Computer-Mediated Communication PDF

Acquisitions Editor: Natalie Mandziuk Acquisitions Assistant: Sylvia Landis Sales and Marketing Inquiries: [email protected] Credits and acknowledgments for material borrowed from other sources, and reproduced with permission, appear on the appropriate pages within the text. Published by Rowman...

Acquisitions Editor: Natalie Mandziuk Acquisitions Assistant: Sylvia Landis Sales and Marketing Inquiries: [email protected] Credits and acknowledgments for material borrowed from other sources, and reproduced with permission, appear on the appropriate pages within the text. Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Carr, Caleb T., author. Title: Computer-mediated communication : a theoretical and practical introduction to online human communication / Caleb T. Carr, Illinois State University. Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020055402 (print) | LCCN 2020055403 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538131701 (cloth) | ISBN 9781538131718 (paperback) | ISBN 9781538131725 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Telematics. | Social media. | Communication. | Social interaction—Computer simulation. | Computer literacy. Classification: LCC TK5105.6 .C37 2021 (print) | LCC TK5105.6 (ebook) | DDC 302.23/1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020055402 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020055403 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. CHAPTER 5 Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to … • Understand the fundamental nature of groups and how their communication patterns may differ from other communicative contexts. • Decribe social identities and articulate how they guide our interactions with others. • Explain the process of deindividuation, including how deindividuation is facilitated by CMC and the perceptual and communicative effects it can cause. • Discuss different types of groups— specifically, common-bond and common-identity groups—and how the nature of affiliation in these types of groups leads to different communication patterns. • Apply theory to reduce intergroup prejudice or stigmas. H istory demonstrates the importance of configurations of individuals grouped together for various purposes. Without groups, we would never have engineered cars, developed the Internet, or been able to experience the Beatles’ Abbey Road album. Groups, such as those waiting for a bus, sometimes simply share a goal or purpose, but achievement of that goal does not rely on interdependence among group members. If you don’t board the bus, I’m certainly not going to stop it and drag you aboard: we’re commuters, not Marines. But more often, as the initial examples illustrate, without people using communication to facilitate collaboration, they could not achieve the group’s greater goal. Offline, we see groups all around us, from religious groups to campus groups to volunteer groups. Online, groups may be less initially visible, but certainly have a dominant presence within CMC. Early CMC tools were often bulletin board systems (BBSs) for social support and GDSSs (essentially chat boxes and discussion boards with voting systems to help groups collaborate). We now see tools like Discord servers, Reddit subreddits, and group chats used to bring members together based on common interests (e.g., fans of baseball, science fiction, or Korean pop group BTS) or common associations (e.g., coworkers, old roommates, families) and facilitate communication among them. 67 68 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication Increasingly, CMC occurs through both text and audiovisual channels to help group members interact, coordinate behaviors, and engage with other group members (see Figure 5.1). Now groups can communicate globally in real time through Zoom or Skype, or asynchronously through file shares, websites, or shared documents. Group communication can be complex, as it involves the interactions among a network of many individuals FIGURE 5.1 Group members have many digital channels available to help brought together by a comthem communicate, coordinate activities, and maintain their groups. Recently, mon interest. Groups help videoconferencing has been popularized for groups, facilitating discussions among members that occur in real time and affording greater cue bandwidth governments function (or dys(including both verbal and nonverbal cues) for richer interactions. function, if Last Week Tonight fizkes with John Oliver is to be believed), organizations conduct business, and nonprofits provide society with security and fun. Though group communication has long been studied, only since the late 1980s have scholars studied group communication as it is mediated by online tools. In only a few decades, our online group communication has grown from a novelty and oddity of the academic and business worlds to a common occurrence for many online denizens. As Tapscott and Williams (2008) pointed out in their book Wikinomincs, online tools have enabled huge numbers of individuals from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and time zones to collaborate on substantive projects ranging from Wikipedia to designing airplanes. As more tools facilitate online collaboration and communication, we will increasingly engage in CMC to identify and collaborate with others in groups. Group communication refers to the interactions of multiple individuals who are associated through some shared attribute or commonality. Groups can exist and function in many contexts, “including work teams and family, religious, educational, and recreational activities; in activist and social movement contexts; and in virtual environments, public meetings, or laboratory settings” (National Communication Association, 2020). Groups are often distinguished from organizations (see next chapter) by their lack of formal hierarchical structures, means to control members’ behaviors, and more permeable boundaries so that it is easier—or at least less formal—to enter and leave a group than an organization (Miller, 2009). How we define and conceptualize groups can vary widely within the communication discipline, with membership ranging from three to infinite. Though we must have at least 3 people to form a group (any less is just a relationship or you talking to yourself) and most groups commonly tend to lose some functionality and ability to communicate with memberships beyond about 20 people (Thomas & Fink, 1963), groups have no theoretical maximum. As group size increases offline, it becomes more challenging to maintain functional communication patterns, preventing all members from communicating and feeling engaged. However, tools in many CMC systems, including threaded conversations and a searchable archive of prior messages, make online group interaction at massive scales more structured and manageable than their offline group counterparts (Baltes et al., 2002). Most often, small Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects groups are understood to be networks of between 3 and 20 members, with groups comprised of more than 20 members considered large groups, but this distinction is fuzzy and imprecise. Within the communication discipline, communication within groups can serve several functions, including maintaining social ties and relationships, information sharing and analysis, decision-making, developing and executing plans, coordination of activities of both group members and those not in the group, and attempting to persuade or influence others (Poole & Hirokawa, 1996). Groups can communicate differently online than they do offline, in both processes and outcomes. Even the way individuals and members of a group identify with a group (and, inherently, with those not in that group) alters when members are not face-to-face. The interactions of groups are often guided by an aggregation of interpersonal relationships, which admittedly sometimes makes it challenging to label an interaction as either interpersonal or group communication. Several scholars may correctly argue both of the theories addressed in this chapter are interpersonal in nature, as they specifically relate to one-on-one relationships. The two theories presented here—the SIDE model and the contact hypothesis—are covered in this chapter as both theories fundamentally address how individuals affiliate with a given group, distance themselves from other groups, and perceive others based on their affiliation with groups online. Even the intrapersonal and interpersonal effects described here are ultimately guided by how individuals perceive themselves with respect to a broader group. While some of the communication that occurs in groups may be dyadic or interpersonal in nature, even those interactions will be guided by group processes. Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects The social identity model of deindividuation effects, more commonly known as the SIDE model, was developed to explain how individuals may act and group with others when individuals are deindividuated (Reicher, Spears, & Postme, 1995). The SIDE model helps explains how individuals identify online, both identifying themselves and identifying with others. It is a helpful tool for those seeking to understand not only how individuals form groups online but also how individuals may distance themselves from others online. Though one of the most popular and commonly researched theories of CMC (Walther, 2011), the model’s roots trace back more than two centuries to its grounding in the concept of deindividuation. Deindividuation Deindividuation refers to the loss of awareness of one’s self as an individual, often while in a group. The notion of deindividuation was initially put forward by LeBon (1895) and related to the idea of mob mentality. Observing the rioting and looting taking place by otherwise upstanding Parisians in the tumult of the French Revolution, LeBon sought to explain why a typically honest person could suddenly engage in criminal and unethical acts. What came of this was the idea of a loss of self: when situational effects occur that reduce one’s sense of self and individuality. LeBon postulated this loss of personal identity reduces one’s concern for self, so that social pressures, norms, and expectation of consequences of one’s actions are all reduced. In short, when you are deindividuated, you feel that you are not really you, and therefore you are not concerned about consequences (both positive and negative) of your actions. There are many situations where your awareness of yourself as a unique individual is reduced. When attending sporting events, concerts, and political rallies, you rarely consider yourself in terms of all the individual traits that uniquely comprise you. 69 70 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication Think of the last time you went to a sporting event: you likely wore clothes that demonstrated your fandom for your home team, chanted and cheered when other fans of your team did the same, and may have even jeered at and harassed the other team or the referees in a way that you wouldn’t holler at someone outside of the arena (see Figure 5.2). Clearly, numerous times in daily life, we find ourselves in a deindividuated FIGURE 5.2 Fans at a sporting event may become deindividuated as situation. their personal identities are suppressed in favor of the salient social group. One of the seminal studThough an individual may not walk down the street yelling, “E-A-G-L-E-S,” ies of deindividuation used it would be normal to do so at an Eagles football game surrounded by fellow fans of Philadelphia’s National Football League team. participants with whom Doug Pensinger / Staff you are very familiar: college students. In 1969, Philip Zimbardo used female students at New York University (NYU) to test the effects of deindividuation. Zimbardo (1969) asked female participants to either wear large coats and hoods to conceal their identity or remain in their street clothes as they administered electric shocks to another NYU female who was behind a one-way mirror in another room. (Unbeknownst to participants, the student in the other room was actually a lab assistant acting as if they were about to be electrocuted, and the electrodes did not administer the supposed shocks.) Consistent with the notion of deindividuation, participants administered more shocks and of a longer duration when their identities were concealed behind large coats and hoods. Because they were less concerned with retribution or the consequences of their actions (due to their lessened personal identification under the coat and hood), deindividuated participants were more aggressive toward their peer. Online, this suppression of a sense of personal self and the consequences of our actions is even easier to facilitate. As soon as we’re hidden behind a user name or feel untouchable in the ether of the Internet, deindividuation can quickly suppress our sense of self. Without this clear sense of personal identity, you are forced to rely on alternate means of identification with which to relate. In these situations, the SIDE model predicts that when we are deindividuated, we seek out and rely on a social identity to guide our interactions. A social identity is the characteristics and traits associated with a group of individuals (Tajfel et al., 1971; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) that often govern the group’s behaviors and interactions. When a person’s individual identity is reduced or suppressed, a social identity may be elevated to guide interactions and behaviors. Recall that sporting event from a few paragraphs ago: your behaviors were guided by your social identification with fans of that sports team and their social identity. The color of your clothes, the ritualized cheers, the mutual celebrations and commiserations were all guided by the social identity of being a fan of that sports team rather than by your individual habits. As we go through our days, we often give off clues to our social identities as we wear clothing or tattoos, use specific language and jargon, and even perhaps affect a particular way to act or carry ourselves. All of these behaviors may display our affiliation and identification with a college, athletic team, musical genre or performer, social groups or status, Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects 71 and/or hobbies. Online, where we have more control over which of these social cues may be salient or which we give off, the processes and effects stemming from our social identities may be different than they are offline. Ingroup and Outgroups You likely belong to many social groups: your college or university, an extracurricular organization, a religious group, a band or choir, or even a group for this class. But how do you know you are a member of these groups, and how do these groups actually define themselves as a group? What is the boundary between being in the group and not being in the group? Research into SIDE has helped FIGURE 5.3 Ingroups are often identified by who we’re us understand how we identify and affiliate not or who is unlike us. The comic above illustrates with our own groups while disaffiliating from how we can alienate or look to separate ourselves from those unlike us, whether that dissimilarity is based on other groups. The SIDE model is guided by the effects politics, sports teams, religious beliefs, and even our preference for shapes. of social identification, or how we identify Credit: Poorly Drawn Lines by Reza Farazmand. (CC BY-NC with other groups and their members. By real- 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ izing who we are, we also recognize who we are not. Perhaps surprisingly, studies of how we form associations with groups have noted that we identify who is like us based on who is unlike us (Allport, 1979). This categorization based on “like us” and “unlike us” then creates social ingroups and outgroups, respectively. Ingroups are associations of individuals whom you favor and identify with. Allport (1979) states that ingroups are “psychologically primary,” as the familiarity with, attachment to, and preference for associating with members of the ingroup takes precedence over associating with members of other groups. Outgroups, then, are associations of individuals unlike your social group. How we distinguish our ingroup guides how we identify with our ingroup and its members, and also informs how we relate with members of an outgroup (see Figure 5.3). The process of identifying and defining an ingroup—those like you—actually seems to begin by identifying the outgroup—those unlike you (Mullen et al., 1992). As we begin to see individuals with whom we are dissimilar—those we are not like—we begin to formulate an understanding of our own self and identity. In other words, by understanding who we are not, we develop an idea of who we are. You can probably remember this process from your first day of college. As you walked around campus, you saw hundreds of new faces. As you started to seek out people to talk to and make friends with, you most likely took note of people who looked, acted, or thought totally different from you and initially dismissed them from consideration as potential close friends. As this process continued, you slowly winnowed down a list of unlikely friends, eventually leaving you with a remaining group of people you felt were enough like you to seek out as friends, thereby defining your ingroup. For some, the explication of this process may come off as shallow, and critiques of ingroup/outgroup formation have likewise criticized the nature of ingroup identification and association. The favoritism and preferential treatment of ingroups and their members was initially likened to ethnocentrism, as we seek to associate with those like us while disassociating from those unlike us based on demographics 72 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication or ideologies (Sumner, 1906). However, subsequent significant research has indicated ingroup/outgroup processes more closely resemble discrimination in favor of ingroups rather than discrimination against outgroup members (Brewer, 1999). Common-Bond and Common-Identity Groups One key way we identify an ingroup with which to associate is through a common bond or a common identity. The differences in common-bond groups and a common-identity group are defined by how group members come together and associate. A common-bond group is an association of individuals brought together and who maintain relationships due to close interpersonal ties. Individuals remain part of a common-bond group because they like individuals in the group as individuals. Relation-based groups (including fraternities/sororities, live-action role players [LARPers], and families) have often been cited as examples of common-bond groups. Your friend group reflects a common-bond group: you do not need to associate with them, but as you begin to meet and like fellow students you begin to hang out and eat dinner with that group. Online, common-bond groups may take some time to form as they require interpersonal interaction, but many individuals have formed strong ties with groups online, including members of support groups and fantasy sports leagues. Unlike members of common-identity groups who just feel attached to the group, members of common-bond groups often feel attached to the group holistically and feel strong attachments to the groups’ members (Prentice, Miller, & Lightdale, 1994). Alternately, individuals may be part of a common-identity group: an association of individuals brought together and who maintain relationships due to their affinity toward the group as a whole. Individuals like the aggregate of group members, even if they don’t have a particularly close interpersonal tie, and remain in the group to continue to associate with a group of people with a common interest or attribute. Examples of common-identity groups abound online, as individuals can use Web tools like discussion groups and social media to find and affiliate with like-minded individuals (see Figure 5.4). For example, as a fan of the New York Yankees, you can go online to find other Yankee fans even if you live in California. You don’t necessarily have to like the individuals who participate in the online discussion, and it’s enough that you’re able to talk with others who share your love of baseball players A-Rod and Jeeter. You continue to talk with them because you share the common identity of a Yankees fan, rather than because you interpersonally like the other members of the online group. Interestingly, studies have shown your ingroup identification does not have to be a large part of your personal identity, merely made salient or important in the moment for it to actively drive intergroup processes. The minimal group paradigm supposes that, under certain conditions, simply being assigned or categorized to an arbitrary group is enough to FIGURE 5.4 Sites like Meetup.com allow the formation and maintenance activate intergroup processes of common-identity groups, bringing together individuals based on a shared interest such as comics. (Billig & Tajfel, 1973), even Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects if the groups are fabricated or irrelevant. For example, arbitrarily labeling people as “under-estimators” and “over-estimators” is enough to activate a common identity and guide interactions when “estimation” is made a salient attribute in group discussions (Tajfel et al., 1971). Online, such minimal groups are common: games typically utilize groups to activate arbitrary divides among players (e.g., World of Warcraft’s Alliance and Horde factions; Pokémon Go’s Team Mystic, Valor, and Instinct), travel websites will appeal to vague identities to spur purchases (e.g., “Three travelers like you have booked this hotel in the last hour”), and even social media may foster minimal groups through the random assignment of default background colors or avatars until users enter a more individuating cue. You may not care about your astrological sign, but if the dating site you use makes a big deal about the role of the Zodiac in finding love, suddenly your Capricorn designation is critical to how you interact with others and how they interact with you. The minimal group paradigm is particularly critical when associating with others based on a common identity—even these small distinctions are enough for individuals to cling to and can lead to a strong sense of affiliation with that group and its members. Once you know that we like to associate with members of the ingroup and disassociate with members of the outgroup, and that these associations can be guided by either common bonds or common identities, it becomes much easier to understand how and why SIDE may guide group communication. Though it probably doesn’t come as much of a shock, we like to associate with those we like and those who are similar to us. Meanwhile, we don’t spend much time interacting with people unlike us or with whom we have little in common. This idea is a fundamental component of SIDE. However, we certainly don’t go through life basing our friendships and interactions on who is like us in some arbitrary group identification. Just because you’re a fan of The Hunger Games series does not mean you’ll yell at anyone you walk by who is wearing a Divergent sweatshirt. Likewise, as you encounter someone online who likes Harry Styles, that may not affect your perception of them (or yourself) until your attention is drawn to the importance of “music” as a social category or your own love of Juice WRLD. So when do these social group distinctions guide our interactions and group communication? The power of SIDE as a model is to help predict when and how social rather than personal identities guide our interactions. Returning to SIDE The SIDE model predicts that when they are deindividuated, individuals associate with others based on a salient social identity—a group category that is made important given the situation. The SIDE model is particularly applicable in CMC for two reasons. First, the anonymity allowed by CMC doesn’t let users identify based on individual differences. Visual cues let us learn a lot quickly about who an interactant is, and the lack of cues in many CMC channels (recall the CFO perspective) eliminates much of the information necessary to guide individual, interpersonal interactions. Second, when deindividuated, users seek to orient themselves based on a salient social group, which are often readily available online (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998). Individuals can draw cues to a social identity from information users post, the type of online space in which they are communicating, and even the nature of the medium itself. In sum, SIDE predicts that when someone’s individual identification is minimized, their social identification is made salient and guides interactions. Although the SIDE model is not indigenous to CMC, many of CMC’s features and abilities make SIDE particularly applicable in online communication. Many of the ways we communicate online deindividuate users. For example, when 73 74 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication communicating in online chat rooms, you often communicate in a deindividuated state as you (hopefully) do not provide identifying information (such as a name or hometown) and are visually anonymous as you communicate without a picture of yourself next to what you post. Moreover, many sites online are specifically designed as places for interaction among individuals based on common interests. Discord servers allow individuals to relate based on common identities rather than common bonds, and YouTube videos are often viewed and commented upon by individuals who have an interest in the video’s topic. In both instances, your individual self is often not as critical as the social categories relevant to the online space. Walther and Carr (2010) used the following example of a common online experience to exemplify SIDE effects: the classic Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate. Imagine you log on to a discussion forum that focuses on debating the relative merits and quality of two popular science fiction franchises: Star Wars and Star Trek. You, like all the other users on the site, post messages under a pseudonym, and your posts cannot be linked to your offline identity. Because of the nature of the group and the discussion topic, social identities are made salient and used to drive the conversation. Being the Star Wars fan you are, you log in under the username “Jedi1” and seek out someone with whom to interact. In the forum, you see two active users: “WarsFan” and “TrekFan.” With whom do you associate? Because your own identity has been subsumed by your social identity, it does not matter who the individual is behind each username; and instead you associate based on the salient social identity, in this case sci-fi fandom. The SIDE model therefore predicts you feel greater social identification with “WarsFan,” perceive more social attraction and affinity toward “WarsFan,” and begin talking with “WarsFan,” who undoubtedly shares your view that Star Destroyers could blow up the Enterprise. All the while, you distance yourself from the outgroup member “TrekFan,” who exemplifies a different social identity and whom you therefore initially dislike because of your differing views on the relative cuteness of Ewoks and Tribbles. Though a little unusual, this scenario demonstrates how SIDE may be used to explain not only social identification with others online, but also communication patterns and behavioral norms. Applying SIDE One of the reasons the SIDE model has been such an important theory for communication over the past 30 years is its explanatory power. The SIDE model has allowed us to begin to predict and explain how individuals identify themselves with social groups and how their identities guide their interaction when they are online. Think back to your attendance at a sporting event: you throw on a jersey, wear the team hat, and know the team cheers. In the stadium, surrounded by 86,112 other fans of the same team, you no longer identify as you—your personal identity has been suppressed and your social identity has taken over. Unlike your usually reserved and thoughtful self, you start yelling insults about the opposing team, their fans, and their stupid animal of a mascot. Similarly, when playing League of Legends online, you may uncharacteristically insult other players over voice chat, going so far as to imply intimate relations with one of their parental figures. What happened to make an otherwise considerate scholar such as yourself throw caution to the wind and act this way? The SIDE model can help explain interactions ranging from heated team rivalries to interethnic conflict, and also begin to suggest ways to resolve differences among these groups. Once you understand and can apply SIDE, you can begin to use it strategically. For example, if you are a social media manager for a clothing line, how do you want users to interact on your social network site? According to SIDE, if you want Contact Hypothesis 75 users to identify with the brand, you want them to interact in a deindividuated state, which should increase their identification with the brand, and most likely their spending (see Figure 5.5). The less you can get users to think about how they will look in the clothing, and the more they realize that members of social groups they associate with (perhaps similar demographics like age or geography, their friends, or other students at their university) want to wear that clothing, the more you can expect sales to rise. Because you’ve activated the social identity (e.g., college student) and indicated that other members of that ingroup wear this clothing line, you’ve begun to subtly influence users’ attitudes about your clothing line. These SIDE outcomes can occur even as individuals are more clearly identified, particularly as visual cues are apparent. For example, exploring how people make decisions online, Lee (2004) had participants discuss potential solutions to a problem in online chat rooms where the users were depicted by FIGURE 5.5 Activating social identities related to a cute animals such as penguins, parrots, and brand can increase consumers’ pro-brand behaviors, polar bears. When participants were in rooms such as purchasing frequency and advocacy (i.e., word of mouth) to others on behalf of the brand, even going with many different characters representing so far as to dress up as their favorite brand. the group members, there was more debate Coast-to-Coast and less agreement about the final solution. However, when participants were in rooms where all participants were represented by the same character (e.g., all penguins), participants were much more likely to conform to and agree with the group’s decision. Such a finding is likely to explain why the Snapchat or Instagram profile pictures of your close friends have a composition similar to your own profile picture: consciously or not, your group has converged toward a similar idea of a “good” profile picture. The SIDE model processes and guides negative effects just as readily as positive ones. For example, workgroups whose members are partially distributed (i.e., small subgroups work at the same location, but the overall group is distributed worldwide and collaborates online) can lead to cliques guided by SIDE. Members of the subgroups located in geographic proximity begin to act as an ingroup and can seek to distance or disaffiliate themselves from outgroups: team members in other locations (Tidwell & Walther, 2006). Even physical location may guide intergroup perceptions and behaviors online. We’ll get back to this in Chapter 7 discussing group CMC in practice. But for now, it’s enough to note that how individuals see and configure themselves online in relation to others can guide perceptions and interactions based on group-level processes, even before individuals first communicate. Contact Hypothesis It may be tempting to interpret SIDE effects as “bad,” as they emphasize group differences and suggest a lack of prosocial communication between even nominal social categories. However, remember that theories and models are not 76 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication inherently good or bad, positive or negative: only their applications are “good” or “bad.” Strategic use of SIDE can be applied to very positive outcomes. One way that careful manipulation of individuation and deindividuation can be used pro-socially is to reduce intergroup conflict. Many groups have a fundamental dislike of each other: Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Muslims, Democrats and Republicans, East Coast and West Coast rappers, or even Yankees fans and Red Sox fans. These feuds are not necessarily rooted in two individuals disliking each other personally, but rather in differences between social groups. A Yankees fan doesn’t need to know a Red Sox fan personally to dislike him or her—that he or she is a Sox fan is enough. So how can these intergroup differences be reduced? Particularly, how can individual and group identities be highlighted or suppressed to cross intergroup boundaries? One way is the contact hypothesis. The contact hypothesis predicts that if individuals first have an opportunity to communicate with each other at an interpersonal level or based on a common group identity, that interpersonal relationship may minimize subsequent interactions at an intergroup level. The contact hypothesis was put forward as a way to reduce interethnic conflict (Amir, 1969), proposing that if two individuals from opposing groups get to know each other guided by other identification before learning about their affiliation with differing social groups, once their respective social identities are revealed, their interaction should be guided by the favorable interpersonal impressions that initially developed rather than the antagonistic relationship guided by their group-level identification. Returning to the earlier example of Yankees/Sox fans, consider two individuals who get to know each other initially as “Carolyn” and “Paul” and have time to develop a friendship based on who they are as people and perhaps a shared love of baseball. When it’s finally revealed that Carolyn likes the Red Sox while Paul follows the Yankees, their personal friendship should continue, guided by their like for each other rather than their dislike for each other’s social categories. Because they relate on the personal and social identities they share, before they relate on oppositional social identities, their relationship may continue positively. After learning they both like reading, architecture, and nature walks, Carolyn and Paul can continue to relate based on those shared attributes rather than focusing just on their different preferences for baseball teams. Several scholars have noted the ability of strategic applications of online tools to reduce the role of social identities and therefore intergroup conflict. Amichai-Hamburger and McKenna (2006) recognize Internet-based interactions, where individuals can carefully craft and control the cues they send about their social identities, represent an environment that readily facilitates contact among oppositional social groups. Because the Internet crosses geographic and social boundaries, anyone can access and use CMC tools to interact with others, including those of different social groups. Consequently, CMC can be used to allow oppositional groups to communicate without being in the same room—a benefit when close proximity may result in violence. Amichai-Hamburger and McKenna recall the challenges of Catholic and Protestant children in Northern Ireland. Because these groups have a history of antagonism and bloodshed, even children may be verbally and physically aggressive when face-to-face with someone of the opposite group. However, one cannot punch another through a TCP/ IP connection, making it somewhat safer to communicate online. Consequently, CMC affords members of oppositional groups, like Irish Catholics and Protestants, to initially connect in a way that allows communication without enabling interaction. Contact Hypothesis 77 Research in Brief We Come Together, Cuz Opposites Attract Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi. Marvel vs. DC comics. The Jets vs. the Sharks. East Coast vs. West Coast rap. Rivalries and conflicts among groups are common occurrences, and though some, such as sports rivalries (think the Chelsea and Arsenal football clubs), are fun means of engaging fans, others can represent strongly held prejudices or geopolitical tensions with serious implications for the groups and people involved. Can CMC reduce intergroup conflict? Walther and colleagues (2015) set out to answer this question by applying the contact hypothesis to three groups with centuries-old rivalries: Muslims, religious Jews, and secular Jews. Members of any one of these groups typically have very negative impressions of members of the other two groups, often going so far as to provoke hostilities or physical violence based solely on their group status. Because they are “not us,” they are bad. The contact hypothesis suggests that by getting to know someone from a different group interpersonally first, any positive feelings generated toward the individual may be overlaid onto the group once that social category is revealed. Because CMC can filter out some of the visual cues to one’s religion (e.g., by hiding attire or not making note of religious practices), individuals can begin their interactions as individuals. Knowing this, Walther and colleagues (2015) assigned students in nine Israeli colleges to work together in groups comprised of two members of each of the three religious groups to complete a year-long course focusing on online learning. Students communicated entirely online (and interpersonally, without cues to group identities) for the first semester of the course, and finally met faceto-face after the end of the first semester. Findings revealed students in the study reported significantly lower prejudice toward members of other religious groups following the class compared to students enrolled in the same course, but not to groups from across multiple campuses. Given these findings, one way to use CMC to get people from different groups to communicate effectively is to first make them interact as individuals. Use CMC’s ability to filter out cues to group identity that may trigger intergroup debate and discrimination, and only once interpersonal bonds are built should they reveal their affiliations. By then, the individuals may have realized they share more commonalities than differences, reducing tensions between them and perhaps even prejudice toward the other groups as a whole. Reference Walther, J. B., Hoter, E., Ganayem, A., & Shonfeld, M. (2015). Computer-mediated communication and the reduction of prejudice: A controlled longitudinal field experiment among Jews and Arabs in Israel. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 550–558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.08.004 Interestingly, evidence for the contact hypothesis seems to support two other CMC theories: the CFO paradigm and SIPT. When we interact with members of other groups online, we can choose to use cue-lean text-based channels, audio channels, or even cue-rich audiovisual channels, and the channels we use to interact affect the perceptions that are formed. Consistent with SIPT (Walther, 1992; see Chapter 4), when we interact with someone over video chat, we get to know them personally and begin to like them more. However, consistent with SIPT, we like them as an individual person more, and those positive interpersonal gains don’t necessarily translate into reduction of outgroup prejudice. However, when we interact with someone over text-based chat, we get to know them, but in a less personalized and individuated way. In these text-based interactions, the CFO paradigm (see Chapter 3) says the development of close interpersonal relationships is challenged. (Now aren’t you glad we haven’t forgotten about the CFO paradigm? I told you it wasn’t useless.) However, the subsequent reduction of intergroup biases may be stronger as we are more apt to view our partner as an intergroup member. Cao and Lin (2017) demonstrated this effect by having mainland Chinese students (ingroup) chat with a confederate purporting to be a Hong Kong student (outgroup) through either video 78 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication or text. Findings revealed that while participants reported interpersonally liking the confederate more in the video condition, perceptions of the outgroup were more favorable following interaction in the text condition. Even minimal interactions with stigmatized others on social media can reduce prejudices, albeit only mildly. Simply looking at profiles of individuals from stigmatized groups (e.g., people with physical disabilities, with FIGURE 5.6 The contact hypothesis argues that by first relating schizophrenia, transgendered interpersonally and seeing each other as individuals, people may reduce individuals) can reduce interand overcome intergroup bias when they meet face-to-face, even if the groups have been deeply divided historically. group attitudes or perceived Richard Baker / Contributor differences if individuals feel like the profile allows for an imagined conversation with the profile owner (Neubaum et al., 2020). But when interactions are primarily imagined, individuals still need to feel some degree of similarity to the stigmatized individual. If the other person is seen only as the stigmatized trait and with no connection to the observer, it is not sufficient to humanize the other person and provide the prejudice-reducing sense of interpersonal awareness and relationship. These findings also help us remember an important caveat to the effectiveness of the contact hypothesis: individuals must view their partners as individuals while still viewing them as members of the outgroup for the positive associations with the individuals to be transferred onto perceptions of the outgroup (Figure 5.6). If you think your new friend is a great person, but not reflective of the broader group, then the reduction in intergroup prejudices will not follow. This may explain why some individuals claim not to be biased in some way because of a token association of that group. The fact that you have one minority friend may not reduce intergroup prejudice if you do not see that one acquaintance as faithfully representing or as a member of the broader group. Alternately, the fact that you are in a workgroup with that person is not enough to reduce intergroup prejudice if you simply associate but do not perceive any similarity with that person. These perceptions of interpersonal relationships and closeness are critical to the workings of the contact hypothesis. The contact hypothesis has received compelling initial support, but researchers are still testing its boundaries. How disparate can groups get before group members are incapable of identifying outgroup members as individuals? As more tools become available online to learn about an interaction partner, is it even possible for an individual to hide a group membership? Are “ingroups” and “outgroups” even relevant online as Web-based tools like social media collapse the relational contexts in which we interact and potentially make groups less salient? The contact hypothesis has the potential to be a powerful, prosocial theory that enables previously disparate and hostile groups (and their members) to effectively communicate and relate. However, it will be up to future Internet users to determine whether longterm effects are practical and possible. Concluding Theories Our society certainly faces large intergroup conflicts today guided by racial, religious, geopolitical, and ideological differences. It would be naïve to think that chatting online is the cure to some very substantive problems. However, as these studies demonstrate, if you can find ways for group members to first interact as individuals, the negative perceptions that may be associated with their respective social categories may be diminished, leading to more positive interactions later on. In other words, it may be easier for us to interact with different types of people online than offline, helping to reduce our prejudices and stereotypes by interacting with others as people rather than immediately relegating them to their social groups by their appearance or other physical cues. Just as study abroad programs make students more aware and inclusive of other cultures and societies (Goldstein & Kim, 2006), used strategically, CMC tools can allow users to interact with diverse others, potentially reducing intergroup differences over time. Concluding Group CMC Groups increasingly use online tools to collaborate. You likely are a member of many groups, including familial, social, and organizational groups. And most likely you use CMC to interact with members of that group: you organize group events through a Facebook group, and you use Yammer or Slack to let group members know the progress you’ve made on a project. Although the processes of group communication are complex when we interact with our groups face-to-face, the Internet has altered some of the ways we communicate and in doing so has provided new challenges and opportunities for group communication. We can now interact with others based on common interests or shared personality traits, while minimizing the influence of interpersonal cues such as physical appearance or dress. The way we perceive ourselves not only as individuals but also as group members can change when we interact online, as we can more readily (but not uniquely) lose our sense of self and be guided by a larger social identity. The SIDE model and contact hypothesis are two theories of CMC that help explain how mediating communication can affect intergroup communication, and they can serve as helpful insights as we seek to understand how individuals, groups, and organizations interact online—they will serve us well in Chapter 7. Concluding Theories An old adage in academia says that “nothing is quite so practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1945, 129). The previous three chapters have explored theories central to the study of CMC. But, like many scholars, at some point amid long discussions of theory you have likely felt frustrated at times, wondering what good these head-inthe-cloud ideas are for you. One function a good theory provides is a foundation on which to build practical application. With that application—and good CMC theories—in mind, the next section will start to put these notions to use and explore how CMC can be used and applied in the contexts in which communication occurs. Key Terms group communication, 68 deindividuation, 69 social identity, 70 ingroup, 71 outgroup, 71 common-bond group, 72 common-identity group, 72 minimal group paradigm, 72 contact hypothesis, 76 79 80 CHAPTER 5 • Group Communication Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication Review Questions 1. Deindividuation can be a powerful force both offline and online. Is there a time you may have acted in a way while in a group that you wouldn’t have while alone? (Concerts, protests, sporting events, and large lecture classes are often fruitful contexts to think about for this.) Using the concept of deindividuation, explain the process by which you were more or less likely to behave in a way other than how you would have done alone. 2. Compare how you are presenting yourself offline right now (e.g., clothing, books, status items, and other artifacts) and how you present yourself in a profile on a social media site. What social identity cues do you give off in both? Are there social identities you put forward in one and not the other? Why do you think differences appear in how you present your social categories off­ line and online? 3. At any given time, we hold numerous social identities. Take a moment and list as many identities as you can think of for yourself on a sheet of paper. Once done, look back and identify which two or three may most commonly guide your behaviors, thoughts, and communication. Why are those identities more salient than the others? Is their relevance and impact because of the environment you are in or because of how you view yourself? 4. How can CMC be used to reduce a key outgroup perception in your life? That intergroup challenge may be based on political, religious, ideological, or geographic social categories, but consider how and where you could engage in the types of interactions necessary to activate the contact hypothesis, and articulate the process by which you could reduce intergroup differences.