Text-based Medium Research Articles

Modality effect in interactive alignment: Differences between spoken and text-based conversation

A distinctive feature of dialogue is the convergence of linguistic choices. The Interactive Alignment Model posits that this convergence is obtained by a mechanism of priming that operates at all levels of linguistic representation. Under the model, priming is supposed to foster mutual understanding. Experimental research has confirmed that priming increases language production and comprehension ease. However, the influence of constraints caused by the medium of communication on alignment remains unexplored. In this paper, we look at structural alignment in face-to-face and synchronous text-based communication. In our study, we analysed the influence of different factors on structural alignment in two datasets, one of computer-mediated conversation and the other of spoken conversations, and found that the likelihood of structural alignment in both cases is determined by the same factors. However, when comparing the overall magnitude of structural alignment in the two datasets, we found a greater magnitude of structural alignment in text-based conversations. In our view, this result suggests that structural alignment is used to trade off the constraints of the text-based medium.

"It's Hard to Show Empathy in a Text": Developing a Web-based Sexual Assault Hotline in a College Setting.

To increase access to counseling and advocacy services and respond to changes in communication preferences, many victim service programs are expanding their traditional telephone hotlines and adding web chat or text hotlines. However, there is little research available about these web and text-based hotlines. We examined program data collected in the first year of operation of a web-based crisis hotline for sexual assault survivors at a large Midwestern university in the United States as part of a larger evaluation project. We examined how often the web-based chat hotline was used and explored patterns of use by time of day and month, comparing to records from the phone hotline operated by the same campus-based victim service program. We also conducted interviews and two group discussions with volunteers and staff about their experiences with providing crisis intervention in a web-chat medium. Findings suggest that the web-based crisis hotline is being used frequently, nearly as often as the telephone hotline and doubling the total number of crisis contacts the organization had in the year prior to adding the web-based chat hotline. Staff and volunteers identified a number of advantages of a web-based hotline, including increased privacy and accessibility for survivors. Difficulty identifying and conveying emotions in the web-chat context was one of the primary challenges described by staff and volunteers. Operating the web-hotline, therefore, requires additional training for volunteers and staff on how to translate crisis intervention skills into a text-based medium. Suggestions for how to communicate effectively in text-based crisis intervention are discussed, along with other considerations for designing a web or text hotline.

On becoming textually active at Youthline, New Zealand

The phones hardly ring at Youthline New Zealand anymore; youth still have problems and seek help, but it mostly happens silently. This article reports on experiences of texting at a 24-hour crisis helpline for young people. To date, there has been no formal evidence base for this practice; however, for new practice, there never is. In prompting discussion, this article attends to the tight constraints that texting imposes, returning to the necessary and sufficient conditions of any effective therapeutic relationship particularly in regard to working with young people. New possibilities are demonstrated with emotional support being demonstrated even in the tightly constrained space of a text-based medium.

How Trust Is Formed in Online Health Communities: A Process Perspective

People are increasingly looking for health-related information and support to empower their self-management and decision making. Online health communities have not only become an important alternative source of patient-centered information but also appear to serve an emotional support role in connecting patients who have similar medical conditions. Trust is critical to sustain their continuous use and enhance their involvement. This is because each community member is typically identified only by a pseudonym, important personal information is often revealed, the quality of information provided by others varies, and the consequences of acting on incorrect advice can be severe. Using semi-structured interviews and data from postings, this study qualitatively explores the trust development between users of forum-based online health communities. Based on data from a wide range of medical conditions, we formulated a three-process framework for establishing trust that conceptualizes how users build trust through the text-based medium and how they progress from one process to another. We contribute to theory by extending existing variance theories in trust to a hybrid process theory which explains the dynamic progression from one state to another. It suggests several design foci that can enhance user experience of these forums.

Form-focused Interaction in Online Tandem Learning

Tandem language learning a configuration involving pairs of learners with complementary target/native languages is an underexploited but potentially very powerful use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in second-language pedagogy. Tandem offers the benefits of authentic, culturally grounded interaction, while also promoting a pedagogical focus among participants. CMC-based tandem promises, in addition, those benefits believed to accrue from text-based interaction, in particular, promotion of conscious attention to language forms in the course of meaningful communication. This paper presents data from a study based on the spontaneous interactions of tandem partners during a weekly, term-long synchronous exchange based in a MOO (Object-Oriented Multi-User Domain). It begins with an introduction to the concept of tandem language learning. The theoretical background, sketched briefly, is a model of instructed second-language acquisition that emphasizes the role of metalinguistic awareness. The empirical section examines negotiation of meaning, a discourse phenomenon held to bring about metalinguistic focus, and, more specifically, signal form and focus. The study analyzes learner interactions along the parameters of home country (Ireland or Germany), current tandem role (NS or NNS), and utterance language. It is suggested that the behaviors observed in this project have their roots in both the tandem learning setup and the text-based medium.

Comics as a Cognitive Training Medium for Expert Decision Making

Experts such as military commanders must make decisions quickly and under deadly conditions. A variety of cognitive training media exist, from Powerpoint to virtual reality (VR) simulations; however, there are alternative media that have not yet been comprehensively studied for expert decision making training. In this study, the researcher has examined the use of comics as an alternative to current cognitive training media. In Experiment 1, naval submariners were shown a text-based medium or comic strip and asked to make a decision about the scenario after viewing. The scenario was derived from a situation that submariners were somewhat familiar with but could not predict. In Experiment 2, the level of comic symbolic abstraction was manipulated across three separate comic strips. Results showed that submariners' decision making ability scores were not superior and response times were not faster with comic media than text-based media. Results also did not show superior scores with lower levels of symbolic abstraction. View time for comics was significantly faster than text-based media for Experiment 1. Several post-hoc results for decision making ability scores and response times were also significant. Post-hoc results showed that submariners' decision making ability scores between comic media and text-based media for Experiment 1 were equivalent at the 90% confidence intervals and were equivalent at the 95% confidence intervals for Experiment 2. Speed was equivalent at the 98% confidence intervals for both Experiment 1 and 2. View time was also equivalent at the 98% confidence intervals for Experiment 2. Comics have shown to be an alternative to current cognitive training media. The findings show that comics have the potential to meet the needs of the diverse military population for rapid and comprehensive soldier training.

DESIGN HISTORY OF THE WWW.: WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GENRE AND STYLE THEORY

Since the emergence of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, the internet has become one of the most important tools for information, entertainment, trade, and social contacts. From a primitive, text-based medium, the web has become a highly advanced and complex mass-multi-medium representing multiple forms of design. Despite the web’s importance as a design medium, the development of website design has only been sporadically described. As yet, we have no historical, chronological descriptions of web design history similar to what we find, for example, in the study of art or “analogue” design history. The article demonstrates how website development can be analysed from a genealogical point of view. It does so by pointing out a number of genre and style formations and discussing their ideological and cultural sources. It is argued that the main engine for web development is the demand for renewal and differentiation from producers and users, which leads to various technical, functional, and symbolic distinction strategies for website design.

Impression Formation in Computer-Mediated Communication Revisited

Following either a text-based, synchronous computer-mediated conversation (CMC) or a face-to-face dyadic interaction, 80 participants rated their partners' personality profile. Impressions were assessed in terms of both their breadth (the comprehensiveness of the impression) and intensity (the magnitude of the attributions). Results indicated that impressions formed in the CMC environment were less detailed but more intense than those formed face-to-face. These data provide support for theories that, in addition to acknowledging the unique constraints and characteristics of CMC, consider the cognitive strategies and heuristics involved in the impression formation process. The differential impact of a text-based medium on trait-specific impressions (e.g., extraversion, neuroticism) is also discussed in the context of a cross-modal approach to impression formation.

Interactive E-mail Journals: A Model for Providing Psychotherapeutic Interventions Using the Internet

The communication medium of the Internet affords psychologists an unprecedented opportunity to provide psychological services to populations who might not ordinarily present to the mental health system but who may nevertheless benefit from psychological intervention. Because the Internet is primarily a medium of the written word, one of the difficulties in providing online psychological services is developing models appropriate to text-only delivery. This article discusses a model for providing online psychological interventions based on the similarity of E-mail composition to traditional journal writing. Two different approaches to interactive online journaling, the Intensive Journal method developed by Progoff and dream journaling, are examined regarding their possible application to delivery within the text-based medium of the Internet.

Interactive E-mail Journals: A Model for Providing Psychotherapeutic Interventions Using the Internet

The communication medium of the Internet affords psychologists an unprecedented opportunity to provide psychological services to populations who might not ordinarily present to the mental health system but who may nevertheless benefit from psychological intervention. Because the Internet is primarily a medium of the written word, one of the difficulties in providing online psychological services is developing models appropriate to text-only delivery. This article discusses a model for providing online psychological interventions based on the similarity of E-mail composition to traditional journal writing. Two different approaches to interactive online journaling, the Intensive Journal method developed by Progoff and dream journaling, are examined regarding their possible application to delivery within the text-based medium of the Internet.