Technology-mediated Communications Research Articles

Adaptive, Sociable and Ready for Anything: Undergraduate Students Are Resilient When Faced with Technological Change

Attending university is an important time for many young people's social lives. But changes are afoot with new innovative digital higher-education experiences being built, shifting students' social lives further online. However, it is unclear how a longer-term shift to a digital university ecosystem will impact students and their social relations and how current technologies could amplify their social experience. We report a focus group study investigating the impact of a primarily digital university experience on the social relationships of incoming undergraduates. In line with existing research, we demonstrate how technology-mediated communications can benefit some aspects of students' social relations and less so for others. Our novel contribution is evidence of students' remarkable adaptiveness when facing an online-only university experience. Crucially, our participants identified and utilised the nuances of different online platforms to start and maintain new relationships. This way, they preserved their ability to nurture social relationships, even when dealing with an unexpected learning environment. We provide design recommendations for future metaversities and discuss students' resilience in sustaining personal relationships that can inform online-centric university models.

TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK IN THE MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM

The proliferation of technology led to a growing number of groups who interact through a mediated channel. A group of people creates a social network that consists of a workflow network, a communications network, and a friendship network. It referred to the existence of either a professional or a friendship network. As an individual who tends to gather as a group, journalists using a set of communication technology to connect to those who have the same interest and give a benefit to them. This study will identify the technology-mediated communication networks followed by journalists, that is, workflow networks, communication networks, and friendship networks. Then, how the attribute of networks, and how journalists still exist as well as leaves in those networks. In this study, a technology-mediated communication network refers to WhatsApp instant messaging groups. The researcher using a case study as a research strategy that has focused on online and print journalists. The researcher did this research during Pandemic Covid-19, so it affected data gathering. The data collecting technique has done by face-to-face interviews with journalists at a different time and by imposing health protocol. The result of this study shows that multimedia journalists enrolled in workflow networks and friendship networks that consist of the employee under one media company. These networks are more stabilized and long-lasting. Also, journalists become a member of communication networks which are consist of journalists from different media companies, public relations officer, or the executive of its company. These networks are more temporary. The more multimedia journalist workload, the higher the need for communication networks. Journalists will decide to join, to leave, or still exist in a network if the administrator can maintain the dynamic of its network. In other words, a network administrator should choose a member selectively, treat all members fairly, pay attention to qualities and quantities of information shared, and lastly to ensure that the network gives benefits to journalists. 
 The proliferation of technology is led to a growing number of groups who interact through a mediated channel. A group of people creates a social network that consists of a workflow network, a technology-mediated communications network, and a friendship network. It referred to the existence of either a professional or a friendship network. As an individual who tends to gather as a group, journalists using a set of communication technology to connect to those who has the same interest and give a benefit to them. This study will identify what kind of networks followed by journalists, what are technologies used by journalists in a technology-mediated communication network, how journalists enroll as a member in the network and the reasons why journalists still exist as well as leave a network. The researcher using a case study as a research strategy that has focused on online and print journalists. All of the journalists are a member of WhatsApp instant messaging groups. The researcher did this research during Pandemic Covid-19 so it would affects data gathering. The data collecting technique is done by face-to-face interviews with journalists at a different time and by imposed health protocol. The result of this study shows that multimedia journalists become a member of a network because the information and news material shared in it. The member of a network are journalists from different media, sometimes there are public relations staff or company executives. Journalists will decide to join, to leave, or still exist in a network if the administrator can maintain a dynamic of a network. In other words, a network administrator should choose a member selectively, treat all members fairly, pay attention to quality and quantity of information shared, and lastly to ensure that the network gives benefits to journalists.

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – How Many in An Emoji? Emojis in Common Law Criminal Courts

Emojis are now recognised as standard additions to technology-mediated communications and are beginning to be viewed as a language in themselves. Necessarily, these peculiar icons have found their way into courtrooms across the globe, raising questions as to how they are best dealt with, particularly when a finding of criminal guilt turns on their interpretation. This paper analyses the approaches of criminal courts in three common law jurisdictions: the United States, Australia, and New Zealand – concluding that the current approach is characterised by a worrying lack of consistency and coherence. Additionally, the unique legal challenges presented by emojis are explained and analysed. These amusing characters are marred by practically limitless potential for misinterpretation, a gulf in understanding between their typical users and legal decision-makers, lack of an authoritative reference source, and unclear procedural rules. Finally, recommendations are put to the New Zealand judiciary as to how they can ‘look forward’ and establish legal principles for dealing with emojis, to avoid frustrating fair outcomes.

A Review of Telepresence, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality Applied to Clinical Care

This scoping review article explores the application of telepresence (TPr), virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) to clinical care. A literature search of key words was conducted from January 1990 through May 2019 of the following databases: PubMed/Medline, American Psychological Association PsycNET, Pubmed/Medline, Cochrane, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, OTSeeker, ABI/INFORM, computer-mediated communication (CMC), technology-mediated communications, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Project Muse, ProQuest Research Library Plus, Sociological abstracts, Computers and Applied Sciences Complete and IT Source. It focused on concept areas: (1) TPr related to technologies; (2) virtual, augmented, reality, environment; (3) technology or computer-mediated communication; (4) clinical therapeutic relationship (boundaries, care, communication, connect, engagement, empathy, intimacy, trust); (5) telebehavioral health; (6) psychotherapy via technology; and (7) medicine/health care. Inclusion criteria were concept area 1 in combination with 2–7 and 2 or 3 in combination with any of 4–7. From a total of 5214 potential references, the authors found 512 eligible for full-text review and found 85 papers directly relevant to the concepts. From papers’ references and a review of books and popular literature about TPr, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), 13 other sources of information were found. The historical evolution of TPr, VR, and AR shows that definitions, foci of studies (e.g., social neuroscience to business), and applications vary; assessments of TPr also vary widely. Studies discuss VR, AR, and TPr in medicine (e.g., rehabilitation, robotics), experimental psychology (laboratory, field, mixed), and behavioral health. Virtual environment (VE) designs aid the study of interpersonal communication and behavior, using standardized social interaction partners, virtual standardized patients, and/or virtual humans—all contingent on the participants’ experience of presence and the ability to engage. Additional research is needed to standardize experimental and clinical interventions, while maintaining ecological validity. Technology can significantly improve quality of care, access to new treatments and training, if ethical and reimbursement issues are better explored.

A multimodal generic perspective on Nigerian stand-up comedy

Studies in stand-up comedy in Nigeria have recently begun to gain serious attention. Several articles that describe the psychological and socio-cultural contexts of joke texts of stand-up comedy in Nigeria have appeared within the last few years (Orhiunu 2007; Imo 2010; Adetunji 2013; Filani 2015, 2016, etc.). However, one aspect of the phenomenon that is yet to be explored is the function of a multimodal generic framework and its contributions to the humorous content of the genre. While it is important to maintain the spoken text as many writers have done, the “multiple embodied modes” (Norris 2008: 13) that amplify the spoken text must be given due consideration. This study, therefore, examines the Nigerian stand-up comedy from the perspective of a multimodal-ESP theory to genre analysis. This theory takes cognizance not only of joke-texts, but also the visual features that enhance the performance. The material for analysis is videoed data of a popular stand-up comedy show in Nigeria, “A Nite of a Thousand Laugh.” The study demonstrates that stage management, nonverbal cues (e.g. gesture, movements, and gaze), speeches, body postures, and music/sounds contribute to the communicative value and the production of the genre. Also, it shows how plausible multimodal-ESP approach to genre is in the description of stand-up comedy in the Nigerian context and how the knowledge can be integrated into the teaching and learning of technology-mediated communications (TMC), such as using English for entertainment purposes.

Transmodalities and Transnational Encounters: Fostering Critical Cosmopolitan Relations

The ‘trans-’ turn in language studies illuminates human communication as the coordination and interpretation of a vast array of semiotic resources that are entangled with language in fluid and unpredictable ways. It also highlights the current era of globalization in which communication occurs with ever-increasing rapidity among ever-expanding audiences, through rapidly changing semiotic means and modes. It transcends the local, to become translocal and transnational, indexing the diversity of actors engaged in new configurations of communicative engagements. Framed by notions of repertoires and modalities, in this article I offer a rationale for and close articulation of transmodalities, to more fully consider processes of semiosis across place, space, and time. Because meanings matter—especially relational aspects of communication—I propose critical cosmopolitanism to account for humane, ethical approaches to human engagements and their outcomes. I provide data from a project that connects youth across the globe through technology-mediated communications to demonstrate how these dual frames—transmodalities and critical cosmopolitanism—can serve as guideposts and heuristic lenses for transnational interactions, relations, and learning in a globalized, technologized world.

When does virtuality help or hinder teams? Core team characteristics as contingency factors

In this paper, we seek to encourage scholars to consider how reliance on technology-mediated communications can bring both promises and perils to team-based work structures. Specifically, we argue that a team's core characteristics (including skill differentiation, temporal stability, and authority differentiation) will differentially affect the challenges and opportunities presented by the team's reliance on virtual means of communication. First, we will discuss how varying degrees of each core characteristic can affect outcomes when teams rely on virtual communication. We then propose how configurations of the three characteristics and virtuality can enhance understanding in both research and practice. We advance propositions that we hope will serve as a starting point for scholarly discussion about how the literature on virtual teams can leverage the existing theories and knowledge on team structure and interdependencies.

Navigating the Tavern: Digitally Mediated Connections and Relationship Persistence in Bar Settings

The widespread adoption of digital communications technologies has provided new avenues for social interaction to occur. We build on the sociological literature of fleeting encounters in bar settings to show how patrons' use of these technologies augments the bar experience and shapes the social networks that may develop through interaction. Using seven gay, lesbian, and heterosexual bars located in Southern California as research sites, we describe how patrons invoke digital technologies as props to aid the impression management strategies used to facilitate new connections. Second, we demonstrate how these encounters are subject to greater relationship persistence as a result of the way these technologies are used to quickly create a shared history. We conclude by arguing that fleeting encounters are no longer connections that either persist or completely fade away after face-to-face interaction. Rather, they often persist through technology-mediated communications in ways that result in, at minimum, the development of weak ties. This greater relationship persistence can permit more opportunity to get to know a potential partner in digitally mediated settings like Facebook or via texting, but it could also require new strategies to evade interested others given this new lack of ephemerality and the influx of weak ties.

Actor network in technology-mediated communications network: A study of news gathering network by journalist

Actor network in technology-mediated communications network: A study of news gathering network by journalist

E-Learning through Digital Theatre: Breaking Down the Tyranny of Distance and Limits of Location

In this article, we report on a cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural digital exchange project between Australian Drama and Education students and Dutch English Language and Culture students, and examine the impact of the place-independent, technology-mediated communications and collaboration on their learning trajectories. The intensive, intercultural collaboration between the two groups of students resulted in a 50-minute group-devised, digital theatre play entitled Quarter Acre Dreaming. This play, performed through live interactive media by both Dutch and Australian students, traced the historical development of the Australian suburb, while integrating scenes of Dutch immigration into Australia. In the creative process, the students on either side of the globe interacted through Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), and used videoconferencing and Skype for live rehearsals and discussions to advance their learning of English, their performance repertoire and cross-cultural understanding.