Taking the Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) course this semester has been good timing. Two early readings have made an impression on me. I reflect on one today and will review the other at another time.
The first is by Herring (n.d.) entitled A Classification Scheme for Computer-Mediated Discourse. In this article, Herring argued that Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is not a single genre but comprises of many modes, e.g. email, instant messaging, news groups, blogs, etc.
She went on to suggest that different modes of CMC could be classified according to medium (technical) variables and situational (social and cultural) variables. Such a taxonomy reflects the sociotechnical use of various forms of CMC.
Medium variables include synchronicity, 1-way vs. 2-way transmission, size of message buffer, channels of communication, anonymity, private messaging, filtering, and quoting. Situational variables include participation structure, participant characteristics, purpose, topic or theme, tone, activity, norms, and code.
By using these variables, classification labels like "blog" or "discussion forum" become less important. In fact, in my potential study, the use of blogs (or journals) and discussion forums will probably be very similar. I intend to juxtapose the variables of each mode of CMC to determine how alike or different they actually are. Ideally, I might find that there is just one difference between them and each mode becomes an "experimental" treatment.
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