Computer Mediated Communication

The Latest and Greatest CMC

As humans, we communicate both socially and professionally in our everyday lives. We have taken advantage of the latest technology in order to better assist us in our communication transactions. Whether socially or professionally, we make use of the computer mediated communications to enable to stay in contact with family, friends, coworkers, and business associates around the globe.

Computer Mediated Communications, or CMC, is defined as any communicative transaction or process that allows a user or users to send messages through the use of two or more networked computers in the form of computer-mediated formats such as e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, video conferencing, or list servers. The best known form of computer mediated communications is the internet as this form of communication allows access to all forms of communicative tools. Email has the lowest form of social presence as it mainly involves text. Video conferencing is the highest form of social presence because it involves more of a live interaction among the participants which can include facial expressions and audio options.

In the past, we have always relied on other forms of communication which were a bit slower and not as personable or instantaneous as we are familiar with in today’s technology. We use to rely on face to face encounters, which we still acknowledged as the best means of meeting both socially and professionally. We also relied on letter writing, telegrams, and the telephone system. While times have changes and our forms of communication have improved dramatically, we still have some issues to overcome with our new technological upgrades. Some believe that the CMC have made communications less personable in regards to the context cues, conversation recordability, rate of exchange, level of formality, and the anonymity of the user. Trust must be present in our new communication endeavors; however, there are some advantages that...