KOMMUNIKÁCIÓ, KÖZVÉLEMÉNY, MÉDIA
2014/2. szám
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KOMMUNIKÁCIÓ, KÖZVÉLEMÉNY, MÉDIA 2014/2. szám |
DOI: 10.20520/Jel-Kep.2014.2.11
Keywords:
online communication, social media, conversation, interaction, group thinking, common sense, phatic communication, metacommunication.
Online friend finders, stunning and well-created Facebook events, e-mailing among members of an interest group, creation of news in the mass media based on social media posts, cyber-prostitution. What is common in these phenomena? How can they be described with a common language? What are the forces they are moved by?
Currently, at least it seems so, there is no certain and detailed theory available for describing the dynamics of online communication. In this paper we can't shoulder the task to create a brand new one. However, a short delineation of such a model will be drawn by the end of the text. Most elements of this theory stem from "pure" communication theory, some elements are borrowed from psychology and sociology indeed, and all of them are referring to the practice, eventually to the "real virtual world". The will to avoid the simple story-telling about cyberdynamic phenomena have let us choose a critical theoretical approach. Therefore this paper is rather descriptive than argumentative, namely there are no certain conclusions to argument for. We aim to depict that quite a few online "happening" which stem from human beings cannot be understood without an integrated sight of communication dynamics, henceforth communication theory needs a cyberdynamic approach to explain these phenomena in a united frame. Thus we are able to draw a plan for developing social media skills based on interpersonal communication skills.
Cyberdynamics exists in an internet-based technical environment "where" human social networks are created by people. Henceforth the crucial concepts mentioned above have to be detailed here.
By "internet" DiMaggio et alii (2001: 307.) refer to "the electronic network of networks that links people and information through computers and other digital devices allowing person-to-person communication and information retrieval". A narrower concept, "web2" refers on a totality of platforms which allow users to create and share digital contents: "a collaborative medium, a place where we [could] all meet and read and write" (Richardson, 2009: 1.). Internet itself has a double-sided reference. On the one hand, internet is a technical medium which allows to link computer devices together creating a technical network system. On the other hand, it has a social character: the technical system enables different kinds of communication in a mediated way. Due to this double-sided character, the possible variances of internet-based communication can be reduced to two main types: person-to-person, machine-to-person (and inversely of course) respectively machine-to-machine. All the other variances of communication (e. g. group-to-group, institution-to-person, etc.) can be derived from one of these types.
Furthermore, according to Ropolyi (2006), internet in general can be characterized by three main specialities, which describe the narrower sphere, the "web2"-phenomena as well.
1. Contingency: as the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann claims, nothing is obligatory in the media (Luhmann, 2000). Everything can be the other way round, so nothing is inevitable the way it happens: web2 (Miller, 2008) can make a surprise owing to its unpredictable trait.
2. Eventuality: virtually it is a positive phrasing of point 1. On the worldwide web, everything can well be everything else, so there can be affable surprises and unpredictable successes. (Correlation of point 1. and point 2. is depicted by the dotcom-fever in the late 1990s. A complete overview can be seen in [Calhoun et alii, 2005], a special field of this phenomena is depicted in [Muhammad, 2000] and another in [Rigby, 2012]).
3. Virtuality: this terminus technicus refers to two meanings. According to its Latin origin, virtuality means "worthy, outstanding" on the one hand, and "lifelike" on the other hand. Thus virtuality is eventually a virtual concept on its own. Internet platforms are virtual in the meaning of contingency (see above in point 1.), in addition, it is a word that describes the wealth of synchronic, mediatised and anonymous world of internet, including web2.
Speaking about the dynamics of communication, there is a serious lack of satisfying definitions. The existing ones show mainly psychological frames on one hand, and they all vary by the approaches of the concept "communicative dynamics" on the other hand. According to Rudas (2010: 49.):
> most of the authors do not recognize respectively do not regard the concept of communicative dynamics at all writing about social or group processes;
> some authors stress the relation of "communicative dynamics" and psychodynamics, while they handle them as identical;
> some authors claim that the concept of "communicative dynamics" is equal to group dynamics - this approach cannot make clear the relation of process and system. While group dynamics refers to the relations between group-members, and to the steps how they are developed, communicative dynamics concern the structures of thoughts, acts, attitudes and many more which may occur in a group;
> some authors state that communicative dynamics is equal to role behaviour or other certain psychological factors;
> some other authors handle this expression as an axiom, or as a non-defined main concept.
As we will detail, some elements of the above-mentioned viewpoints can inevitably be applied to the concept of "cyberdynamics". However, most of these psychological viewpoints cannot be arranged to communicative situations being constituted in web2-environments.
Summing up: the term "cyberdynamics" consists of two elements. Here "cyber" refers to the internet-based communication (the word "cyber" is used only in favour of choosing a short and familiar expression to associate to the internet, web2 and virtuality). "Dynamics" refer to the dynamic social system which constantly builds, rebuilds and reforms itself owing to the participators' acts. It has its own rules (detailed in Buda, 1999), which were firstly described in theses of Palo Alto group (Watzlawick et al., 1967). The whole term "cyberdynamics", furthermore, refers to the social network communication process occurring in internet-based (online) environment. Thus present paper emphasizes the social side of internet, however we do not omit the fact that all the structures stem from technical equipments. A non-technical point of view in detailing "cyberdynamics" is validly appliable, without using categorically technodeterministic approaches.
In this thesis we will try to sketch the main lines of a cyberdynamic approach of communication. We will seek the answer for the following questions:
1. How can internet-based mediated communication ("new media communication") and traditional interpersonal communication be attuned?
2. To what extent refer interpersonal and new media communication to each other?
3. What similarities and differences do they have considering group processes and social network?
This paper aims to depict viewpoints in favour of delineate a possible sketch for the concept of "cyberdynamics", based on interpersonal as well as network communication theory. This way, instead of creating a whole "theory", we may only show a possibility to describe new media communication and interpersonal communication in a common frame.
Cyberdynamics shows the main properties of offline interpersonal communication cited in subchapter 2. Here we detail the inherent properties (following Watzlawick, 1967), adding the specialities of new media communication to them.
- Communication is a necessity: considering the social aspect of cyberdynamics, it is impossible not to communicate. Not only because there is a biologically encoded drive for communication in human beings which appears also in human online social interactions, but also because even the unintended signals can be interpreted as communication if a spectator presents. The necessity of communication, furthermore, is a technological force as well: if the networked machines do not communicate with each other (due to technical problems or so), the network breaks off and virtually stops to exist.
- Communication is necessarily multi-channel and multilevel: as subchapter 2 described, the two-sided property of internet ensures its multilevel quality. Considering the channels of internet-based communication, it is easy to see that verbal and nonverbal channels are both available for participants (e. g. characters, texts and voice vs. icons, sound signs and color patterns, etc.). In mediated person-to-person communicative situations, there is always also a content level and a relationship level to observe.
- Communication can be digital and analogue: because of the multi-channel property, cyberdynamics has a digital and an analogue character considering the social side of internet. The former relates to verbal communication, the latter to nonverbal communicative signs (including pictures). However, observing from the technological side, cyberdynamics can only have a digital character due to the digital system, which is built from endless variations of the bynaric code (0 and 1).
- Punctuation: communication is always punctuated, so the dialogic property is easy to see in conversations. Each element of communication results an answer as long as the participants are involved to continue the conversation. As soon as one of the participants leaves the dialogue, the whole conversation will be changed. The elements all have their borderlines, thus they are certainly differentiated. This differentiation creates punctuation in communication. The same mechanism works in online discourses as well: each communicative activity (e. g. logging in and off, posting contents, poking, editing, etc.) can be technically anchored to certain participators (nicknames, time and spatial coordinates and IP addresses). On the social side of the internet, aliases and anonymous users can cause some situations where it is hard to decide whether one person is or more people are the communicators, thus punctuation is unsure. However on the content level of communication they can be identified by their style and intentions, moreover their communicative elements can be distinguished just like the real-named users' ones.
- Symmetric and asymmetric types of communication: cyberdynamics naturally provides both types of communication. The former type can be found on each social media platforms where - at least theoretically - there is an option for every user to be a sender, a content creator respectively active participator. Examples for asymmetric communication stem from web1-phenomena where content creators and content "consumers" can be categorically divided.
- Reciprocity: online communicative activities technologically have a kind of reciprocity (feedback in the interactivity of servers and modems). However, the property of reciprocity relates to the concept of interpenetration as well in the societal layer. Interpenetration (the act or process of penetrating between or within other substances; mutual penetration) refers to relations where the participators mutually form each other's behaviour, thinking, and therefore communicative activities. Interpenetrating actors (Goffmann, 1968) do their impact on each other reciprocally: the impact on the one causes the impact on the other. (About interpenetration see more in Luhmann, 2008.)
- Receiving and emission is a psychological need: abstracting from the technical layer of cyberdynamics, in the societal layer we find the pervasive need for keeping in touch. One-sided communication (which cannot be logically labelled as effective communication) is to be avoid, otherwise communication process may collapse. The web2 phenomena is based on mutual (reciprocal) and a more or less sustainable, constant communication activity, so reflects the idea of psychologically needed communication.
- Promotive tendency beside pure referential function: following Jakobson's theory on the elements of communication, every communicative situation has a referential function, which the communicator refers to the elements of the world (or the context) with, and beside this, according to Buda (1986), communicators urge to promote the pure process of communication, thus it has a promotive tendency as well. What is more, as Malinowski (1945) stresses, every interpersonal communicative activity has a phatic character. This means that all the participators work on maintaining the communication process, avoiding the breaks in it. Commerce topics (weather, traffic, health, etc.) and empty platitudes serve the aim of continuous and secure communication. Exactly the same happens in online forums where the vast majority of discussions have a phatic character.
As we presented, the maxims of interpersonal communication can be applied mutatis mutandis to the description of online communication. The necessary changes are rather technical than social. The present paper has intentionally a lack of case studies. Further research has to make clear the details of the cyberdynamic phenomena. At this stage it is clear that cyberdynamic approach detailed here can be successfully applied for training the agents of online communication (individually as well as institutionally). The more case studies are presented verifying the above-mentioned maxims the more we will know about the properties of human online social communication.
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