Chapter 88. RealComm4e_chapter_outline

88.1 Section Title

true
true
Chapter 2
Communicating in a Digital Age

What to Expect

  • Digital Origins
  • Qualities of Digital Channels
  • The Power of the Crowd
  • Overcoming Digital Challenges

Chapter Outline

  1. To achieve competent communication, we need to be both appropriate and effective. This process is complex enough when communicating face to face, but becomes even more complex when we consider the many channels of mediated communication, in which there is some technology that is used to deliver messages between sources and receivers.
    1. Digital Communication is using electronic networks to transmit digital data, including text, images, video, or voice.

    Ask Yourself:

    • How often do you use digital communication—the Internet, social media, mobile devices—in your life?
  2. Since the early 1990s, technology has evolved dramatically. Digital changes happened rapidly to get us to the era of smartphones and other devices; however, digital technologies are still constantly and quickly changing.
    1. The internet is now widespread, mobile, and accessible to an increasingly diverse population.
    2. Experts in internet, science, and technology research argue that we have had three digital “revolutions” so far: internet, mobile phone connectivity, and social media.
      1. They predict that the next revolution is an internet of things, in which the internet, artificial intelligence, and big data will be like “electricity”—less visible but everywhere, embedded in a multitude of screens, and the way we operate our homes and our environment as well as how we understand our emotions and bodies—all the things of our daily lives.

    Ask Yourself:

    • How has mobile phone technology changed for you in the last five years?
    • What new social media apps do you use now that you did not have before, and which ones have you stopped using?
    • How have digital changes affected the way you communicate with your family members and friends?
  3. There are aspects of digital channels that make them both similar to and different from more traditional forms of communication.
    1. According to media synchronicity theory, different channels of communication support different levels of synchronicity: the ability to allow people to communicate back and forth rapidly in a coordinated exchange of messages
      1. The ability of some channels to enable both synchronous and asynchronous communication may set up complicated expectations and interpretations about the time it takes to respond to messages.
      2. If communicating with someone and they do not respond right away, by recognizing the situation—the person went to a meeting or to class, etc.—we can react positively or negatively according to the situation.
      3. With asynchronous media, we have the opportunity to take our time and tailor our messages and communication accordingly.
    2. In addition to the timing of messages, digital channels vary based on how closely they allow us to approximate face-to-face communication.
      1. Before the explosion of digital technologies, many scholars had already argued that channels of communication had different levels of richness—the degree of visual, vocal, and personality cues that are possible as well as opportunities for feedback.
      2. More recently, however, scholars have argued that the reason we often prefer digital media that are similar to face-to-face interaction is because they have more naturalness.
      3. Despite being drawn to more natural or rich media, much of our daily communication is also spent using solely text-based phone- or computer-mediated channels. Social information processing theory argues that although such mediated interaction lacks the nonverbal cues of natural spoken communication, we compensate for it by using other cues.
    3. Digital channels vary as to how much our messages may be private or public. Messages that are stored have replicability, which means that they can be shared with larger audiences.
      1. With social media, we need to be aware of context collapse, the blurring of our social boundaries and combining of formerly separate audiences.
        1. We have control over messages we send and control over messages we receive.

    Ask Yourself:

    • Have you ever experienced someone taking “too long” to respond to your post or text?
    • How did you interpret what it meant?
    • How did your interpretation affect your communication and relationship with the other person?
  4. Inviting large numbers of people to help solve a problem via the internet is known as crowdsourcing. Digital media enables us to use the “power of the crowd” to harness the talent, knowledge, creativity, and support of a diverse (and dispersed) population.
    1. Enterprise social media are web-based platforms that allow workers to post and view organizational messages as well as edit files and otherwise engage with work teams on idea-sharing.
      1. They key is getting people involved, interested, and participating in enterprise social media—the usefulness of crowdsourced information relies on people actually contributing.
    2. Social media can provide online peer-to-peer support, in which people rely on their social connections to help with personal, physical, and mental health problems. Online connections also build social capital, the broad set of resources that come from having connections and relationships with people.
    3. Raising public support and financial backing through online services is called crowdfunding.

    Ask Yourself:

    • How has your online social network helped you when you felt lonely or overwhelmed with the pressure of college?
    • What kinds of messages did the members of your network send, and which ones were the most effective?
    • How have you used social media to help your friends or family cope with stress?
  5. Challenges we face with digital forms of communication:
    1. Although access to technology is now more widespread than ever, some digital disparities remain in terms of access to multiple digital devices and ability to use digital media effectively.
    2. Comparing ourselves to the idealized images presented in social media can lead to poor mental well-being. If we become driven to obtain “likes” and other forms of digital recognition, we may benefit from taking a “break” from social media. We need to recognize when we are so concerned about documenting the moment that we do not actually live in the moment.
    3. Cyber criminals often try to get personal information from you by phishing, sending an “urgent” message that asks you to provide your password or open an attachment that appears to be from a legitimate organization.

    Ask Yourself:

    • What are the challenges we face when communicating with digital media?
    • How can you protect yourself against cyber-attacks?