disability

Moser, I. (2006) ‘Disability and the promises of technology: Technology, subjectivity and embodiment within an order of the normal’. Information, Communication & Society, 9 (3), 373 – 395.

accessibility

Enabling Greater Accessibility

by dougclow

Live notes from IET Technical Coffee Morning – Robin Stenham on accessibility.

Accessibility is one of the things I particularly care about so it’s good to have this session.

Robin is Manager – Curriculum Access in Disabled Student Services. Two main areas of responsibility: single enquiry point for students (or their intermediaries) about the interface between their assistive technology and the OU’s products and services – particularly courses. Has a team, has backup from IET staff, but it’s literally one man plus half another one and half of his dog! The other area of responsibility is policy development, again working with IET and LTS, affect and effect policy. Wants to rebalance and embed accessibility in to the mainstream.

Things are changing quite quickly – announcements on Monday folded in to talk at the last minute.

He talked broadly about the issues around accessibility, and specifically for the OU, and then about the new focus on embedding accessibility across the OU, which promises a step-change in the way we manage making our products and services accessible to all.

Why accessibility?

Students’ ethical and legal rights. Fundamental part of OU mission!

Legal requirement is for ‘reasonable adjustment’, which has raised expectations.It’s a technical, pedagogical and service delivery issue. We need a whole-institution approach.

Also business imperative – exempt from ELQ consideration (any student with disabilities gets full funding), and getting it right helps recruitment and retention. Getting it right for disabled students helps other students too. (Access for all.)

It’s part of our own professional armament – keeping ahead of the game. It can also add value to research proposals (certainly has to mine!).

Changes afoot to put the OU in the lead internationally in terms of how it manages accessibility. Organisational dynamics key.

Disabled students at the OU

11,435 disabled students currently registered – about 6% of the student population. 25% of them get Disabled Student’s Allowance.

Fatigue/Pain 5k, Mobility/Physical and Mental Heath both about 3.5k, Manual Skills and Dyslexia about 2.5k, Other about 2k. Sight, Hearing, Personal care about 1k. Unseen about 1.5k. Autistic spectrum lower. Others and things I didn’t capture about 2k total.

Challenges for disabled students

May have difficulty with one or more of many activities. (Some anyone would expect (reading, writing) and some you might not – e.g. sustaining an activity, interacting with others. ) Need to think about how these activities are supported and make reasonable adjustments.

What counts as a reasonable adjustment needs to be a whole-institution consideration – not a retrofit by Disabled Student Services in responsive mode when students encounter problems.

Who’s responsible?

At the moment scattered – changes to University products and services (e.g. move to Moodle) is senior management. Teaching is course teams. Routes for progression – Programme teams/CAUs. Technical and media – the producers of the materials (LTS, and other units). Support for individuals is Student Services (ALs, Regional/Central Staff, Disabled Student Services). Examinations is Examinations and Assessments. And so on …

So support for embedding accessibility is scattered across many groups, including Disabled Student Services, Accessibility in Educational Media (AEM) team in IET, LTS, Regions, Equality & Diversity Office, and others.

We spend a lot of resource retrofitting materials – e.g. alternative format production, a small industry sending out PDFs, recording in digital format (and analogue, but that phasing out in February), Digital Talking Books – historically developed ReadOut and DREAM, but that being replaced by an international standard – DAISY – so we are producing many DAISY Digital Talking Books for distribution to students. Other things include transcripts, summer school activities, training and development for staff.

Student expectations, when they’re not met, lead to complaints – and there’s a system and organisation for dealing with those.

How charming to pillory a disabled man – article in the Times on 11 November by Melanie Reid. Issue about Gordon Brown’s handwritten letter to relative of soldier killed, contained ‘Why if the partially sighted can sue the OU for producing inaccessible material [...] then this constitutes a grave emergency’. Mr M – late 2007 – sued us in the County Court for failure to provide extensions to TMA deadlines and to provide materials in suitable format; we settled out of court.

Enabling Greater Accessibility

Last April, had a consultant in, led to a workshop – ‘Working together to make accessibility a reality’ – good things came out of this process review. Audience senior managers – Associate Deans, Programme Heads, etc. Sponsored by senior managers – Will Swann, Denise Kirkpatrick.

Had seven objectives to improve things for accessibility – doing better, but also documenting better, and being more visible and organised about it. Trying to step outside silos. That took a morning (!). Now translated to an Implementation Plan, with the ear of the senior managers – previous pushes to do this didn’t have that senior ownership and governance.

Objective to provide accurate and comprehensive information about reasonable adjustments – to students, enquirers, advisors, ALs and Disabled Student Allowance Assessors. Would be great improvement on the current long course descriptions, and would require getting things right upstream in the course production processes. Move away from cottage industries and bolt-ons.

Implementation Plan addresses responsibility. Josie Taylor (Director of IET) and Anne Howells (LTS boss) also bought in, via Denise Kirkpatrick, will also include Deans. Learning and Teaching and Quality, Strategy, Curriculum and Awards. Five sections – policy management and responsibility, process, staff skills, technology, review (plans, targets, reprioritisation).

Faculties will specify an Associate Dean to have special responsibility for accessibility, and will also nominate someone to be supported with training and guidance so they have the high-level skills and expertise too. IET will help assess the knowledge shortfall and help people get up to speed and stay that way. Martyn Cooper reckons it’s a minimum of 10% of someone’s time to track this stuff.

New Code of Practice relating to disabled students coming soon from the QAA – has precepts which institutions need to adhere to.

There is a huge amount of information and guidance – some up to date, some not. Routes in via IETAccessibility Primer and general public-facing info on OU website www.open.ac.uk/disability and /diversity

Very much a moving target – technology change very rapid. International standards too.

IET will be producing checklists to help at each stage – what to do, where to get help to do it. Part of IET’s input to Curriculum Management Guide, which is the key document used by Course Teams to make courses.

Also issue with AL-initiated materials, student-generated content (e.g. Elluminate sessions) – accessibility challenges. Some argue that these are additional to producing ‘graduateness’ – but graduate-ness includes encounters with peers, the whole learning experience – so students need to engage with the issues in creating an inclusive society. These should not be barriers for us or our students. If we can harness new technologies in an inclusive and accessible way, it’ll enhance employability for all students. Remote working skills, being inclusive, distributed environment – very transferable skills.

First review in Easter 2010.

What are the benefits?

1. Increased and sustainable recruitment and retention
2. Reduced costs and concomitant increased quality of course production, presentation and support (costs hard to define and quantify, though; may require seedcorn funding – but want cost-neutrality where possible)
3. Reduced costs and concomitant increased quality of complaint management because of an audit trail to be used in the event of DDA challenges (also reputational benefit indirectly)
4. Meeting our mission

Questions

Me: DAISY Digital Talking Books and structured content production.

Robin: Previously, did 1000 flowers bloom approach to technology. Didn’t have understanding of the impact of producing web resources, and implications of multiple stages. Now we have structured content (previously structured authoring) – a single source document (using Word with a fixed stylesheet) delivers a multiplicity of outputs: HTML pages on websites (or complete website), Word-rendition of that material, PDFs to send to printers and go to students. PDFs do help with digitisation and broadly-available content; but PDF still has horrendous accessibility issues. Also outputs MP3 files! And DAISY Digital Talking Books. Disabled Student Services moving on from analogue – we still send out courses on cassettes. 150 cassettes for a 60-point level 1 course! Students spend 20% of time on navigation rather than studying. Also replacing DREAM and ReadOUt with an international standard-based approach: DAISY digital talking books. Will show the advantages of having a digital talking ebook which provides enormous flexibility for non-disabled students to access course texts through the multiplicity of readers.

At the press of a button on Openlearn site – get a Word document, a PDF, a series of MP3s with coherent names, and a digital talking book. Unresolved areas are symbolic fonts and foreign languages, pagination. But we can do a multiplicity of alternative formats at a press of a button – for all students, not just students with declared disabilities.

Project almost finished, but reverberations around for a while.

Q1: Reasonability. To do your job, need to understand what reasonable adjustment means. Is that straight from legislation? Who decides?

Robin: Very interesting question. ‘Reasonable adjustment’ is right from the legislation, and we have to make them, but there’s no case law (yet). We have many best guesses about it. Robin thinks reasonable adjustment is a process, which is influenced by a number of things: the governance and management, international standards, cost, dialogue between student and adviser.

Martyn Cooper: Very pertinent question, highly problematic, has been since it came in. Law sets out the term, Best Practice Guides give some examples of what you have to think about. But everyone settles out of court (as we did) so no case law. And anyway probably wouldn’t transfer very well. General guidelines offered, course teams have prime responsibility. Currently an informal process in the OU. In the new plan, defining the responsibility. Proposal to have a panel in the university so where a course team or a developer decide something isn’t reasonable, they pass it to that panel for review and help. Perhaps your idea about how to meet the situation wasn’t reasonable, but there might be other ideas, so need to check. But some adjustments are in truth unreasonable.

Q1: Only barrier cost?

Martyn: No. If adjustment impairs the study of other students. Or if compromises academic quality. Always say, refer back to learning objectives, or to the assessment adjectives. Is there a reasonable way of achieving those – adjustment might give access to some material but not the learning. Sometimes might say ‘Ok, can’t do that bit, but can reach learning outcomes by going for the other parts’ – so long as the students know. At the moment they don’t get that level of information at course signup.

Q1: There is a legal concept of a reasonable person. Somewhat antiquated. He is a white able-bodied male who gets on the Clapham Omnibus!

Martyn: Disability legislation – back to 1985, 1996 when education came in to scope – so that point probably archaic.

Q1: No legal definition of reasonability, in practice.

Robin: Yes, indeed. We don’t have a coherent process to enable us to have a defendable position about whether our decisions are reasonable. As an institution, the criteria are laid out about academic standards, costs, impact on other students – our processes will enable us to define reasonability, but explicitly and documentation. E.g. from language courses – previously had academic outcomes around about speaking a language, now change to communicating in a language. Change enables e.g. students with hearing or speaking impairments to study.

Martyn: It’s not all doom or gloom! In every case in the last 12 years, usually leads to innovation and better quality for everyone. It’s not a terrible issue of dealing with nasty problems. It’s part of making really good students. So things like virtual microscope or virtual field trips meet the needs of students without disabilities so folded in to mainstream provision to great benefit. Also good news is that this implementation plan exists, with buy-in across the board, rather than being agitated for by the people directly concerned. If it achieves half of its aims it’ll be great.

Robin: Loads of examples where inclusivity improves the content of the course – design, HCI (and mobiles!). New maths & computing course – lots of accessibility review of the new tools, and different ways of assessing work and how groups can work together. Will make the course much richer by considering needs widely.

Jon: Should aim for course team to make a course passable by someone with particular challenge, or to be able to get a Pass 1 (top grade)? E.g. if skip inaccessible part of course, could make it hard to get top marks.

Robin: Raises question of clusters of individual needs. In one sense there’s no such thing as disabled students, there are students with a variety of needs. Structured content allows us to cater to students with a variety of preferences – and requirements – for media to study with. Help students become independent learners. It’s about diversity, and diversity in accessing media. So balance between individualisation and mass personalisation – in course content, learning outcomes, and media.

Martyn: Point raised is valid. Standard illustration: e.g. Arts course talking about development of perspective in Western Art, teaches by asking students to review a series of pictures. Can’t be accessible to students who can’t see – so don’t waste your effort producing endless course descriptions. Course Team then has decision – is there something else we can provide, or can they pass the course without doing that? Is an academic question, tied up with academic objectives.

Robin: Then make it explicit and clear. Students with disabilities not naturally litigious – it’s when they’re led to believe they can do something and then find out they can’t, because the course descriptions don’t help them know whether they can do it or not.

Q2 (visitor from China): In China, have 60m disabled people, but at university level have separate institutions for disabled students. Suggestions for our Chinese universities to be inclusive? Collaborative work?

Robin: Yes, sure! Primary and secondary education in UK has been around special schools for e.g. students who are blind, or who are deaf. But direction of policy here (and societal view), based on cost and inclusivity, is a move to integrate students with learning differences in to the mainstream. At university level, whole thrust of legislation is to create inclusive higher education.

Q2: As developing country, perhaps costs lower for separate institutions.

Martyn: Different perspectives on this globally. In UK, no specialist universities, but some rare specialist colleges. In the US, some universities have special focus on this (incl Rochester). But American model is that the expertise there gets rolled out to other universities as best practice. Different cultures, and huge diversity in this area across Europe. Philosophically in the UK the tendency is towards inclusion. Within the disability community views differ. Many think it’s a good thing, so long as needs are actually met – if not met, it can be a way of avoiding support.

Q3 (MCT course manager): Welcome this. Can be bewildering. Symbol fonts slightly tricky – can we raise that profile of symbolically-rich courses? Will there be particular strand looking at this?

Robin: Working with Science. Did a mystery shopper exercise, keeping a diary, did improvements based on that. Now looking at how we can make science accessible – and where we can’t, and what the difficult areas are. Enormous effort internationally on making symbolic language accessible, but no silver bullet. Tracking that very intently, we don’t know enough about it. Not part of the Implementation Plan but Disabled Student Services working on this. Pathfinder for other faculties too. Timescale – by end of July 2010, project complete, results analysed by Faculty.

Martyn: Every faculty has its own particular challenges – hence need for each Faculty to have a specialist on accessibility in their area.

Robin: Also e.g. deaf students studying music. Similar challenge.

Q4: Where does the increased use of existing, third-party material (online resources, databases, etc) leave us with regards to reasonable adjustments?

Robin: Have done things here. Mary Taylor developed guidelines for referring people to documents and websites – quick and dirty ways to put up flags for further analysis by experts. Having problems with this now. Business school course, co-produced reader – some articles were pictures!, so inaccessible. Had to do fixes. Rights have to be involved here. The simple way of dealing with it is to re-key, but that’s a cost. Or advanced scanning technology for the student themselves. It’s a minefield. Like student-generated content. We have to engage with this. Need to have processes in place, and know the basis on which we’re doing that, and communicate that.

Q4: Embedded in Implementation Plan?

Robin: Yes.

Q5: ELQ exemption – self-declared students?

Robin: Not sure. Definitely students on DSA. Don’t know about self-declaration, though.

Martyn: There is a constraint about the amount of study within an annual period.

–
This work by Doug Clow is copyright but licenced under a Creative Commons BY Licence.
No further permission needed to reuse/remix (with attribution), but it’s nice to be notified if you do use it.

immediacy mediated & face to face

Patrick B. O’Sullivan, Stephen K. Hunt, Lance R. Lippert (2004)

Mediated Immediacy, A Language of Affiliation in a technological Age

Journal of Language and Social Psychology,23,464-490

Mediated immediacy

proposed as a p468 ‘way to better understand the communicative practices that convey affiliation and foster relationships via communication technologies’

defined as p471 ‘ communicative clues in mediated channels that can shape perceptions of psychological closeness between interactants. Stated another way, immediacy cues can be seen as a language of affiliation’

Authors, alongside Walther, Loh & Granta began to focus on this area. This paper reviews idea of CMC as a relational space from a historical perspective ( 3 stages) before describing how immediacy may enhance learning and determining how to identify it for CMC.

Some notes

Draws attention to the difference between novice and expert users of mediated communication and comments on how expertise develops.

Based on instructional learning through a tutor mediated website . No collaborative learning but still relevant.

CMC from efficiency to affiliation ( 3 stages)

1. Only effective for information exchange
2. Then , could be effective for personal relationships
3. Now attention on p465‘understanding the communication practices that contribute to effective CMC use in social and personal relationships’

Above roughly based on four underlying themes in the research literature namely , novice versus expert users, co-presence, conventional non-verbals, frequent interaction

Stage 1 p466 ‘when compared to face-to-face CMC was considered inferior in conveying elements of interaction considered essential for developing and maintaining relationships, which depended heavily on non-verbal communication and co-presence ( e.g. Lea & Spears, 1995) ie “conventional wisdom was that CMC was ineffective and inappropriate for anything other than clear, unequivocal information exchange’

Stage 2 Lea & Spears, 1995 can be identified as watershed paper between stage 1 and stage 2. new area of study p466 ‘ that bridged traditional interpersonal communication scholarship, with its focus on verbal and non-verbal communication in face-to-face dyads (often in relationships) and scholarship on communication technologies ( including early work in organizational CMC). P466-467 ‘ documentation of widespread and successful relationships based on CMC suggested that elements long considered essential for anything labelled a relationship (co-presence, conventional non-verbals, frequent interaction) may not be as indispensable as scholars had assumed’

Stage 3 As technologies gained new capabilities ( authors include font colour an other presentational affordances here as well as the ability to attach a photo etc. P468 ‘ the artefacts of the channels themselves were appropriated as expressive devices, and are applied to interpersonal purposes, in ways that become a language in and of themselves’. At the same time as users move from novice to expert they can choose to eshew the affordances of certain channels when they are perceived as not contributing to a personal relational goal is they gradually become skilled choosers and users of channels.

i.e. Ideas about the importance of media richness changed and the focus moved from the technological ( as the channel for interaction) to a more comprehensive understanding of mediated communication’ In trun this led to a view that users could be guided on tactical use ( KRO however it di not address the voluntary)

Immediacy

Face-to-face

P469 ‘ immediacy refers to communicative behaviours that reduce physical or psychological distance and foster affiliation ( Mehrabian, 1971). Mehrabian (1971) linked immediacy to an approach-avoidance construct – the proposition that people generally approach things that they like and avoid things that they dislike or that induce fear. Scholars have identified a range of nonverbal and verbal behaviours that communicate immediacy (Anderson & Anderson, 1982; Barringer & McCroskey, 2000; Gorham, 1988; Mehrabian, 1971). Immediacy includes non linguistic approach behaviours, signals of availability for communication, and communication of interpersonal closeness.

Non-verbal immediacy behaviours include reducing physical distance, displaying relaxed postures, and movements, using gestures, smiling, using vocal variety, and engaging in eye contact during interactions.

Verbal immediacy behaviours include using personal examples, asking questions, using humour, addressing others by name, and using inclusive pronouns ( we vs I)

That ‘most people would tend to be positive about someone who smiles, is expressive, appears relaxed, addressed them by name, asks them questions, and discloses personal anecdotes’ seems a reasonable assumption.

Immediacy and learning

P469 “Research on immediacy in instructional settings consistently has found a positive and robust relationship between frequency of immediacy behaviour and a range of desired educational outcomes ( Chrisophel, 1990).

Range of measures and references are at the bottom of page 469

Explanatory models

• 4 step model: teacher immediacy is related to arousal, which is related to attention, which is related to memory, which is related to cognitive learning (Kelley & Gorham (1988)
• motivational. Teacher immediacy firstly directly affects students’ state motivation, which then positively affects their learning. ( Christophel, 1990)
• affective learning model – immediacy’s influence on cognitive learning is mediated by affective learning ( Rodriguez, Plax, & Kearney, 1996)

‘despite differences in the models, the literature indicates that immediacy plays an important role in student arousal, affect, motivation and learning (LaRose & Whitten, 2000).

Mediated Immediacy

P470 ‘The implicit assumption that immediacy only occurs face-to-face ignores the important and increasingly pervasive role of technologically mediated communication (O’Sullivan et al, 2001).

Bottom p 470 for references to date including Walther, Loh & Granka in press)

Led to 3 studies looking specifically at immediacy

Study 1 investigating the forms of mediated immediacy, Sullivan et al (2001)

RQ: ‘what forms can immediacy cues take in mediated communication channels?’

Participants: 24 relatively experienced uni students 18-24 into 3 focus groups

Text based communication

Web based & multi-media communication

Mass media

Each focus group provided with a widely used conventional definition of immediacy and then asked to describe what communication practices ( if any) convey immediacy via their target focus

Cyclic process of coding & concensus by the researchers led to 2 emergent macrocategories that encompassed all microcategories

1. Approachability ( you can approach me)
2. Regard for others ( I am approaching you)

Approachability and micro categories

1. Self-disclosure Intentionally revealing personal information that allows others to feel that they know source

e.g. referring to experiences outside official role, photos portraying experiences outside official role

2. Expressiveness Varying emphasis, intensity, vividness, tone of message

e.g. using vocal inflection using punctuation using colors

3. Accessibility Being accessible for communication

•e.g. indicating availability, providing contact information, setting time aside for contacts

4. Informality Portraying informality and casualness

e.g. informal postures/settings in images, use of slang, colloquialisms

5. Similarity Displaying personality qualities/ personal history shared by receiver

e.g. revealing interests, experiences, opinions, backgrounds, and so on, that match receivers’

6. Familiarity Providing for repeated contacts over time

e.g. frequent encounters and/or interactions

7. Humor Using humor

eg sharing jokes, playful interactions

8. Attractiveness Displaying characteristics perceived as appealing

eg presenting attractive appearance displaying appealing personality

9. Expertise Displaying competence and skill related to source’s role

e.g. demonstrating knowledge

Regard and micro categories

1. Personalness Conveying that source views receivers as individualise.

e.g using synchronous, richer channels remembering, using names incorporating knowledge of person in interactions

2. Engagement Indicating attentiveness and practicing responsiveness to receivers

e.g. returning phone messages/e-mails listening to/reading carefully messages inviting future interaction

3. Helpfulness Assisting receivers’ efforts to pursue needs and goals

e.g. clearly designed Web site to aid navigation, providing needed into on outgoing messages

4. Politeness Following etiquette, courtesies, and other communication procedural norms

e.g. word choices practicing common courtesies in interactions

There is no assumption that either the macro or the micro categories are independent of each other.

Study 2 appliying the categories identified by study 1 to look at anxiety, uncertainty, attitudes to course and instructor

Uses Anxiety-Uncertainty Management theory ( Gudykurst, 1988, 1995), an intercultural communication theory, as the theoretical framework for the study. The assumption being that p474 ‘ students encountering a new course, new instructor and the relatively new use of communication technology for instruction would experience anxiety and uncertainty similar to those encountering individuals in an unfamiliar culture’

Participants: 95 undergraduates randomly assigned to one of two websites ( Matched for content, links and instructor with one having high immediacy and the other low immediacy)

High immediacy: colour, graphics, photo, language incorporated first and second person pronouns, informed friendly language. Links to instructor and personal homepage’

Hypotheses:

Mediated immediacy cues which convey the instructors approachability and regard will be

H1 negatively related to anxiety ( NS)

H2 negatively related to uncertainty(Sig)

H3 positively related to attitudes (Sig)

H4 positively related to the instructor (Sig).

Web site with multiple immediacy cues produced lower uncertainty and higher motivation for the course and more positive attitudes toward the course and instructor i.e results consistent with findings from face to face ( Christophel, 1990). These results are consistent with a view that immediacy cues can be conveyed effectively via mediated channels and that mediated immediacy can shape the perceptions of the communicator.

Study 3 Linguistic & non linguistic text based immediacy cues – how do they impact.

Text based immediacy cues identified in study 1 can be organised into

1. Those dealing with language

2. Those dealing with visual presentation ( non linguistic) setting for the language.

Used 4 hypothetical websites ( linguistic immediacy high/low, visual presentation high/low) in a 2x2 design.

170 participants randomly assigned to one condition. Each explored the assigned website for 15-20 minutes then filled out an instrument designed to measure stuudents’ appraisal of immediacy. Dependent variable was the motivation to take the course.

Results

Main effect	Web site immediacy	Motivation to take the course	Instructor appraisal
Presentational immediacy	√	√
Linguistic immediacy	√		√

Interestingly, based on this study ( which does not involve anything collaborative) linguistic immediacy does not have any influence on motivation to take the course

Conclusion

P485

‘these research studies have begun to identify specific forms of mediated immediacy as well as illuminating their role in shaping receivers attitudes and perceptions of the source’

p486 ‘immediacy cues ( mediated and f-f) could be viewed as the relational portion of a message.

Findings suggest that ‘the long standing linkage of message content to verbal communication and relational messages to non-verbal communication should be re-examined , which might prompt new insights into the intertwined roles of verbal and non verbal communication’

flaming O'Sullivan & Flanagin

Patrick B. O’Sullivan & Andrew J. Flanagin (2003)

Reconceptualizing ‘flaming’ and other problematic messages

New media & society

Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications

London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi

Vol5(1):67–00 [1461–4448(200305)5:1,67–00;030908]

Note: Remember to marry up the page numbers with the published articles if using direct quotes for the thesis.

Conceptualises flaming as a more extreme example of problematic interactions. P2 ‘ there is not a clear and consistent operational definition of flaming’

Introductory thoughts

From the perspective of communication.

P2. ‘ambiguity surrounding communicative behaviour that is perceieved as aggressive and hostile can result in a wide range of problems, possibly with substantial negative social and relational consequences. For example, interpersonal conflict may result from discrepant views of what constitutes antisocial behaviour.’

From the perspective of channel

ie is it unique to computer mediated communication? as might be concluded from the focus on filtered out cues etc theories ( link to Joinson notes). P2 ‘limiting the notion of flaminf behaviour to CMC suggests that interactions via computer-based communication are so distinctive from the rest of human communication that they have no linkage to other social phenomena. Furthermore, doing so neglects an accumulated body of knowledge on the nature of human interaction beyond mediated channels’ eg Mortensen (1997,p2) ‘ the subject of human understanding is after all by definition and of necessity, partial, incomplete and error prone’

Key point for thesis

Both lay press and academic scholarship conceptualise flaming as p3 ‘ an intentional act, premeditated insults’

Critique of current perspectives of flaming

(i) definitional ambiguity

definitions can be roughly classified as follows

• direct criticism or blunt disclosure ( but can be presented for caring reasons for example with the intent to strengthen the relationship)
• messages containing hostile language or profanity (but the view of the receiver may not match the intentions of the sender or take into account the communication skills of the sender)
• messages that are provocative or non conforming

(ii) reliance on message content

p4

‘ a corollary assumption ( point 1) is that message characteristics are in fact recognized by the interactants and can be reliably identified by an observer external to the situation’

‘ a third party’s interpretation , however, might be very different from that of the interactants ( Mortensen, 1997; Ogden & Richards, 1956) due to a lack of access to the wide array of contextual factors that are key to the interactants message interpretation: It is precisely this context that interactants draw upon to achieve some degree of shared understanding through the communication process’

related to this

‘many researchers have tended to ignore the influence of local group norms ……… i.e. outside of the social network, where different interactional norms dominate, the exact same language would likely hold for different, and more negative meanings, for both sender and receiever’

(iii) value judgements of flaming behaviour

p6

‘flaming is traditionally conceptualized as negative, anti-social and undesirable’

‘considering too early the issue of “what ought to happen” can intefere with a clear assessment of “what is happening” and can cause one to lose sight of the functions that such messages might serve’ note: compare value judgements of deception with flaming.

‘just as there may be anti-social motivations for hostile messages, there may be a number of pro-social motivations and outcomes associated with aggressive and hostile messages …… a criticism could be used to establish the senders’ credibility by demonstrating a willingness to offer critical comment and not just bland, agreeable feedback’

(iv) channels of flaming

‘ when experienced face to face we recognize such messages as displays of hostility, anger, impatience, or candidness instead of labeling them as flaming’ – KRO overarching view – what happens when this statement is unpicked?

P7

‘the focus of our framework is on individuals’ intentions and interpretations based on various levels of norms ….. interpretations that can be shaped by but not determined by channel characteristics’

‘channels that convey fewer cues to guide interpretation may contribute to higher incidences of misunderstanding’

note to get

‘the importance of individuals’ perceptions and choices that they may make as they select and use various channels for a particular interactional goal ( O’Sullivan 2000)

The Framework: An interactional-Normative Framework of Problematic Interactions

Aim of the framework

P7 ‘ a framework that provides more precision in determining what is flaming behaviour, based on recognizing variations in norms and expectations among individuals’

Some refs from communication literature

Putman & Paconowsky (1983) not enough attention has been focused on this relational aspect of meaning construction due to a traditionally ‘ functionalist’ view of communication processes’

( Cromer, Chen & Perace, 1998)

‘note that the communication process requires a complex co-ordination of efforts among interactants to determine message meanings’

Interactional norms

P8 ‘norms can be identified at a

• Cultural
• Local
• Group
• Relational

Level’

‘emerge over time’

get Brown & Levinson (1987) ‘classic analysis of politeness which examines in depth universal norms of language use to manage face in social discourse’

p9

at a relational level ‘ one of the central processes of early relationship development is learning and negotiating expected behaviours to increase one’s ability to predict others’ behaviours’

norm violation

‘one may violate norms to attract attention, to display opposition, or demonstrate independence’ i.e. violation is used as a resource. ‘ in pursuit of their interactional and relational goals’

‘norm violation cane be entirely unintentional’ – eg newcomers

‘socialisation ( or trial and error) is the means by which norm sets can become more accurately aligned’

The role of normative expectations in flaming

Cultural, local & relational norms may coexist as in DZX (KRO – also communicative style must play a part, related to norms bit also different)

Framework construction

Relational nature of communication

+

multi-level norms acting to guide interactants’ message formation and interpretation

+

consequences of norm violation and expectations

leads to

interactional norm cube to contextualise communication as it implicates flaming behaviours.

Using sender, receiver, and third party ( KRO what is the effect of the third part in the communication process other than researcher, mediator( legal , learning etc) – should it be considered on the same level) for combined appraisals

Suggests that only the combination where sender intends, receiver and third part interpret a violation is a true flame. However there are other types of problematic communications as described by each row of the table

P12

‘each of the 8 problematic interactions has distinctive consequences for personal, relational, and organizational outcomes of interactions’

p13

‘process of norm alignment overtime, various parties might learn to be more effective in their message construction and interpretation which may result in increased communicative competence’

‘what requires further examination is how norms regarding the interactional channels that we use can also contribute to problematic interactions’

Links to Joinson

This framework fits OK wilth Joinsons views on strategic choice and also deliberate choice to remain anonymous.

Table 1: Message Interpretation from Multiple Perspectives

Sender's Perspective	Recipient's Perspective	Third Party Perspective	Fig 1 Octant	Comments and Examples
Appropriate	Appropriate	Appropriate	A	Clearly constructed messages in accordance with widely-held, well-understood communication norms held by all parties
Appropriate	Appropriate	Transgression	B	Clearly constructed and well-understood messages within specific local or relational norms of interactants, yet violates norms of third party Examples might be sarcasm, joking, verbal "play"
Appropriate	Transgression	Appropriate	C	Sender's message viewed as inappropriate by receiver, perhaps due to misalignment of shared cultural, local, or relational norms, but is consistent with third party's norms Receiver misinterpretation or misalignment of norm set
Appropriate	Transgression	Transgression	D	Sender's message perceived to be inappropriate as judged by norms held by both recipient and outsider Instance could be due to sender's insensitivity to existing norms relevant for relationship and social system
Transgression	Appropriate	Appropriate	E	Sender's intent is to violate norms (to "flame") , but no one else views the message as a violation. Instance could be due to lack of understanding of relational or social system norms, too high a degree of subtlety, or communication incompetency A "failed flame"
Transgression	Appropriate	Transgression	F	Sender's intent is to violate norms but receiver does not perceive message as violation, even though a violation is apparent to third party. Instance could be due to receiver's misalignment of norm sets with others in social system or misinterpretation of message. A "missed flame"
Transgression	Transgression	Appropriate	G	Sender intent is to violate norms and receiver perceives that norms were violated but a violation is not apparent to "outsider" due to lack of shared local or relational norms with interactants Sender could carefully construct a message using relational knowledge to "flame" another but the message looks innocuous to an outsider so there are no consequences from social system. Could be called an "inside flame"
Transgression	Transgression	Transgression	H	Sender's intent is to violate norms, receiver and third party perceive the message as a violation. A true "flame"


 ‘