This study examined the effects of communication mode, both face-to-face (FTF) and computer-mediated communication (CMC), and polling on cooperation in a commons dilemma. Sixty-seven six-person groups used FISH, a computer program that uses a fishing metaphor to simulate a commons dilemma. Next, groups had a 10-minute discussion period, either FTF or via CMC, in which they devised a strategy for the second FISH session. Groups were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: FTF, no-poll CMC, end-poll CMC, and two-poll CMC. The polls allowed members to determine others' intended behavior, thus enhancing perceived consensus. Finally, groups used the FISH program again. Results indicted that experimental condition influenced consensus, with end-poll CMC groups reaching consensus most often, followed by FTF, two-poll CMC, and no-poll CMC groups. However, groups did not differ across experimental condition on resource pool sustainability or group profit. FTF groups were more satisfied with group performance than no-poll CMC groups and two-poll CMC and FTF groups had similar levels of satisfaction. The strategy the group decided to implement in the second FISH session had a significant effect on group profit but not resource pool sustainability. Thus, the harvest strategy implemented by the group may have been a stronger predictor of performance than experimental condition.

Current trends in information technology developments mean that computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems can be expected to become progressively more versatile, widespread and significant both for work and for education. All students and staff of the Department of Communication and Information Studies at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, have used CMC systematically for more than five years. This has made it possible to carry out detailed studies over time of the impact of CMC on academic users, and of the value they derive from it, with a particular focus on gender differences. Results are presented of a survey of student use, including levels and patterns of messaging as well as perceptions of, and attitudes towards CMC activities. Some results are compared with related surveys of UK distance learning students using CMC, and of computing use by students at a US local campus. Despite rapid changes in technological capabilities, there appears to be some stability of reactions to CMC. Students most highly valued course-oriented and administrative uses of CMC. When compared with face-to-face tutorials, CMC was rated negatively, though least so as a medium for intellectual exchange. However, students were positive about their present and future use of CMC, and became more positive over time. Some evidence was found to support concerns that females may be disadvantaged in the use of CMC. There was also, however, evidence of the related gender differences diminishing, disappearing, or reversing with experience and over time. It is suggested that CMC may best be regarded as a complementary rather than substitutionary medium in higher education

Thesis (Ph. D.)(Information Science)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This thesis focuses upon a series of empirical studies which examine communication and learning in online glocal communities within higher education in Sweden. A recurring theme in the theoretical framework deals with issues of languaging in virtual multimodal environments as well as the making of identity and negotiation of meaning in these settings; analyzing the activity, what people do, in contraposition to the study of how people talk about their activity. The studies arise from netnographic work during two online Italian for Beginners courses offered by a Swedish university. Microanalyses of the interactions occurring through multimodal video-conferencing software are amplified by the study of the courses’ organisation of space and time and have allowed for the identification of communicative strategies and interactional patterns in virtual learning sites when participants communicate in a language variety with which they have a limited experience. The findings from the four studies included in the thesis indicate that students who are part of institutional virtual higher educational settings make use of several resources in order to perform their identity positions inside the group as a way to enrich and nurture the process of communication and learning in this online glocal community. The sociocultural dialogical analyses also shed light on the ways in which participants gathering in discursive technological spaces benefit from the opportunity to go to class without commuting to the physical building of the institution providing the course. This identity position is, thus, both experienced by participants in interaction, and also afforded by the ‘spaceless’ nature of the online environment.

The present study is conducted within the borders of multilingual Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) . It aims at investigating the orthographic representation of Najdi Arabic in Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Along with this basic purpose, the study examines the communicative functions of multilingual practices in representing Najdi Arabic online. These practices include code-switching between languages (English-Arabic) and script-switching between scripts (Arabic-Roman). In addition, it is within the intentions of this study to analyze the specific characterstics of Najdi Arabic online which make it a hybrid between written and spoken languages. The investigation starts with the hypothesis that Najdi Arabic online is a language form that shows interrelations of languages, scripts and features of CMC. In order to realize these intentions, an online questionnaire was administerated among internet users and a large corpus of IRC data was collected. Within Herring’s (2004) computer-mediated discourse analysis approach, qualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis were conducted. Responses to the online questionnaire were coded and analyzed in order to establish social profiles of who use Najdi Arabic online. IRC data was subjected to textual and interactional analysis to investigate the orthographic and linguistic features of this language form as well as the mechanism underlying code-switching and script-switching. The analysis of data yielded a number of important findings. First, youth language creatively uses non-standard spellings in constructing anti-standard orthography that constitutes a cyberspace code of communication. Regarding the orthographic representation of Najdi Arabic, the analysis reveals interrelations among languages (Arabic/English) and ASCII-characters. The process of Romanizing Najdi Arabic involves a combination of both transliteration of the Arabic orthography and transcription of spoken Najdi Arabic. Second, this writing system functions as a code of communication that carries social and cultural meanings and it is argued that switching between scripts is not entirely arbitrary. Applying the methodological tools of Auer’s (1995) Conversational Analysis to script-switching online, it is found that alternating between scripts online achieves different communicative functions that define and enhance the IRC discourse. Third, code-switching has been found to serve communicative functions similar to those of face-to face conversation and stimulated by the synchronicity of online discourse. Finally, investigating the specific features of Najdi Arabic online reveals another level of language alternation between common English CMC features identified in the literature and innovative CMC features based on the Arabic orthography.

The goal of this research was to investigate communication media and feedback learning cues for tutoring. A macroergonomic perspective was used to identify three sociotechnical variables associated with tutoring assistance: problem analyzability, communication media, and learning feedback cues. A four-phase problem solving approach was used in all trials. The communication media consisted of collocated communication, email, a chatroom, and video teleconferencing. The learning feedback cue was a non-verbal mechanism for subjects to provide the tutor with immediate information about their understanding throughout the problem. Subjects participated in a total of eight trials over a four-week time period. The analysis accuracy, process time, and user satisfaction indicated that the four-phase problem solving approach was not important in the interpretation of the results. In each problem-solving phase and for the overall tutoring process, technical performance (e.g., accuracy and speed of problem solving) and user satisfaction were measured to determine the most effective communication technology (or technologies) for tutoring students. The results of this study indicated that the accuracy was similar for all experimental conditions. However, the speed of problem solving was generally faster for audio-visual communication than text-based communication. In all phases, subjects were significantly more satisfied in conditions without feedback cues. And in general, satisfaction was higher in collocated communication and the chatroom compared to email; satisfaction was generally higher in collocated communication compared to video teleconferencing. There was no evidence that computer-mediated communication improved the tutoring process. However, important design implications existed for tutoring systems with limited resources. Through computer-mediated communication, a single tutor could assist many students at one time. The chatroom appeared to be a condition that would be an effective communication medium for spatially dispersed tutoring. Although the tutoring process required significantly more time to complete using the chatroom compared to collocated communication, accuracy and satisfaction measures were similar between collocated communication and the chatroom. / Master of Science

In third world countries like Pakistan, companies are growing their trading business with remarkable pace. Increase in business volume has raised the challenges to keep growth sustainable. Communication is one of the biggest challenges for most of small size trading and marketing companies in the region. Face-to-face communication is only type of communication available in companies for inter departmental and intra departmental communication. Although face-to-face is one of the best type of communication but it is not possible to have face-to-face communication all the time with all employees especially when volume of company is growing with remarkable pace. In result company faces challenges like information delay, information lost or communication handicap. These challenges affect efficiency and effectiveness of company. We performed qualitative survey with directors and employees of Abuzar Marketing and Trading Company to develop deep understanding with communication problem to eliminate it. Analyzing empirical data and literature, it is found that Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) provides synchronous and asynchronous types of communication, which could help the company to overcome communication challenges with several other potential benefits e.g. knowledge sharing, employees training, democracy in batter manners.  Since every company in region is facing similar problem, general recommendation and precautions are made to introduce computer mediated communication (CMC).

Social media has quickly become an integral part of day-to-day interaction for many university students. By infusing usage of the popular social networking site Instagram into the curriculum of three French 1002 classes, this exploratory study aimed to investigate the role of image as a tool to support learning writing in the L2 in a lower division French class. Data showed that student perception on the effect of images on their comprehension of their classmate’s writing as well as their classmate’s understanding of their own writing were positive.

This mixed design multiple case study of learners' interactions explores the effects of teacher participation during third semester German in-class chatting activities. Three third-semester German courses taught by two different teachers were investigated over the course of one semester, during which the class members were asked to chat for 20 minutes per week using activities design by the researcher and adapted from the textbook.Multiple data sets were collected: teachers' participation styles and feedback moves; students' language learning achievement levels; students' attitudes towards corrective feedback and technology; their experience with feedback and technology; and evidence in chat transcripts of errors, uptake, and error uptake. Students were administered a pre- and post-instruction achievement test on the structures taught during third semester German. In addition, they were surveyed at the beginning and the end of the semester on their attitudes and experiences with feedback and technology in the foreign language classroom. Furthermore, chat transcripts were analyzed to identify errors, corrective feedback, teacher moves, uptake, error uptake, student and teacher word count and words per minute, error rate, and target language use. In order to better understand the context of the transcripts, classroom observations were conducted once a month, and students completed a self-report form after each chat session. Informal conversations with the teachers provided additional insights.It was found that the students overwhelmingly appreciated teacher involvement and feedback, and that they saw chatting as both fun and beneficial for language learning. The corrective feedback rate was generally low, as were rates of uptake and error uptake. The two teachers were found to have different interaction and feedback styles. Furthermore, the three classes operated with differing levels of technical support during the lab sessions, which did not appear to influence the students' experiences except for the amount of teacher output. Six case study subjects, namely the two students from each class who contributed the most to chat sessions, were selected for an in-depth analysis of their chat transcripts.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre and Dance / Timothy R. Steffensmeier / Social Identity Theory has long held that group affiliation plays a predominant role in how we interact with others and the types of communication strategies that we deploy. Traditional scholarship on Computer Mediated Communication maintains an excessively interpersonal focus, detracting from its ability to theorize intergroup communication and conflict. This research study, conducted at the Internet bulletin board Americanwx.com, investigates the role that group identity plays in the everyday discourse of online message boards. In an ethnographic study spanning the course of 8 months and thousands of exchanges, research found that the structure of message boards themselves is implicated in the formation and maintenance of groups, and that once formed, groups tend to act in a manner that is consistent with Social Identity Theory.