Text-based Computer-mediated Communication Research Articles

Dynamic Text: How to Effectively Embed Emotions in Text-based Computer-Mediated Communication

Despite being an effective mode of communication, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), particularly regarding text-based exchanges, still has inherent limitations compared to in-person communication. The objective of the current study is to review the previous studies which identified and addressed the challenges, including difficulty in embedding emotional information in text effectively. Previous studies demonstrated changes in text properties might deliver emotional information as well as the two phases of text encodings could be completed simultaneously by interaction designs. The study also suggests future studies to find the emotional meaning of text features and to develop novel applications using machine learning technologies.

Learner autonomy, learner engagement and learner satisfaction in text-based and multimodal computer mediated writing environments

Technology creates variant learning experiences which are context specific. This study examined the comparative potential of multimodal and text-based Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) in fostering learner autonomy, learner engagement and learner e-satisfaction as well as learner writing quality. To this end, 40 Iranian male and female EFL (English as foreign language) students were selected on the basis of their writing proficiency and were randomly assigned into text-based and multimodal CMC research groups. Learner autonomy was investigated using Van Nguyen and Habók ‘s learner autonomy questionnaire, which had 40 items rated on 5 point likert scale, both before and after the treatment. Student engagement was tracked by analyzing transcription of stored conversations of Moodle and Discussion logs of an online writing forum, using a coding scheme to identify cognitive, emotional, and behavioral student engagement. The potential of text-based CMC and Multimodal CMC in fostering writing quality was examined by comparing students’ writing before and after treatment. Finally, students were asked to write reflective essays on their evaluation of efficacy of the learning environments. Content analysis was conducted on the open and axial coding of indicators of student satisfaction. The results of between group comparison indicated that students were more autonomous in text-based modality than in multimodal CMC. Chi-square analysis indicated that text-based CMC group outperformed multimodal CMC group in terms of behavioral and cognitive engagement. Yet, multimodal CMC group reported higher emotional and social engagement. One-way ANCOVA results also indicated that the students in text-based CMC group outperformed Multimodal CMC group in terms of writing quality. Learner e-satisfaction was examined by network mapping of open codes of student reflective essays. The study identified four categories that reflected students’ e-satisfaction: learner dimension (including learners’ attitude, learner internet self-efficacy), teacher dimension (including teacher presence, teacher digital competences), curriculum dimension (including curriculum flexibility, course quality, flexibility in interaction support system) and internet dimension (including internet quality and support system). However, internet dimension received negative judgments from both groups. The implications of the study and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Managing attention: more mindful team decision-making

ABSTRACT Prior research has found that teams using computer-mediated communication (CMC) often make poor decisions because team members fail to pay attention to the information they receive from others. We developed a process designed to focus team members’ attention on one aspect of decision-making at a time. We divided the group decision-making process into three phases: 1) an initial period to contribute information, 2) a middle period of silence (i.e., no typing) to read others’ contributions, and 3) a final period to discuss the information. We designed a lab experiment to compare the information processing and decision-making of teams using this text-based CMC process to teams using text-based CMC with no intervention. Teams that used this CMC process contributed more information, recalled more information, committed fewer errors, and made better decisions. The effect sizes were large, about two times greater than the average effect sizes for the use of CMC. An examination of this new process suggests that it improved decision quality mostly by helping teams avoid errors.

Mind the context-The relevance of personality for face-to-face and computer-mediated communication.

A large body of research has examined the link between personality and face-to-face (FtF) communication knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs). With the rise of digital media, text-based computer-mediated (CM) communication KSAOs have gained increasing attention. We conducted two studies to investigate how personality relates to KSAOs in the different contexts of FtF and CM communication. Contrasting perspectives hypothesize that the results in the FtF and CM contexts would be very similar or distinctly different. In Study 1 (n = 454), an online panel study, the Big Five personality dimensions were assessed and their relationships to FtF and CM communication KSAOs were investigated. Structural equation models and relative weight regression analyses showed that these personality dimensions, mostly extraversion and neuroticism, explained more variance in FtF as compared to CM communication KSAOs. Study 2 (n = 173), conducted in a laboratory context, showed similar results compared to Study 1. In addition, when the Big Five personality dimensions were assessed with a CM frame of reference, more variance was explained in CM than in FtF communication KSAOs. These results point to the importance of considering context effects in communication and in personality research: FtF and CM communication KSAOs need to be differentiated. If not properly contextualized, the relevance of personality and communication competencies in predicting criteria may be underestimated due to contextual mismatches.

Interpersonal Model of Online Textual Persuasion

As with other forms of human communication, text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) media, such as email, instant messaging, and online texting, are often used as a means to persuade others. However, unlike most other media, which feature structural bias in their support for either interpersonal or broadcast communication modes, text- based CMC supports both modes. As a result, CMC text messages frequently have ambiguous origins. We argue that individuals respond to this ambiguity by categorizing these messages based on characteristics that distinguish interpersonal messages from broadcast messages, and receivers tend to comply to a greater extent with those messages that they perceive as interpersonal. Based on these arguments, we present a fundamentally new online textual persuasion model. In empirically testing the model in an online experiment that we assessed with structural equation modeling, we found that it exhibited strong explanatory power and additional utility in augmenting existing online persuasion models. The results offer important theoretical contributions to human-computer interaction research generally and provide practical specific insights for improving persuasive communication via text-based CMC.

Hidden costs of text-based electronic communication on complex reasoning tasks: Motivation maintenance and impaired downstream performance

The popularity of remote work and a norm of constant connectivity have made text-based computer-mediated communication (tCMC) such as email inevitable for many organizational tasks. This could be worsening communicators’ performance on their later work. Specifically, drawing on media synchronicity theory (Dennis & Valacich, 1999), we propose that using tCMC for convergence processes—resolving ambiguity and conflicting interpretations to form shared understandings—is more difficult than using face-to-face communication. We use conservation of resources (COR) theory to argue this greater communication difficulty could dampen motivation maintenance for subsequent tasks, which, in turn, is likely to hamper knowledge work tasks that require complex reasoning. Supporting this line of reasoning, four experimental studies show causal effects of using tCMC (relative to in-person interaction) for tasks dependent on convergence processes on motivation maintenance and later complex reasoning tasks. A fifth study using an experience sampling design shows day-to-day changes in tCMC use influence depletion and downstream motivation maintenance for individuals whose jobs require complex problem solving. Together, these five studies indicate using text-based communication media has lasting effects on communicators beyond the communication task itself. These studies raise new questions about the pervasive use of email and other forms of text-based communication in organizations for individuals’ motivation and effectiveness.

The Power of Introverts: Personality and Intelligence in Virtual Teams

ABSTRACT Teams have increasingly turned to computer-mediated communication (CMC) to work when team members cannot all be in the same physical space at the same time, leading to the need to better understand what influences group performance in these settings. We know that team member intelligence and personality affect team performance when teams work face-to-face, but their effects are not yet clear when teams use text-based CMC, which has different characteristics than face-to-face communication. We conducted a laboratory study of 61 teams working on a decision-making task using text-based CMC. We found that team mean extraversion had a large negative effect, and team mean neuroticism had a medium-sized negative effect on team performance. Team mean intelligence had no effect. We recommend that managers consider the effects of extraversion when selecting team members and focus on selecting more introverted team members if the team is likely to extensively use text-based CMC. Likewise, managers should consider extraversion when designing teamwork processes for virtual teams; if a team has many members who are high in extraversion, the team should use text-based CMC sparingly. We also recommend that researchers use extraversion as a control factor in future research studying text-based CMC because extraversion has a large effect on team outcomes and, left uncontrolled, could increase unexplained error variance and overshadow the focus of the research study.

Social Bonding in Initial Acquaintance: Effects of Modality and Modality Order

In this experimental study, unacquainted dyads engaged in a get-acquainted task using two modes of communication across two segments of interaction. The dyads either first disclosed in text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) and then disclosed face-to-face (FtF) or the reverse. The participants completed reaction measures after each segment of interaction. After the first segment, dyads who communicated FtF reported more positive outcomes (e.g., liking, closeness) than dyads who engaged in CMC. Furthermore, dyads who began in CMC and then transitioned to FtF increased in their positive reactions, whereas dyads who began in FtF and transitioned to CMC either experienced no change (in liking, closeness, and perceived similarity) or experienced a decrease (in fun/enjoyment and perceived responsiveness). Implications of the results are discussed both for the classic social psychology question of how people become acquainted and for current interest in how mixed-mode interactions generate social bonds that can help meet belonging needs.

Effects of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Peer Review in an EFL Writing Course

This study aims to investigate the effects of the two-step blended computer mediated communication (CMC) peer review process (Word commenting followed by Zoom discussion) in an English writing course for 29 Chinese EFL learners, and their perceptions of this mode. Compared with previous studies, the findings of this study are encouraging: 1) the proportions of revision-oriented comments students gave reached at a high level of above 85% of the total comments; 2) students gave more local comments, but the ratio of revision-oriented comments in global areas to revision-oriented comments in local areas was more balanced (approximately 40% vs 60%); 3) the adoption rates of revision-oriented comments in text revision were also at a high level (63%-73%). What’s more, most students held positive attitudes toward this mode, perceiving it useful in their text revision and development of writing ability. 65% of them expressed their willingness to attend this mode of review activities in the future. This study reveals that the two-step CMC peer review process with Word commenting followed by discussion via online video conferencing system can be used as a useful tool in EFL writing class. This study contributes to the current research on CMC peer review since most previous studies investigated effects of peer review using text-based CMC tools and little research has been done on speech-based tools.

Language, Psychology, and New New Media: The Hyperpersonal Model of Mediated Communication at Twenty-Five Years

Research on the hyperpersonal model originally described how the substitution of language for nonverbal cues, necessitated by text-based computer-mediated communication systems, transforms users’ reception, self-presentation, composition, and reciprocal reinforcement of messages in ways that create socially desirable relationships online. This article reviews the model after 25 years. It explicates the original model and mentions a sample of illustrative findings. It reflects on the state of internet diffusion and research traditions in the 1990s that affected the model’s original focus, and how these conditions have changed. It enumerates contexts that continue to meet the model’s original boundary assumptions, and some boundary expansions. It explores ways in which the model’s principles extend into contemporary multi-modal social media. It illustrates the evolutionary applicability of the model through cases of deceptive online romances, including contemporary online romance scams. It concludes by suggesting future research examining how many contemporary social media performances and responses comport with and illustrate the model’s tenets, at scale.

Interactional practices for online collaborative writing

This study aims to identify interactional practices to manage online collaborative writing. Conversation analysis techniques, which avoid researcher-driven theorisation and conceptualisation for collaborative processes but try to understand the meaning of actions in interaction from participants’ viewpoints, were used. This study examined one focal student’s changing interactional practices for paragraphing during computer-mediated writing tasks. Specifically, the changes occurred during negotiations over an essay’s introductory paragraph when a group of eight to nine students jointly wrote an essay across three tasks. The analysis shows that changes in online interactional practices rely on a learner’s ability to manage the asynchronous temporality of online talk as well as the timing of joining the task-based interaction; similarly, learners must manage linguistic and semiotic repertoires to design socially appropriate actions by exploiting the resources and constraints of text-based computer-mediated communication. The findings discursively support the argument that online collaborative writing provides students the opportunities to orient to other learners’ displayed understanding of organisational aspects of writing, as well as to acquire complex and multimodal interactional skills to manage computer-mediated second language writing.

Navigating choppy discourses: A conceptual framework for understanding synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication

AbstractThis paper presents an investigation into patterns of interaction in synchronous, text-based computer-mediated communication (SCMC) with a focus on participation. The data constitute a corpus of 3,785 words from a series of interactions between student teachers performing learning activities in a three-dimensional online environment. Drawing on a systemic functional grammar perspective of language, we aim to develop a conceptual framework for understanding participation as made up of interactional patterns in students’ linguistic exchanges while performing learning activities. Our findings show that verbal negotiation that creates a shared understanding of what the group should accomplish or a common view of how to perform the activity is more frequent than strict activity organization. We argue that there are features of CMC signaling higher levels of complexity than those ordinarily found in face to face or written communication. The three broad interactional features identified – blending, turn-taking collaboration and delay endurance – corroborate our claim. This paper presents evidence that participation in text-based SCMC with learning purposes demands a disposition for collaboration and solidarity, a capacity to endure delay, and the ability to manage a conglomerate of information and communication tools without instructions on how-to processes.

Selective Self-Presentation on Video-Mediated Communication: A Study of Hyperpersonal Communication

The development of Internet and communication technology has been increasing from time to time. Humans around the globe are connected to digital communication device. Technology has been growing and changing the way people communicate; from text-based computer-mediated communication to video-mediated communication. The study is conducted to determine whether the online users in VMC perform selective self-presentation under conditions when nonverbal cues are present and the interlocutor is not anonymous. This study is a qualitative research with semi-structured interview as its method. Findings in this study showed that participants perform selective self-presentation in VMC. By wearing veil for females or combing hair for males, tiding up the room and table, choosing certain place, also hiding something from the web camera scope are the ways they present themselves to obtain good impression and avoid bad impression from interlocutorsThe findings also discovered that participants perform selective self-presentation to ordinary friends, colleagues, or acquaintances with the same way and the same reason why they perform it when nonverbal cues are present. However, participants do not perform selective self-presentation to family and close friends.

From Inbox Reception to Compliance: A Field Experiment Examining the Effects of E-mail Address and Subject Line on Response and Compliance Rates in Initial E-mail Encounters

Within text-based computer-mediated communication, individuals use available cues to form and guide initial encounters. The goal of this study was to examine how e-mail cues influence the effectiveness of initial e-mail communication in a professional context. A field experiment was conducted to examine how two readily available inbox-level cues— e-mail address (professional vs. nonprofessional) and subject line (clear vs. unclear)—influence the likelihood that an e-mail will be opened and the likelihood of the receiver complying with the e-mail’s request to complete an online survey. Analysis of e-mails sent to professors ( N = 2,021) from 24 academic institutions across the United States revealed that e-mails sent from a professional e-mail address coupled with an unclear subject line resulted in the greatest likelihood that an e-mail would be opened. Analysis found robust support for e-mail address professionalism to increase the likelihood that an embedded survey link will be clicked on and the subsequent survey completed. Theoretical and practical implications along with directions for future research are discussed.

Eye-tracking in recent L2 learner process research: A review of areas, issues, and methodological approaches

Over the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of eye-tracking in second language (L2) learner process research. The previous reviews of eye-tracking language research have focused primarily either on providing guidelines for using this technological data source and/or on highlighting selected eye-tracking studies in one or two second language acquisition (SLA) areas. Thus, there is still a need for a review that covers the research and methodological issues of using eye-tracking in multiple L2 learner process areas. Addressing such gap, this paper reviews the eye-tracking L2 learner process studies published between 2011 and 2018. Specifically, the paper focuses on reviewing the eye-tracking L2 learner process research areas, the issues addressed by the studies in each area, and the data collection and analysis approaches used in these studies. It was found that eye-tracking has been used in eight L2 learner process research areas: vocabulary processing and learning, listening comprehension, syntactic processing, written text production, reading comprehension, text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), oral communication, and data validation. The paper reveals that data collection and analysis approaches have differed from one area to another, and it provides some research and methodological suggestions.

Smile Mimicry and Emotional Contagion in Audio-Visual Computer-Mediated Communication.

We investigate whether smile mimicry and emotional contagion are evident in non-text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC). Via an ostensibly real-time audio-visual CMC platform, participants interacted with a confederate who either smiled radiantly or displayed a neutral expression throughout the interaction. Automatic analyses of expressions displayed by participants indicated that smile mimicry was at play: A higher level of activation of the facial muscle that characterizes genuine smiles was observed among participants who interacted with the smiling confederate than among participants who interacted with the unexpressive confederate. However, there was no difference in the self-reported level of joviality between participants in the two conditions. Our findings demonstrate that people mimic smiles in audio-visual CMC, but that even though the diffusion of emotions has been documented in text-based CMC in previous studies, we find no convincing support for the phenomenon of emotional contagion in non-text-based CMC.

The effect of interaction topic and social ties on media choice and the role of four underlying mechanisms

Abstract This study employed a scenario-based approach whereby participants were asked to choose which communication channel they prefer in certain situations. The first aim was to determine the effect of the topic of interactions and social ties on channel choice. The second aim was to examine the underlying mechanisms (controllability, anonymity, co-presence, and affective understanding) in the relation between interaction topic and social ties and channel choice. A questionnaire was administered among 238 participants, who were presented five communication scenarios with topics of low and high intimacy and four social ties, ranging from weak to strong. Results revealed that preference for face-to-face (FtF) communication was highest, followed by audio-only computer-mediated communication (CMC) and text-based CMC. Preference for FtF communication was higher when people valued feeling co-present and decreased when people valued feeling anonymous. Our results showed that communication channel choice is strategic and the choice for FtF ommunication, audio-only and text-based CMC largely depends on controllability, anonymity and co-presence.

Chinese language learners’ anxiety toward chat partners in computer-mediated communication

AbstractStudies have shown foreign language anxiety (FLA) can negatively impact learners’ performance in the classroom, but learners experience less FLA during computer-mediated communication (CMC) activities. Although it has been documented that communicating with native speakers (NSs) can make foreign language learners more anxious, very few empirical studies have compared learners’ anxiety levels toward different online chat partners. The current study investigated intermediate Chinese language learners’ FLA in online text CMC activities chatting with NSs and non-native speakers (NNSs). The quantitative data analyses showed that there was a significant difference in the anxiety level between chatting with NSs and NNSs in text-based CMC: chatting with NSs made Chinese learners more anxious than chatting with NNSs. Language confidence and partner familiarity were the two main factors mediating the anxiety. Practical pedagogical implications and future research directions were discussed.

Chronemics in Instructor–Student E-Mail Communication: An Experimental Examination of Student Evaluations of Instructor Response Speeds

Text-based computer-mediated communication (e.g., e-mail) lacks nonverbal cues afforded by traditional face-to-face interaction in the classroom. A lack of cues may cause students to place increased importance on elements that are still present, such as how long it takes an instructor to respond to a message. This study experimentally explored how instructor e-mail response speed and message content interact to influence student perceptions of instructor interpersonal attraction and credibility. Results (N = 385) suggested that the quicker an instructor responds to a student e-mail message, the more positively s/he is evaluated in terms of social attractiveness, task attractiveness, competence, character, and caring. However, the content of the message did not significantly influence student perceptions of the instructor. These findings offer practical implications for instructor e-mail communication in the classroom and extend what is known about chronemics in computer-mediated communication to the instructional setting.

How Non-Native English Speakers Perceive the Emotional Valence of Messages in Text-Based Computer-Mediated Communication

ABSTRACTWe explore how native and non-native English speakers interpret cues of emotional expression in native English speakers, text-only messages in two studies. In Experiment 1, 28 native English speakers and 28 Japanese non-native English speakers rated the emotional valence of 98 public Facebook status updates written by native English-speaking authors. We found that non-native speakers were less accurate at detecting the emotional valence and perceived messages more neutral or intensely negative than native speakers. In Experiment 2 we found that non-native speakers’ cultural background and lack of confidence in second-language ability may influence how they adjust their perceptions on a message based on subsequent replies. Our results contribute to theoretical development in multilingual socioemotional communication in computer-mediated environments and have implications for design of technologies to support socioemotional text-based communication between native and non-native speakers.