Blog is interesting

Blogs which also known as web logs. Blog is a personal diary which is written online. Bloggers will update their blogs frequently. Blog has many functions as it can be a platform for bloggers to voice out their feelings, share information and make discussions. There are many types of blogs such as personal, business, politics and sports (WordPress, n.d.). Everyone has own preferable type of blog. 

Malaysian Food Blog, Travel, Diving and More

KYspeaks.com

It is a blog which mainly introduces various types of food from various places in Malaysia. The blogger visited many states in Peninsular Malaysia and wrote the reviews for the food he had tried. The blog is neat and not so wordy. The blogger introduced the food with words and also clear photos. Besides that, he also provided map and address of the places that he visited. 

Figure 1: the photo of food is provided

Figure 2: location is provided

On the other hand, the blogger also traveled to various counties. He wrote down his dairy on his blog and shared to everyone. This is helpful for those people who plan to have a trip. His writing for the trip was on behalf of others but he shared his experiences sincerely to the readers. 

The blogger shared things in a neat and clear way. He categorized the information that really helps people who do not visit frequently but still can get the information they want easily. The ways of writing and pictures provided have enhanced my viewing frequency. I can say I like this blog quite much.

A good blog

In my opinion, this is a good and attractive blog. Blogger does not disappointed his readers because he had given reviews for various food from various cultures. He not only gives reviews for Chinese food, but also Malay, Indian, Japanese and other delicious food. He likes sharing because he not only provides food photos and location, he also tells the reader of the prices of food and photo of menu in his blog. This is one of the ways to help readers to make consideration before they visit the places. 

What is considered as bad blog?

Bloggers have their own way in writing and designing their blogs. In my opinion, there is no bad blog. But, there are some kinds of blog which I do not like. I do not like the blog which are too wordy and dull in design. When there is much information, the writer should categorize the information and put subtitles. Besides, I do not like the blogs which are full of negative messages, such as people who share their personal bad feelings and emotions only.

Everyone has the rights to share feelings and information in a blog. However, we should write our works originally and prevent being copycats. Blogging is beneficial and interesting. You can learn why people blog from here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-dekmezian/why-do-people-blog-the-be_b_8178624.html

References

http://blogbasics.com/what-is-a-blog/

https://wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/

http://kyspeaks.com

Derivative works and YouTube

As new media has provided us a platform to share our ideas, knowledge and thoughts, there are different type of social networking sites for us to share something. YouTube as one of the examples. YouTube is a website for users to share the videos or watch the videos from others, which allow people share their creative contents throughout the world.

Amogood 谷阿莫

Among all the channels I have subscribed, I would like to talk about a channel called 主频道【谷阿莫】 which is operated by Amogood. This YouTuber has one million subscribers in his main channel and 65 thousands of subscribers in his second channel. Most of the subscriber are from Taiwan and China, as the delivery language is Mandarin. The community in his YouTube channel are mostly movie goers who like to know more movies which have not been discovered.

Most of the videos from this channel are mainly about a short description of a movie in a few minutes. His way of telling a story about the movie is fast, catchy and humorous by editing the a few scenes from the original movie and making into a compact short video. In the video, sometimes he will share some reviews or his own thoughts regarding the particular movie. This kind of video has impressed a lot of audience. From his video, audience get satisfaction for entertainment and also learn some values he shared. Also, this kind of video allow people to access more movies in different genres. The way he introduce the movie might trigger the inclination from audience to watch the full version of original movie. When this YouTuber get attention from large audience, many other YouTubers follow his way to tell a movie in a few minutes. This has promoted a growth in creative content in YouTube as many laymen start making videos and upload to YouTube.

However, the way that he took the scenes from the original movie and edited into a new video has been criticised. Some argue that he violated the copyright law as he used the actual scenes that been taken down from the original movies. So, here is a question arise: Does this kind of video violate the copyright law on the internet? For this, he purposely made a video to talk about this. From that video, he told that some companies are pressing charges against him. Therefore, he explained that all of his work is derivative work whereby he only used 10% of the original movie which are downloaded from internet for free. Also, he believed that his work is qualified to be under fair use defence as he expressed his viewpoint to the world, review and explanation about movie from his works without getting any fees from the audience. Amogood also claimed that YouTube has finally acknowledged his works as derivative work which is non-infringing by cancelling the ban recently.

Video by Amogood explaining the right of derivative work.

What is derivative work?

In these years, the derivative work has been addressed by related party. According to US Copyright Office (2013), derivative work is a work derived from or based on one or more existed works. It includes translations, abridgments, musical arrangements, art reproductions, motion picture versions of literary material or plays, and condensations of preexisting works. Another common type of derivative work is a “new version” of a preexisting work where the editorial revisions, elaborations, annotations, or other modifications represent, overall, an original work.

In order to be copyrightable, a derivative work must include some of a preexisting “work” and add in new element of original copyrightable authorship to that work. This kind of right is often regarded as the adaptation right.

FAQ from YouTube about derivative work.

In summary, society nowadays do not understand fully about derivative work. The attention to derivative work on online creative communities has been focused in these few years. YouTube, as an online video sharing website, should play an important role in regulating the use of derivative work instead of blindly banning the videos. Hopefully in the near future, there will be more derivative works showing on YouTube.

For more readings about copyright act on the internet, you can go to the links below:

Copyright and YouTube: Pirate 's Playground or Fair Use Forum?

Understanding Copyright Law in Online Creative Communities

Blogs and site that relate women’s group and movement

Blogs and site that relate women’s group and movement

JASS Website

https://justassociates.org

Angry Malay Woman- a Malaysian feminist blog

https://dgreymatter.wordpress.com/

AWAM Websites

http://www.awam.org.my/

What are this website and blog about?

JASS websites, AWAM websites and Angry Malay Woman blog are example of feminist website and blogs. Feminist website and blog presents the issue of feminism through spreading ideas, debates, awareness, opinions and feminism knowledge through the Internet.

As information, JASS is about women movement website and it was established in 2002 year. The main vision JASS is dedicated to a feminist vision of social and political transformation where all people live with freedom, dignity, respect and well-being.

Alicia Izharudin is the blogger for angry Malay woman - a Malaysian feminist blogs. She is Senior Lecturer of Gender Studies at University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. All her blogs are writing about gender and Islam issue in Jakarta, gender inequality, women movement in Indonesia and etc.

On the other hand, AWAM is the non-profit organisation websites in Malaysia. It is the organisation that upholding equality, rights and ending gender-based violence for all.

Who these sites primarily address?

With feminist blogging and websites, it creates a platform to women speaks up their opinions, thoughts and beliefs. Hence, is seen as an effective method getting the involvement in others or getting the attention to politically active people. Typically the contents of this blog and website are discussing current affairs, politics, social and entertainment. Therefore, feminist blogging and website are seen as a public activity that allows anyone to see a situation from a different viewpoint. Thus, it can increase activism.

Who is allowed to participate and how?

As mentioned by Mowles (2008), online social networking has become an increasing part of people’s use of the internet, and activist cultures have developed within these social networks. Therefore, all of this websites and blog are open to women to participate.  However, some of the feminist website also opens up men participant too. For instance, AWAM. AWAM has opened to all age person at the aged 18 and above to participate.  People that share the same goals, mission and values with AWAM are welcome to participate in this website. They can be a membership in this organisation through email awam@awam.org.my.

In conclusion

To sum up, feminist blogs and website speed up the pace of feminist to debate and conversation. In spite of that, it provide opportunity to feminist group to create online communities.

References

http://everything.explained.today/Feminist_blog/

https://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/blogs-and-activism/

Mowles, J. M. 2008. ‘Framing issues, fomenting change, 'Feministing': A contemporary feminist blog in the landscape of online political activism.’ International Reports on Socio-informatics, 5(2), 29-49.

Mobility and the Internet

Mobility, as defined is the ability to move anywhere easily as desired.

It plays an important role and it shows great impact when it is used interconnected with the internet.

There is no doubt that the Internet revolution is making the world an information environment. However, the role of mobility is also playing an important role in this process.

Mobility in technology is often associated with the gadgets for example smartphone. 

As long as a smartphone has an Internet connection, people can do work anytime at anywhere. 

Compared to a desktop which is fixed at a specific location, people will tend to go for gadgets such as smartphones and laptops because it is really convenient and time-saving.

Mobility is the future. Soon, the Internet will be too common and it will become an essential in human's life. When the essential incorporates mobility, it will evolve to become something new.

We always have that kind of demand to stay connected anytime and anywhere. We often link this sense of connectedness with the Internet. We used to say that if we have the Internet, we can be connected to the world anytime anywhere. But I think, there is a lack of acknowledgment towards mobility in this statement.

I have found an article depicting about the mobility and how the world is giving a new meaning to mobility and the role it is playing in this era of technology.

However, The New Meaning of Mobility said that

" We find ourselves tethered in novel ways — not to a hometown, or to a particular social background, but to our devices themselves and the feeling of connection they provide, which we seemingly cannot sit still without. "

Mobility is an element which contributes a lot to the advancement of technology and enables people to stay connected to the world. Ironically, it also one of the elements which isolate us from the world. 

Looking up while looking down

While our real world are slowly growing around us in several aspects such as economic, social, technology and more, the virtual world are developing in a rapid rate too. It is true that we are glued to our smartphones both in public and private nowadays because we cannot escape from the social media due to the desires of  updating ourselves about the most recent news or gossips. However, it is always crucial to be reminded that the Internet and social media should not the focus of our attention in a day and age where everyone put their smartphones in their pockets. Gary Turk had shared his short film to remind us to look up and get a break from the virtual social world. In this short film, along with his inspiring yet sarcasm poem, a love story about the life of a man and woman without the hindrances of social media was told. This short film went viral and had more than 12 million views on Youtube. 

Many of us are not aware that we are getting too much distractions from our gadgets in our daily life and these gadgets are slowly disconnected us from our real world and may eventually ruin our relationships with the people around us. When we look around the most busiest street in the cities, we will find people walking down the sidewalk either has their earphones on or has their eyes fix on that tiny screens that rest on their palms of hands. But, the real problem is none of us think that it is a big deal. These gadgets obsessions could actually get us killed if we are being too distracted and ignoring the real environment around us. For instance, there were people that got hit by the car while they were looking at their phones and not paying their attention to their surroundings.

Moreover, always looking at the information in the small frame may let you ignore the important massage sent to you within the people in your surroundings. Whenever you heard the notification or ring alert from your smartphones, you will automatically respond to it no matter where you are(even in bathroom)and what you are doing (even in the middle of talking with someone)to check the new messages or posts from the social media.  A new word "phubbing" is even created to describe those actions which people are too busy to look at their phones in every moment of their life . Imagine you are talking with a phubber, then you will know the feelings that being ignore as compare to one's smartphone. Here I share an interesting article about how smartphone could actually ruin your personal relationships in your daily life.
http://liveboldandbloom.com/10/relationships/how-smartphones-could-be-ruining-your-relationship

To sum up, I am not telling you to quit the social media and the Internet because I am sure no one can do that in this digital age. I am just telling all of us to try to put down our gadgets and look around the surroundings. Maybe we will some surprising moments and pretty scenery from that. If you are wondering how you can get rid of this mobile obsession, you may want to look at this article.
http://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/7-ways-to-get-rid-of-smartphone-addiction/photolist/53604482.cms

Hope you are free to make good use of your time and share good moments with the people around you without the use of your gadgets.








   

Types of News Website Nowadays

News blog: The Guardian’s blog

Online only news site: Malaysiakini

Example of online counterpart of a print newspaper: Borneo Post Online, Berita Harian Online, and Sin Chew.com.my

What constitute good and bad practice in online news?

Good practice- tell the truth

As a journalist, it is important to tell the truth to the readers because nowadays many people depend on the online news. According to Amanpour, the CNN’s anchor, journalist should be truthful, not neutral. There are differences between truthful and neutral. Truthful is bringing the truth while neutral can be creating a false equivalence between this and that side. You can find the truth and there are facts.

Bad practice- spread the news that has not been confirmed

Sometimes when they receive the news that has not been clarified, in order to be the first people who report the news, they regardless of the authenticity of the messages. They just report the news. This leads the unconfirmed news is spread out that can mislead a lot of people. The news has not been confirmed may be real and may be false.

What extent online news reader allowed to comment on the news?

In Malaysia, there are many laws that restrict the freedom of speech such as Defamation Act 1957, Communication and Multimedia Act 1998, and Sedition Act 1948. Because all of these acts, the readers are scared to comment on the news. Here I have provided an example of comment of a news and the person was sued by Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib sued Malaysiakini for libel. For the case, Najib was suing Malaysiakini editors not for publishing a libellous news story but for allowing libellous comments to be posted on their website. Najib’s lawyers highlighted numerous inflammatory comments in the articles published by Malaysiakini. One of the comments, written by Anonymous, criticized the moral competency of Najib, suggesting the prime minister “has many skeletons in his closet”.

Choose one of the 3 sites you suggested above.

In my opinion, I will suggest online only news site such as MalaysiaKini and Free Malaysia Today. According to the Fang (2015), The Malaysiakini group (Malaysiakini.com, KiniTV.com, and KiniBiz.com) is one result of that boom. Founded in 1999, it now hosts Malaysia’s leading independent news website in English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil, and has a reputation for regularly covering subjects and viewpoints—including voices critical of the government—deemed taboo by the mainstream broadcast and print media.

Some of the newspapers in Malaysia may attribute to issues on credibility as some people think that the mainstream newspapers are too pro government and serve as the propaganda tools. The news on the online counterpart of a print newspaper is same with the news in the printed newspaper. When the news in the newspaper have the credibility issues, the news on the online also have the same problem.

The online news sites are more fair and objective in their news articles and provide more comprehensive coverages and controversial issues. The printed newspapers and their website fail to provide sufficient information because they perceive more censorship or legal restrictions than online news websites. I believe that the news websites present different viewpoints, are more critical, have more in-depth analysis and online writers are relatively free from interference than the mainstream newspaper website.

References

Shuwei., F. (2015). Can Malaysia’s Leading Independent News Site Survive a Censorship Law?

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/can-malaysia-s-leading-independent-news-site-survive-censorship-law

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kristine-marsh/2016/07/21/cnns-christiane-amanpour-journalists-should-be-truthful-not

Internet Addiction and Depression?

Have you ever heard the term ‘Internet Junkies’? Are you one of them? Well, internet junkie is another term refer people who addicted to internet.  According to the Urban Dictionary (n.d), internet junkie is people who addicted to internet and they will suffer from withdrawel symptoms when they could not connect to internet. Moreover, internet junkie also is a person who is lack socialising in the ‘real world’, they only live in their virtual world.

So, are you one of the internet junkies?

Photo credits: The Odyssey Online

According to the short survey our group has made, most of our respondents are quite addicted to the internet. Total respondents of our survey are 80 respondents, female is 57 people and male is 23 people. The age range of the respondents is between 10 to 30 years old.

Time Spent Online Longer Than Originally Planned	Number of respondents
Yes	66
No	14

In our survey, we found out that 76.3% of respondents spend more than 3 hours online, while there is only 1 person who spends less than 1 hour. In 61 respondents who spend more than 3 hours online, 47 of them consume internet to check their social media and for entertainment purpose, while only 13 of them use it for assignment or work purpose. From the finding, we can see the pattern of the internet users which most of them spend it for entertainment purpose. Moreover, the pattern of time spent for internet usually is longer than they original planned.

Question is, how does internet addiction can link to depression?

Photo credits: What Doctors don't Tell You

The research conducted by Lawrence Law, psychologist at Sydney’s University of Notre Dame’s School of Medicine found out that the teenagers who spend excessive amount of the time on internet have potential to develop depression compare to teenagers that spend moderate time on internet. Internet junkie feel irritate when they are not using internet besides lose desire for normal interaction with people surrounding them. In Law’s study, he pointed out lack of sleep and stress from online games is one of the reason teenagers develop depression. His study also said that the teenagers with internet addiction problem is more to be depressed which 2.5 times higher than other teenagers.

In our study, we also found out that people often feel insecure when they are unable to connect to internet. 43.7% of the people feel insecure when they cannot connect to the internet. 30% of them feel very moody, depressed and irritable when they decrease their internet consumption.  The factors of their insecurities is due to they feel they will miss out important things from internet and outdated when they are unable to connect to internet. Internet has become part of their everyday life. It is a tools for 60% of the respondents to escape from their problem.

In a nutshell, most of the respondents are very depend on the internet. Most of us cannot survive without internet. To close this topic, here is the documentary about the ‘Web Junkie’. 

Reference

Urban Dictionary. (n.d.). Internet junkie. Retrieved from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=internet%20junkie

Elements Behavioral Health. (n.d.). Internet addiction linked to depression. Retrieved from https://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/mental-health/internet-addiction-linked-to-depression/ 

New Media and Journalism

            With the emergence of new media, the news consumption is not the same as before when people waited for their morning papers or sat down at an appointed time for the night news on television. Today, everything can be done in just one click. According to Jennifer Alejandro (2010), there are a growing number of readers, viewers and listeners are going online for their news. Although the television, newspapers and radio are still here, but there is a growing competition from interactive online media.

The Impact of New Media Technology on Journalism

            Old media such as publishing require a printing press and its circulation was limited to a fraction of a geographical location. On the other hand, broadcasting via radio and television rely on expensive equipment to transmit signals around a country, either regionally or globally. But, the advance development of technology today has open the access of a netizen to a platform that is global and free once he connects to the internet. Therefore, an individual may propose or explore new models of communication and coordination without needing to get anyone’s permission and an individual with a camera or a keyboard is now a non-profit of one and self-publishing is the norm.

            Apart from that, the way the vast bulk of public and commercial media is changing is more crucial compared to the emergence of citizen journalism or the independent blogosphere. Together, both of them offer the opportunity to transform the news media into a more open, trustworthy and useful forum for information and debate. Hence, the news is becoming non-linear and open-sourced, and journalism will change and is changing.

News Media Outlet of the Future – Twitter?

            According to four researchers, Haewoon Kwak, Changhyun Lee, Hosung Park and Sue Moon from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’s Department of Computer Science, the role of the traditional news media is played by traditional news accounts on Twitter. Their finding shows that twitter news accounts are more powerful than traditional news media and the reasons include motivation and the form of news.

            Some studies stated that different motives lead to different levels of attention and show that motivation to get information for personal or social use leads to a greater cognitive involvement. In the case of twitter, twitter users can actively choose and subscribe to their favourite news sources and the motivation to read tweets such for the purposes of gaining information or entertainment is stronger than just passing time.

            According to some studies as well, soft news is more effective than traditional news for politically inattentive citizens. Therefore, both short message (tweet) and social interaction (retweet) among users put twitter ahead of other sources of news. Thus, twitter is said to be able to become an effective medium to disseminate political messages.

            Hence, Kwak et al think that news accounts in twitter can have more power than traditional news media based on these two observations.

Figure: A retweet tree analysis of tweets during the Air France plane crash in July 2009.

            For more reading on the topic, you can  go through these links:

http://niemanreports.org/articles/technology-is-changing-journalism/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism

What Is Digital Divide?

Image by Tony Shin

Living in this technological era, knowledge has become increasingly important nowadays. The mass diffusion of technologies across the world had caused people to wonder the potential impact that the technology can bring to us, especially new media. What is digital divide? Many has pondered how it affects our life.

What is Digital Divide?

In general, it refers to the gap between those who have access to digital technologies and those who do not; or the gap between those who use digital technologies and those who do not understood in binary terms distinguishing the “haves” from the “have-nots”. The digital divide shows various distinctions among and within countries. It can also be referred to the gap between individuals, businesses, households, and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels regarding their access to information and communication technologies and their usage of the Internet.

From this, we learnt that people in different region, at different age or even different gender may have different access to digital technologies which is likely lead to digital inequality.

What is Digital Inequality?

It is a refined understanding of the “digital divide” that emphasises a range of inequality across sections of the population depending on differences along numerous dimensions of technology access and use.

The differential spread of the Internet will cause increasing inequalities where those who are already in advantageous positions are benefited and access from those who are underprivileged to better resources are denied. This is called the “Matthew Effect” according to which “unto every one who hath shall be given” whereby initial advantages translate into increasing returns over time.

What to Do?

To prevent digital divide from growing wider, indeed, we need a change from policy so that all the people can be benefited by having access to internet. You cannot just simply giving random people internet access without teaching them how to use it, it is important to educate the illiterate gradually.

Digital inequality should not be left to specialists but should be addressed to social scientists  who concerned with a range of outcomes connected to life. As the significance of digital inequalities is clear across a broad range of individual-level and macro-level field, it should be a concern for future researcher.

For more information, you can look through these readings:

Understanding Digital Divide

From the 'Digital Divide' to 'Digital Inequality': Studying Internet Use as Penetration Increases*

Advantages and Disadvantages of CMC

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is always a debatable issue. CMC is good to people or ruin people's relationship?

In my opinion, I think it has both advantages and disadvantages. Today's technologies have led almost all people rely much on the technologies. Without technologies, people cannot accomplish their works. 

I am the person who use smartphone every day. If you ask me, can you live without your smartphone. I will probably answer yes. But, will I think about my smartphone all the time without it? It is undeniable that I will miss my smartphone. I used to contact my friends and family members through social media. I think the best thing of phones (dumb or smart phones) is it can contact people. 

Advantages

So, the first advantage of CMC is to connect people who are far apart. CMC can be synchronous communication and asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication is the communication happens in real-time. A phone call happens within the people in different places, but they can receive other's messages immediately and reply them. CMC is not restricted with the time and place. It can save time for communicators to transfer the messages. 

Besides, I think that CMC helps to reduce the communication barriers. Some people may feel uncomfortable to talk face-to-face with others. CMC is another way to help people to prepare before telling somethings to others. Asynchronous communication is when the communication does not happen at the real-time. In this situation, people may choose not to have a phone call. Sending e-mail is an example of asynchronous communication. When it is not happen in real-time, people can make preparations before telling or responding. 

Disadvantages

From my experiences, I found that CMC limits understanding. Sometimes misunderstanding is easily happened. This is because we cannot see people's facial expressions. I care less about others' feelings. The same symbol or word may have different meanings between communicators. 

     Media Richness Theory

     In this theory, it explains communication medium is good to handle the messages which are seen as complex. Sometimes the medium can provide more richness in communication but sometimes provide less richness. CMC in different medium will give different richness in communication. 

Furthermore, the disadvantage of CMC is it causes people rely too much on electronic devices to communicate. People who stay under same house or even sit together in a round table, they might also communicate through electronic devices. It will lead to a "laziness" in communication. It is an unhealthy environment to build good relationship between each and other. It can ruin people's relationships as they rely too much on CMC.

How about your opinions towards this issue? Let's have your CMC in the right situation and have your F2F communication as much as possible when you can. 

CMC vs F2F

Well, in this era of technology, I believe that all of us involve in Computer-Mediated Communication. Yes, it definitely includes you, who are reading this blog now. Actually, what is Computer-Mediated Communication? And, what is the difference between Computer-Mediated Communication and Face to Face Communication?

Computer-Mediated Communication

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is a process in which human data interaction happens through one or more networked telecommunication systems. Via many types of networking technology and software, CMC can be happened. They are email, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), instant messaging (IM), Usenet and mailing list servers.

As a technology user, we always take this for granted. We thought it is easy, simple and convenient when we communicate through CMC. Yet, we forget to communication via face-to-face. Do you actually know how the feeling of person at opposite side? Can you see the expression of their faces when both of you just having a Computer-Mediated Communication?

Now, as a University student, we left home and study. We live outside. There are no parents and family are beside us. Therefore, we need to learn to be independent and strong. But, due to the invention of social technology, we can chat with our family easily. Although it is easy, are you willing to tell your parents the truth and the challenges that you meet in the University? Telling them that you are stress now? Are you willing to tell them that you are not feeling well today? Are you willing to tell them you just eat a piece of bread because PTPTN is not enough? My own answer is “No”! I do not want them to worry about me. I can tell them through computer or smart phone. Because of they cannot see my real face and expression, they cannot know my real situation. In contrast, what actually happens at hometown, maybe we do not know that much now. It is because through the Computer-Mediated Communication, we cannot find out the expression, real situation or even the problem which faced by the opposite side.

To me, I will wait for the semester break. When I go home, I will only tell my family the interesting thing and critical problems that I meet in the University. It is more real and eye contact when we are talking through face-to-face.

There is one theory which can explain my experience. It is Social Presence Theory. It is founded by Short, Williams and Christie in 1976. This approach is the groundwork for many theories on new medium effects. The idea is that a medium’s social effects are principally caused by the degree of social presence which it affords to its users. By social presence is meant a communicator’s sense of awareness of the presence of an interaction partner. This is important for the process by which man comes to know and think about other persons, their characteristics, qualities and inner states (Short et al., 1976). Thus, increased presence leads to a better person perception.

Through this diagram, we can know that Face-to-Face communication can achieve the highest effectiveness of communication. It is because at that time, we can see, we can feel and we can touch too. We can give a quick response to that person whom we are talking to. Therefore, social presence is very important during an effective communication. Thus, I prefer Face-to-Face communication.

There are the other two theory for Computer-Mediated-Theory:

Media Richness Theory

Media richness theory provides a framework for describing a communication medium’s ability to reproduce the information sent over it without loss or distortion. For example, a phone call will not be able to reproduce visual social cues such as gestures. This makes it less rich (as a communication medium) than video conferencing, which is able to communicate gestures to some extent, but more rich than email. Specifically, media richness theory states that the more ambiguous and uncertain a task is, the richer format of media suits it.

Lack Of Social Context Cues

One big difference between face-to-face communication and textual online methods is that a great deal of nonverbal information is lost. In fact, a large part of face-to-face communication occurs without words, but instead through body language, use of social space, dress and tone of voice and other forms of Nonverbal Communication.

Researchers such as Kiesler and Sproull (Kiesler and Sproull, 1992) have focused much of their work on the social context of communication. They argue that people use social context cues to adapt to a communication situation. Artifacts, such as personal appearance or a seating arrangement, provide static cues. Behavior gives dynamic cues: nodding, signaling and timing. People are thought to need social cues to adapt to the hierarchical and other social needs of the situation and a lack of such cues leaves them self-centered, unregulated and unable to adapt to the roles and norms of the situation.

Available social context cues are limited in computer-mediated communication, in fact, “all communication technologies attenuate to at least some degree the social context cues available in face-to-face communication” (Kiesler and Sproull, 1992, p. 103).

Because of absent social context cues, social inhibitions are reduced. Behavior becomes more uninhibited and people display less sociably desirable behavior. It appears that the lack of cues causes people to become less concerned with others and reduces the need to be liked by them. This kind of behavior can exacerbate conflict.

Resources

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/392/computer-mediated-communication-cmc

https://www.utwente.nl/en/bms/communication-theories/sorted-by-cluster/Communication%20and%20Information%20Technology/Social_Presence_Theory/

http://www.campus-adr.net/ODRmodule/media_richness_theory.html

http://campus-adr.net/ODRmodule/missing_social_context_cues.html