CMC provides a new paradigm for research into general deindividuation phenomena that can usefully clarify some of the complexities in earlier deindividuation research as well as test the intervening processes that deindividuating contexts supposedly activate. For example, it enables one to manipulate anonymity and identifiability independently from physical isolation and co-presence. Conceptual distinctions between different forms of anonymity, such as visual anonymity and nominal anonymity (not ... Continue Reading
Social Psychology of the Internet
Lea, M. & Spears, R. (2003). Social Psychology of the Internet. In K. Christensen & D. Levinson (Eds.) Sage Encyclopedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World. (pp. 779-783). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Social psychology has a long history of researching the effects of communication technologies, such as the telephone and television, on individuals and groups. Social psychological research on the Internet has focused predominantly on text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as e-mail, bulletin boards, newsgroups, conferencing, and chat. These have been compared both theoretically and empirically with face-to-face communication or with some other standard that controls for certain ... Continue Reading
Social psychological theories of computer-mediated communication: Social pain or social gain?
Spears, R., Lea, M., & Postmes, T. (2001). Social psychological theories of computer-mediated communication: Social pain or social gain? In W. P. Robinson and H. Giles (eds.) The New Handbook of Language and Social Psychology (pp. 601-623). Chichester: Wiley.
It is a safe bet that computer-mediated communication (CMC) features in the everyday life of those likely to be consulting this volume. Less than two decades ago this would not have been the case. The growth of the Internet has meant that CMC use has become ubiquitous in the developed world, and a marker of social exclusion for those denied access. Social science has hardly kept pace with these technological changes in communication, either in terms of understanding their global impacts or ... Continue Reading
Facing the future: Emotion communication and the presence of others in video communications
Manstead, A.S.R., Lea, M. & Goh, J. (2011). Facing the future: Emotion communication and the presence of others in the age of video telephony. In Arvid Kappas (Ed.) Face-to-face communication over the Internet: Issues, research, challenges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pp. 144-175).
Video-mediated communication is becoming a ubiquitous feature of everyday life. This chapter considers the differences between face-to-face and video-mediated communication in terms of co-presence and considers the implications for the communication of emotion, self-disclosure, and relationship rapport. Following initial consideration of the concepts of physical presence and social presence, we describe recent studies of the effect of presence on the facial communication of emotion. We then ... Continue Reading