHRONA KOMUNIKACIJA POSREDOVANA RAČUNAROM U NASTAVI STRANIH JEZIKA

The paper analyses asynchronous and synchronous forms of computermediated communication (CMC), their educational potentials and the advantages of using them in foreign language teaching. The paper shows the previous experiences of foreign and domestic teachers. The conclusion is that synchronous virtual encounters improve the skill of oral expression and vocabulary, while asynchronous electronic correspondence is more suitable for developing writing skills and directing attention to specific language rules. Successful use of CMC will depend primarily on the knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of available communication technologies, the experience of teachers and students, and the setting of clear teaching objectives.

How to Communicate when Submitting Patches

Communication when submitting patches (CSP) is critical in software development, because ineffective communication wastes the time of developers and reviewers, and is even harmful to future product release and maintenance. In distributed software development, CSP is usually in the form of computer-mediated communication (CMC), which is a crucial topic concerned by the CSCW community. However, what to say and how to say in communication including CSP has been rarely studied. To bridge this knowledge gap and provide relevant guidance for developers to conduct CSP, in this study, we conducted an empirical study on the Linux kernel. We found four themes involving 17 expression elements that characterize what to express when submitting patches and three themes of contextual factors that determine how these elements are applied. Considering both expression elements and context, combined with an online survey, we obtained 17 practices for communication. Among them, four practices, such as "provide sufficient reasons" and "provide a trade-off" are the most important but difficult practices, for which we provide specific instructions. We also found that the "individual factors" plays a special role in communication, which may lead to potential problems even in accepted patches. Based on these findings, we discuss the recommendations for different practitioners, including patch submitters, reviewers, and tool designers, and the implications for open source software (OSS) communities and the CSCW researchers.

Negotiating meanings online: Disagreements about word meaning in discussion forum communication

This article describes word meaning negotiation (WMN) in online discussion forum communication, a form of computer-mediated communication (CMC). WMN occurs when participants who are engaged in a discussion about a particular topic remark on a word choice of another participant, thus initiating a meta-linguistic sequence in which a particular word is openly questioned and the meaning of that word is up for negotiation. By closely studying the process of WMN and focusing on the practices of the participants engaged in it, this article empirically explores how situated meaning in concrete utterances is established by participants who are in disagreement about word meaning. Routine ways of entering into a WMN sequence are identified, as well as typical ways of contributing to the negotiation once the discussion has shifted focus from being on topic to being on word meaning. The article highlights the context-sensitivity of word meanings and illustrates how participants engaged in WMN orient toward both semantic properties of the words themselves as well as to relevant aspects of the conversational context.

Presentasi Diri dalam Kencan Online pada Situs dan Aplikasi Setipe dan Tinder

Online dating is one forms of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) where the participants aren’t required to do a Face-to-Face communication to communicate with each other. By this limitation, online dating users get the chance to present themselves with selective self-presentation such as only present the good sides of themselves and even present themselves innacuratedly in order to appear as ideal figure. This research wants to know how online dating users present themselves to their online partners and do they do the hyperpersonal communication, in the form of selective self-presentation . This research uses descriptive-qualitative methods with semistructure interview as data collecting method. The samples who were interviewed in this research are five people who join the online dating site and mobile application setipe.com and Tinder. All five samples were selected by snowball sampling method. By using qualitative content analysis as data analysing technique, this research found that online dating users do selective self-presentation where they will choose which things they want to present to their online partners, eventhough they are being honest and present themselves accuratedly. Online dating users do it to get a pleasant communication with their online partners also to anticipate the possibility of meeting their partners offline (in real life).

Multimodal Representations of Prejudice on Vine

The widespread access to wireless and mobile connectivity, the increasing popularity of social media, and the pervasiveness of portable devices such as smartphones and tablets are offering unprecedented opportunities for expressing and sharing personal understandings and representations of the world. This technology-mediated and hyper-connected milieu offers a fertile ground for representing, enacting, and counteracting antisocial outlooks and behaviours such as prejudice, discrimination, and bullying. In the introduction, we propose a unified theoretical model to comprehend the idiosyncrasies of prejudice, discrimination, and bullying, in function of the analysis of user-generated Vines related to prejudice, which is presented in the second part of the article. In this study, we posit prejudice as one of the primary seeds of discrimination and bullying, and we then examine its multimodal representations on Vine, a social medium that offers a short-form apparatus for constructing and communicating meaning. This study contributes to the understanding of how prejudice is represented and interpreted on mobile social platforms and opens the field to research on how people depict and perceive sensitive issues through “condensed” forms of computer-mediated communication.

"How Did We Get Here?": Topic Drift in Online Health Discussions.

BackgroundPatients increasingly use online health communities to exchange health information and peer support. During the progression of health discussions, a change of topic—topic drift—can occur. Topic drift is a frequent phenomenon linked to incoherence and frustration in online communities and other forms of computer-mediated communication. For sensitive topics, such as health, such drift could have life-altering repercussions, yet topic drift has not been studied in these contexts.ObjectiveOur goals were to understand topic drift in online health communities and then to develop and evaluate an automated approach to detect both topic drift and efforts of community members to counteract such drift.MethodsWe manually analyzed 721 posts from 184 threads from 7 online health communities within WebMD to understand topic drift, members’ reaction towards topic drift, and their efforts to counteract topic drift. Then, we developed an automated approach to detect topic drift and counteraction efforts. We detected topic drift by calculating cosine similarity between 229,156 posts from 37,805 threads and measuring change of cosine similarity scores from the threads’ first posts to their sequential posts. Using a similar approach, we detected counteractions to topic drift in threads by focusing on the irregular increase of similarity scores compared to the previous post in threads. Finally, we evaluated the performance of our automated approaches to detect topic drift and counteracting efforts by using a manually developed gold standard.ResultsOur qualitative analyses revealed that in threads of online health communities, topics change gradually, but usually stay within the global frame of topics for the specific community. Members showed frustration when topic drift occurred in the middle of threads but reacted positively to off-topic stories shared as separate threads. Although all types of members helped to counteract topic drift, original posters provided the most effort to keep threads on topic. Cosine similarity scores show promise for automatically detecting topical changes in online health discussions. In our manual evaluation, we achieved an F1 score of .71 and .73 for detecting topic drift and counteracting efforts to stay on topic, respectively.ConclusionsOur analyses expand our understanding of topic drift in a health context and highlight practical implications, such as promoting off-topic discussions as a function of building rapport in online health communities. Furthermore, the quantitative findings suggest that an automated tool could help detect topic drift, support counteraction efforts to bring the conversation back on topic, and improve communication in these important communities. Findings from this study have the potential to reduce topic drift and improve online health community members’ experience of computer-mediated communication. Improved communication could enhance the personal health management of members who seek essential information and support during times of difficulty.

Language Style Matching as a Predictor of Perceived Social Support in Computer-Mediated Interaction Among Individuals Coping With Illness

Several forms of computer-mediated communication (e.g., online support groups, blogs, social network sites) have been shown to be important resources for social support among individuals coping with illness. The reported study attempts to better understand social support processes in these settings by examining the implications of language style matching—a form of interpersonal coordination involving the degree to which speakers match one another’s use of function words (e.g., articles, prepositions, pronouns). Language style matching among a sample of health bloggers and their readers over a 3-month period was tested as a predictor of bloggers’ perceptions of support available from their readers. The results show that language style matching contributed to bloggers’ perceptions that their readers are willing and able to serve as a resource for specific forms of social support.

WFPI virtual communications centre: a hive of e-mail activity.

Pediatr Radiol (2014) 44:700–703 DOI 10.1007/s00247-014-2977-1 MINISYMPOSIUM WFPI virtual communications centre: a hive of e-mail activity Savvas Andronikou & Amanda Dehaye & Maria Ines Boechat Received: 5 February 2014 / Accepted: 13 March 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 The World Federation of Pediatric Imaging (WFPI) functions in a virtual space spanning six continents to coordinate activ- ities for its worldwide membership. A distance of 9,400 km and a time difference of 9 h separate the current president, who resides in Los Angeles (USA), and the general manager, who lives in southwest France. The organization communicates with its members via its Web site and newsletters distributed by mail which, like its founding societies, affords it a virtual presence and provides an extension to enable the society to exert greater influence [1]. Communication among council (board) members is sponta- neous and interactive. Yet some council members rarely find themselves in the same room together, and the council as a whole is never in the same place at the same time. Because there is no budget allocated for flying council members to meeting loca- tions, verbally interactive communications are largely limited to Skype and electronic meetings using GoToMeeting© software (www.gotomeeting.com; Citrix Online, Santa Clara, CA). The biannual council meetings are partially attended online, with no face-to-face interaction because webcams overload the software. This type of communication among council members, who speak nine different languages, takes place with significant time delays, and large Web-based meetings require expert time- S. Andronikou (*) Department of Radiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, York Rd, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa e-mail: docsav@mweb.co.za A. Dehaye World Federation of Pediatric Imaging, Reston, VA, USA M. I. Boechat Council of Directors, World Federation of Pediatric Imaging, Department of Radiological Sciences, Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA engineering for all to attend. The council’s membership secretary in Australia regularly attends meetings at 1 a.m. local time the following day. So, while the WFPI prides itself on the reach of its education and outreach, as well as the diversity of its members, it is a surprise that more things don’t get lost in translation. Needless to say, the majority of business communications are conducted via e-mail. E-mail is considered “the most important mechanism introduced for developing interpersonal relationships since the telephone” and it is the most widely used form of computer mediated communication developed to date [2]. The central communication hub of the WFPI is the general manager’s office. The general manager acts as the main communication portal, channelling the information back into council/committee support (background briefings, ghost- ing). The manager also maintains the tempo when projects start flagging and generates visibility/accountability tools, drawing on the archives (Web site, newsletters, donor reports). The archives kept by the WFPI office provide an excellent opportunity to generate important data by quantifying commu- nications using a categorisation system to shed light on the areas of most activity. Previous medical-related research using infor- mation elicited through analysis of e-mail collected these data based on message volume, frequency and length of messages, response time and content [2]. Because of current staffing limitations and the sensitive nature of some e-mails, we deter- mined the volume of e-mail since the WFPI’s start-up and devised content categories according to their nature. The goal was to quantify and categorise e-mail communications relevant to WFPI activity from start-up to date by examining the WFPI e-mail archives preserved by the WFPI general manager. Methods The WFPI general manager’s e-mail address, which receives mail directly or via being copied on the vast majority of WFPI

Communicating Through Location: The Understood Meaning of the Foursquare Check-In

Location-based social networks LBSNs are mobile applications that allow people to share their physical location with friends through their mobile device. The sharing of location is a relatively new form of computer-mediated communication, and there is a lack of existing research examining the coordination practices of people using social location sharing services. This article reports on qualitative interviews with frequent users of the LBSN Foursquare to show both how LBSNs complicate views of the relative placelessness of traditional mobile communication and how the design of Foursquare complicates its utility as a mobile coordination tool.

Discourse Analysis of EFL College Learners’ Online Social Interaction and Attitudes towards FACEBOOK

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) refers to communication through a computer between or among people, including synchronous and asynchronous modes. Whether in synchronous or asynchronous modes, a wealth of studies using CMC has reported the benefits of applying this medium to language learning. FACEBOOK is a social networking service, a form of CMC, which has attracted at least 800 million active users (Facebook, 2013). Through FACEBOOK, users could build up their own personal space, exchange messages, and participate in any online social group. From the perspective of teaching and learning, the social group could be used as a virtual classroom in which teachers and learners could exchange ideas after class to promote more independent learning and tighten social ties between teachers and learners and among learners. A large number of studies on language learners’ use of CMC have been carried out; however, there is little research investigating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ attitudes towards the application of FACEBOOK in a language learning context by using the method of discourse analysis. Thus, in this study, EFL learners’ attitudes towards the application of FACEBOOK in a college language class and their online social interactions were investigated through the quantitative and qualitative methods. The participants, a group of college students (n=20), enrolled in the English Composition class and took part in the study for one semester. Besides descriptive statistics utilized in the study, data from FACEBOOK interactions and post-interviews were analyzed through discourse analysis. The findings showed that the learners had positive attitudes towards FACEBOOK as an online learning community. Based on the findings, some implications would also be proposed to be of help to those who would like to apply FACEBOOK to an EFL context.