Engaging in Email Discussion: Conversational Context and Social Identity in Computer-Mediated Communication

For millions of people, text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a convenient and engaging way to exchange information and opinion. Research shows that the social ambiguity of text-based CMC, such as email, can both promote participation and group cohesion and lead to misunderstanding, offence and social division. We report a field experiment that attempted to expose some underlying factors. GNU Mailman was configured to promote either individual or group perspectives during email discussions. It was used for political debate by two groups of Indonesian NGO members during the Indonesian constitutional crisis of 2001. We assessed changes in their perceptions of their groups and their political attitudes. Our findings suggest that CMC for socially loaded topics relies upon two complementary factors: the ability of the medium to underwrite participants' Social Identity and its support for expression of the group's conversational aims.

[1]  Sara B. Kiesler,et al.  The Equalization Phenomenon: Status Effects in Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Decision-Making Groups , 1991, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[2]  T. Postmes,et al.  Social psychological theories of computer-mediated communication: Social gain or social pain? , 2001 .

[3]  A. Monk,et al.  Reasoning about tasks, activities and technology to support collaboration. , 1998, Ergonomics.

[4]  James D. Herbsleb,et al.  Introducing instant messaging and chat in the workplace , 2002, CHI.

[5]  Christine Halverson,et al.  Social translucence: designing social infrastructures that make collective activity visible , 2002, CACM.

[6]  H. Tajfel,et al.  The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. , 2004 .

[7]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[8]  Victoria Bellotti,et al.  E-mail as habitat: an exploration of embedded personal information management , 2001, INTR.

[9]  Jacek Gwizdka,et al.  Reinventing the inbox: supporting the management of pending tasks in email , 2002, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[10]  Jenny Preece,et al.  Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Sociability , 2000 .

[11]  Andrew F. Monk,et al.  Peripheral participation in video-mediated communication , 2000, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[12]  Judith S. Donath,et al.  Chat circles , 1999, CHI '99.

[13]  John Short,et al.  The social psychology of telecommunications , 1976 .

[14]  B. Baltes,et al.  Computer-Mediated Communication and Group Decision Making: A Meta-Analysis , 2002 .

[15]  Giuseppe Mantovani,et al.  Is Computer-Mediated Communication Intrinsically Apt to Enhance Democracy in Organizations? , 1994 .

[16]  Stephen W. Littlejohn.  Theories of Human Communication , 1978 .