Computer-Mediated Communication: Approaches and Perspectives

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is one of the most exciting areas of study in the communication discipline today. Technology is rapidly changing the way we communicate, allowing us to be simultaneously connected and mobile. This connected mobility changes not only our communication ability but our relational expectations as well.

Computer-Mediated Communication: Approaches and Perspectives describes five approaches to understanding the influences of technologically mediated communication on our interpersonal and social relationships.

These five approaches examine the constraints, experience, relationships, interactions, and implications of CMC. The book describes the constraints through the perspectives of media richness, naturalness, synchronicity, and affordances. Experience focuses on the personal, presence, and propinquity of CMC. Relationship influences include social information processing, hyperpersonal, and deindividuation effects. The interactions approach considers individuals, groups, and communities. Implications discuss the Proteus effect and actor-networks.

The second edition substantially updates each perspective. Every chapter includes a description of the perspective, its multiple applications, analysis and critique, in practice examples, illustration of concepts, ethics challenge, and a set of discussion questions.

John C. Sherblom is a professor emeritus of communication and journalism at the University of Maine. He is past editor of The Journal of Business Communication and of Communication Research Reports. He has published numerous journal articles on interpersonal and computer-mediated communication.

Judith E. Rosenbaum is an associate professor of media studies and the chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine. Her research focuses on media and news literacy; spoilers and the enjoyment of media narratives; and the role social media play in individual relationships and society at large.