Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore April 18, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

Social perception and interpretation

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“The sensorial parsimony of plain text

tends to entice users into engaging

their imaginations to fill in missing

details while, comparatively speaking,

the richness of stimuli in fancy

[systems] has an opposite tendency,

pushing users’ imaginations into a

more passive role.”— Curtis (1992)

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designers

designers

designers

Social shaping of technology

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Forming impressions in CMC

“Cognitive misers”: Making the most of limited cues

Social Information Processing (Walther)

Reciprocal re-use of whatthey notice in others

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Strategic vs. authenticself-presentation

Anticipated future interaction?

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Is it deception? Or is it…

Misperception of self (foggy mirror)

Different readings of ambiguous labels

Self-enhancement (not intent to deceive)

Circumvention of technological constraints

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Some points on methodology

Inductive vs. deductive research

Theoretical sampling Why not use random sampling?

Semi-structured interviews

“Coding” responses

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Stylistic differences by gender

Men Assertions Self-promotion Rhetorical questions Profanity Sexual references Sarcasm Challenges Insults

Women Hedges Justifications Expressions of emotion Smiling/laughter Personal pronouns Supportive language Polite language

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Turing Test

Proposed by Alan Turing in 1950

Machine “passes” if it is indistinguishable from a human in synchronous textual communication

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Herring & Martinson findings

Performers employ stereotypical features Discourse styles: more reliable, hard to fake?

Real-life gender shows through

Performers were no better at portraying their own gender than the other gender! How can this be?