Internet Forum: Blind Talkinta Blind
I think that part of the problem in Internet forums is that we loose all of the normal comprehension about the person with whom we are communicating. In face-to-face talking we have so very much information about one another that we do not have on the Internet. This lack of perspective leads to everyone assuming attitudes that are often inappropriate for the occasion.
I think that Internet discussions often take on a combat mode among the people involved.
Further evidence of “The Medium is the Message†I guess. In this form of communication all understanding of social situations that we had accumulated over a lifetime are now unavailable to us.
McLuhan was the most noted but not the only individual to recognize that the media of communication exercises widespread affects on personal and social behavior. Observations of many media theorists focused on the media as not just a neutral vehicle for information flow between two or more environments but that media was an environment in and of itself.
“McLuhan adds the notion of ‘sensory balance’. He analyzes media as extensions of the human senses or processes, and he suggests that the use of different technologies affect the organization of the human senses. McLuhan divides history into three major periods: oral, writing/printing, and electronic.â€
In face-to-face situations we have codified proper forms of behavior. At a funeral we act one way, at a basketball game another, when speaking to a person in a suit we speak one way, when speaking to a man in a swimsuit we speak another. On the Internet we communicate to aliens who speak our language. Generally speaking. Studies show that children of four change speaking styles as a function of “audienceâ€.
We all play a multiplicity of roles depending upon the social situation. Over the Internet we might be communicating with aliens suspended in a vacuum.
Quotes from “No Sense of Place†by Meyrowitz.