The advent of the Internet is without a doubt, one of the most significant milestones in human history, in my opinion. In terms of communication, one can consider the Internet to be the next stage in human evolution. Humanity has surely come a long way. From the early stages of the spoken language, to the development of writing and now, the ability for people to communicate with each other over vast distances at almost instantaneous speeds.
Despite recent trends like blogging and participation in online forums, the many theories of communication still hold true. In fact, it is even more relevant as the Internet is really just a new way of communicating. Communication through the Internet is of little difference to talking to another person in the physical realm. For example, one must still bear in mind how he wants to bring across his message to the other party, or lexis. He would still use the different types of persuasion, such as logos, which is the appeal to one’s logical reasoning. In fact, online communication such as forum posting may even be described as an example of an Interactive model of communication. After all, there is a message from the original poster, which may be replied to by another poster. As such, there are both senders and receivers of messages.
However, there are times when the failure of communication is apparent. I have seen forums where its participants do not seem to follow any rules of communication .They may have posts, which are made up of utter nonsense and gibberish, totally devoid of any of the Canons of Rhetoric. Many of these people do nothing but just spam the forums with nothing but…well…. spam. In certain forums, such abusers of the Internet are given the term of “Trolls”. The reasons behind them posting absolute nonsense are still unclear. They are usually characterized with using Internet slang or “1337 speak” in their posts, which only serve to confuse others and cause miscommunications in those who are polite enough to try and decipher their message, or lack of it. In the rare occasion that they utilize normal speech, it is apparent that they have the mentality of a young child.
I suspect that people do not behave like this in the physical world, as one would be too ashamed to do childish stuff like this. With the anonymity enjoyed by Internet users, I suppose one can throw all his inhibitions out of the window and act inappropriately, without any fear of consequence.
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9 comments:
spamming, maybe those trolls are aware of a communication strategy known as "frequency, qualities of selection". People select stimuli based on its frequency. So,maybe its not just useless spam after all, they are trying to attract the attention of other forum users by increasing the frequency of their message?
A good analytical approach to communication. I must agree on your views, we all know the importance and relevance communication has in everyone's rountine. From the time we get up to the time we hit the bed. Be it receiver sender or the other way around. Its prevalent in society...sometimes we are ourselves unaware. Perceptions are the most important, how an individual see's something might not be how anohter see's it. It has no limitations, we create our boundaries while communicating.
for ESL407, i wrote an essay titled 'Internet and the way it Communicates'.
yes, it can be argued that the introduction of the internet and it's peripherals have closed physical distance between, but the lack of seeing faces or hearing voice have caused people to be emotionally driven apart.
an example would be MSN chatting. if you were to chance upon an old school classmate whom you have not met for years, how would you know how much they have grown, changed or matured? your questions are limited to what the keys on your board can type, and even though emoticons are used, it is unable to convey warmth or sincerity.
so please forgive me if i do not subscribe to any form of online life; i already cannot find enough time to lead my real one!
trolls they may be, but there are certainly reasons why people do certain stuff. no matter if what they post is of utter nonsense to you, but certainly they are trying to bring a message across, albeit the target audience may not be the majority of us.
as nic mentioned as well, we often select based on frequency, and with frequent 'spamming', the message gets sent. it's all part of new age communication.
Tear apart social norms, and the rules of accountability for your own actions = the internet. I totally agree with you on this point.
The problem I believe is because the real world is closely monitored and regulated by adults and other authorities, while the 'online, high tech' world is swarmed with teens being the 'most knowledgable' and 'expert'. Thus, the online world lacks adult, and experienced supervision like for example: basketballers in a basketball team has a basketball coach who knows whats best for them.
This gives rise to obscene vulgarities seen on global chat channels, and other delicate phrases like 'I PWN JOO I PWN JOO ZOMG I AM THE BOOOMB'
it is a good analysis to communication these days on the internet and i quite agree with the fact that communication through the internet bear little difference from communication in the physical realm just that the main difference is the physical contact of conversing with each other face to face. other than that from the way we type online we all tend to take notice the way our sentences are structured so that it carefully conveys our message and feelings
HI! amos here! Nice post about the most obvious advancement in telecommunications which is the invention of the internet! In our post industrial age where technology seem to have assimilated into our daily lives, we often take for granted that the internet is indeed a very powerful tool where any individual can communicate and express his or her ideas succinctly from anyway on the globe. The easy access and retrieval of information has cause communication now to be at a even more rapid speed where new information can be rendered useless in a couple of minutes. However with the internet, physical social interactions become less apparent and societal problems may increase due to the nature of the virtual world where anything goes? Its quite a scary thought of how fast our world is being turned into a virtual one? I guess a balance is needed to achieve a all rounded means of communicating.
I agree with the point that communication via the internet can pose a problem whereby the human touch is lost as communication is not seen as it being "face to face" anymore. Internet communication, although serves its goals of being fast and efficient, does not however contribute to a better society.
The lost in face to face communication also poses more threats to teenagers who got to know people online as their perception of another person will just evolve from their own interpretations of the person whom they are chatting to.
As we advance technologically, we retard personally. Even though we are able to communicate almost instantaneously through the internet (instand messaging, e-mail), it makes us lose our human connection with the person that we are communicating with because we can't physically talk to them and see them right in front of us. There's a human element that's missing, and somehow it all seems more.. dead over the internet.
Failure of communication can still occur in less obvious ways than what you described. To me, failure of communication occurs when simply, you cannot grasp the whole essence of the message that the person is trying to convey to you. Internet communication eradicates the importance of non-verbal language, which is an essential part of helping you to understand a message totally (60% as discussed in Comms class). That's why in the end, I prefer real-life interaction.
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