Computer-Mediated Communication

In the broadest sense, computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be any form of communication [Page 162]that is mediated by digital technology. Thus, a telephone conversation can be said to be computer mediated if each speech act is converted into digital code, transmitted, and then decoded for the listener.

In relation to the speech acts themselves, such a conversation is no different from that mediated by an analogue or human-operated telephone exchange. However, when the conversation is converted into a form that is managed by computing systems, the spatial, temporal, and social contexts of telephony can be radically transformed. Speech acts can be digitally recorded and digitally recognized in ways that are storable and exchangeable with other digital information. Calls can be screened, forwarded, and blocked, and conversations can be timed in ways that are linked to billing; all these properties impact how people use the telephone, whether they use it at all, and how long they use it.

While CMC can take in the study of telephony and interactivity in any computer-mediated form, the most common meaning of it is related to the direct use of personal computers for communication, to the point that today, CMC is often used interchangeably with online Internet communication. Thus e-mail, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and simulated worlds are all forms of CMC. But the distinguishing feature here is that what is being mediated is communication—not information or entertainment. Browsing the World Wide Web and downloading information—the primary activity of Web 1.0 (the original use of the Internet)—are not examples of CMC. Rather, communication between individuals, whether one-to-one or many-to-many, sharing text, sounds, and images in Web 2.0, and interacting in next-generation environments are examples. However, the most common forms of CMC are e-mail, with its very low bandwidth, or the broader-banded online social networking outlets, in which users can post images or music. But in each case, text predominates.

A further division here is between synchronous and asynchronous CMC. Many chat sites, such as the early Internet Relay Chat and “I seek you,” Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) and MUDs object oriented (MOOs), and today's Second Life are in real time. The bulk of CMC, however, is asynchronous, with e-mail and online social networking offering the convenience of communication that can be stored in a threaded conversation.

The fact that there are several varieties of CMC, according to temporal and bandwidth qualities, has led some researchers to problematize the status and nature of interactivity in CMC.