Online Interaction

Extended Description
To what degree can the human exchanges we observe online be called “sociability”? In other words, do these exchanges amount to any meaningful type of social organization? Are they more than the mere froth of collective emotion discharging its energy with a lot of noise but little consequence against the wave breakers of social media? Do the social interactions that take place in virtual space—all those kind or not-so-kind words sent back and forth—suggest the same level of commitment, dedication, morality, passion, or even depravity that we see in everyday life? Or, more succinctly, is sociability online less “social,” less “real” than what we see in everyday life?



Tags
internet, blogging, social networks, computer, virtual community, social theory, communication technology, online interaction, social groups, research

Las interacciones llevadas a cabo en los entornos virtuales constituyen, hoy en día, una parte esencial en la gestión cotidiana de las relaciones personales y profesionales. Lejos queda aquella época inicial del uso de la red, a principios de los años noventa del pasado siglo, cuando los contenidos e interacciones llevados a cabo de forma virtual apenas poseían impacto alguno sobre las vidas de los usuarios, cuya interacción y socialización estaban asentadas en entornos físicos. Por el contrario, como se expondrá más adelante, el usuario en la actualidad transita por espacios físicos y virtuales sin que uno posea más prominencia que el otro en cuanto a uso, utilidad e impacto. Ciertamente, en la actualidad las personas gestionan sus necesidades comunicativas, de interacción y socialización en entornos que ya no están claramente delimitados como “físicos” o “virtuales”, sino que son sobre todo híbridos, en el sentido de que las interacciones y la socialización de los usuarios pueden realizarse en una simbiosis de contextos físicos y virtuales sin que las personas lleguen a ser conscientes ya de haber entrado o salido de la red, como ocurre con las conversaciones por WhatsApp que continúan luego en espacios físicos, o con las personas ubicadas en espacios físicos que conversan a la vez con otras personas en grupo mediante sus teléfonos móviles. Estas interacciones están influidas de forma notable por la capacidad de las interfaces (esto es, los diferentes diseños de programas y páginas de internet para el acceso a la información y la interacción entre los usuarios) para transmitir a los destinatarios las intenciones comunicativas de los emisores y las opciones de contextualización, cualidades que son objetos inherentes de estudio de la Pragmática, como se describirá en este capítulo.

The objective of this article is to study social etiquette in online interaction and action strategies in violation of etiquette among university students in Bangkok. This quantitative research used probability sampling with a multi-stage sampling technique. The sample size is 1,200 students from 8 universities in Bangkok. With this qualitative research, in-depth interviews were conducted with 40 key informants. This research was conducted during the academic year 2018-2019. The results showed that the students had a high level of knowledge about online etiquette from self-learning and family members. They were highly strict with online etiquette; moreover, they were more strict in others than to themselves. The strictest manners in online etiquette are seniority, privacy, and data security. Regarding the experience of etiquette being violated, there were not many. However, when etiquette was violated, there are 6 action strategies: (1) self-prevention, (2) breaking off the relationship, (3) ignoring and not caring, (4) giving suggestions, explanation, and negotiating for mutual understanding, (5) account deactivation, and (6) taking legal action. According to the results of this study, the knowledge of etiquette has a statistically significant positive relationship to etiquette strictness and a negative relationship with etiquette-violated experience. Therefore, online etiquette should be promoted for new generations to learn by themselves, including increasing the roles of the family and teachers in promoting proper online etiquette.

One form of online communication categorised as asynchronous is online discussion board forums. This paper presents the findings of a study on the interactive language functions and the phases of knowledge construction in asynchronous computer-mediated discourse (CMD) in an online discussion board forum in Malaysia. Data for the study was collected using purposive non-random data samples motivated by theme. It was found that the members of the online discussion forum used more assertive speech acts such as explaining, giving suggestions, agreeing, supporting, and answering to queries while interacting online. The second part of the study revealed that the most common phase of knowledge constructing was the act of sharing and comparing of opinion, as well as the discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts or statements.

Focusing on asynchronous online communication, the article aims to examine Concessive signalling in two e-genres: comments and discussion fora. Following the dialogic concept of Concession, the author looks at the conversational behaviour of Internet users and the way in which they handle counterarguments in the context of the two e-genres, offering limited communicative immediacy as compared with face-to-face encounters. The data selected for analysis come from a discussion forum hosted by The Guardian and comments posted by readers of The Telegraph.

Keywords: online discourse, asynchronous interaction, e-genres, Concession

This case-study is set within the context of a new online Masters Programme for teachers within Hibernia College, the Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning (MATL).  It explores how tutors and students interact using synchronous computer mediated conferencing (SCMC) technologies during live tutorial sessions.  The study found that students and tutors did not have an agreed set of ground rules for these online events and thus there was a need for a signature pedagogy to clarify this.  It was observed, using the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) and tutor interviews, that the level of interaction during these tutorials was predominantly teacher led with little evidence of student voice.  Further analysis found that there was also limited evidence of critical discussion. 

The study has developed a toolkit comprising an expanded FIAC framework and an adapted version of Brookfield and Preskill’s Dispositions for Critical Discussion. The toolkit is designed to enable tutors to reflect on their tutorial practice.  Using a cyclical process tutors can capture, codify and analyse their existing knowledge with a view to developing critical discussion as the signature pedagogy for their online tutorials.  In this way Hibernia College can assist tutors in building their own professional practice knowledge with the ultimate goal of enhancing student learning on the programme.  The study is set against a backdrop where higher education institutions are placing greater significance on online interactions and this is placing new demands on the pedagogical repertoire of their faculty.

Based on the experience of an international network of partners involved in the MIRIADI project, this research is meant to show how intercomprehension and online interaction can be used as means of communication in an international project with excellent results. Nevertheless, evidence shows that even if the partners agree on the modes of communication, the usual strategies used on interconnected intercomprehension platforms are not always efficient. Thus, a strong resilient ecosystem must be built in order to face abandon and disaffection when the partnership is vast and the partners do not have the same background.

Interactional competence (henceforth IC) in an L2 has been a research interest for conversation analysts. A number of researchers have documented the emergence and the development of the construct in contexts such as classroom interaction and technology-mediated environments (Hellermann, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011; Markee, 2008; Seedhouse & Walsh, 2010; Pekarek Doehler, 2010, 2013; Pekarek Doehler & Pochon Berger, 2011, 2015; Balaman, 2016; Balaman & Sert, 2017a, b, Sert & Balaman, in press). They have focused on socio-interactional constructs such as repair sequences (Kitade, 2000; Hellermann, 2011), expanded responses (Lee, Park & Sohn, 2011), engagement and disengagement (Hellermann, 2008; Pekarek Doehler & Pochon Berger, 2011), intersubjectivity (Gonzales Lloret, 2011), and topical organization (Hall, 1995; Ducasse & Brown, 2009; Melander & Sahlström, 2009). However, topic development has been explored to lesser extent by conversation analysts compared to other constructs of interaction such as turn-taking and repair organization. With this in mind, this study aims to document topic development and its relation to IC in geographically dispersed participants’ spoken interaction in an English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) environment. As the first study to investigate topic maintenance in computer-mediated interactions in an ELF context and using conversation analysis as the research methodology, this study sets out to unpack the emergent orientations to topic maintenance by the tertiary level L2 learners from two different countries (Turkey and Kazakhstan). The situated accomplishments of the geographically dispersed participants are examined to document IC in computer mediated interactions (Jenks, 2014; Balaman, 2016; Balaman & Sert 2017a, b; Sert & Balaman, in press). The data-driven participant-oriented analyses of a hundred and one episodes in the data set provide a micro-analytic account of topical progressivity with reference to the multitude of semiotic resources such as body posture, gestures and facial expressions that the participants utilise during the interaction. The close look into the data explicated that the participants deploy a topic maintenance resource, Rolling the Ball Back (RBB). The analyses show that an RBB sequence is one of
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the interactional resources that a participant can employ to ensure topical maintenance at an action boundary by inviting contributions relevant to an ongoing topic from a co-participant. The study describes the sequential unfolding of RBB sequences, different RBB resources used during interactions, and how RBB sequences shape the rest of the interaction. The computer mediated dyadic interactional data was collected over a three-month period between the fall term of 2015/2016 and spring term of 2016/2017. 20 participants (10 from each country) interacted through Skype. The dataset for the study comprises of 9 hours of video recorded spoken interactions and their transcriptions. The findings also suggest that RBB sequences unfold in three temporally sequenced steps: closers, RBB, and elaboration. Moreover, the findings reveal that RBB performs various actions including managing turn allocation, initiating reciprocation of speakership and perspectives on an ongoing topic, thus, promotes intersubjectivity at topical level. The analyses also document how topic extension was achieved following RBB sequences when one of the participants had troubles in contributing to an ongoing topic. The study provides evidence to the participants’ co-constructed ICs based on the deployment of RBBs as explicated in and through turn taking strategies (Markee, 2008; Hall & Pekarek Doehler, 2011; Wong & Waring, 2010; Jenks, 2014), sequence organization, and topic management practices (Hall, 1992; Galaczi, 2008, 2014; Young, 2000; Hall & Pekarek Doehler, 2011; Nguyen, 2011; Walsh, 2012; Seedhouse & Supakorn, 2015). The findings of this study also have some implications for dyadic computer mediated L2 interaction as the medium creates pedagogical opportunities through meaningful interactions that eventually develop ICs. Finally, the study contributes to research on topic development and interactional competence of L2 speakers as the first study to investigate topic maintenance as an indicator of IC in online ELF interactions.

ABSTRACT In this article, we detail a system that provides contributes for analyzing and characterizing interactions that occur between participants of online communities. We adapted and applied the Social Network Analysis methodology to online discussion forums to create a dynamical interaction graph. The graph can be embedded in learning managements systems and accessed through a web page. The functionality of the system provides a suitable environment to characterize the interactions between actors and their participations in discussion forums. In the article we describe the use of the system in two real-world situations. Our conclusions lead to the verification and the rapid identification of some important situations that occur in learning communities, such as: the location of actors more or less active; distinction of positions and roles; identification of different ways of organization/interaction in groups; characterization of the interactions of a group or of a community as a whole

Online forums provide a wealth of publicly accessible data and have proven particularly useful for critical psychologists wishing to examine naturalistic data on a wide range of social phenomena. This article begins by considering the use of online discussion forums for critical discursive psychological research and outlines ethical debates regarding their use (particularly in light of past and current British Psychological Society guidelines). To demonstrate how such data can be used in critical psychology I provide an illustrative example of a discursive analysis of a single online discussion thread taken from a diabetes newsgroup that examines anti-social online behaviours in the form of “trolling,” “flaming,” and heterosexism.

Web-mediated communication is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of types of communication on the Internet. In the past, different applications were used to access areas of the Internet, but nowadays all kinds of communication are web based. In this article, four types of web-mediated communication are distinguished: (a) system to user (e.g., e-mails from social networking sites announcing that a user has commented on an entry, a pop-up window indicating that an instant messaging friend is attempting communication with the user); (b) user to system (e.g., users’ activity in search engines, reading content on the Internet); (c) user to user (all the range of communicative options both in the synchronous axis-chat rooms, instant messaging, WhatsApp, and in the asynchronous axis (e.g., e-mail, Internet fora, messages to friends on social networking sites); and (d) user to collectivity (the kind of communication that is mainly intended to shape the user’s identity by generating feelings of group membership).

This article analyzes dimensions of interaction that contribute to student sat- ... This article identifies and analyzes the dimensions of interaction ... J. of Education for Library and Information Science, Vol. 48, No. 1-Winter 2007 ISSN: 0748-5786 ©2007 Association for Library and ...

The Covid-19 pandemic effected a sudden shift to online teaching, prompting teachers to implement many uncommon or even unusual teaching techniques in this unforeseen context. This precipitous move to online teaching has radically altered our teaching practices, where teachers have had to either completely do away with traditional practices or modify them in significant ways. One of the primary concerns of online teaching voiced by many teachers is to hold students’ interest and keep them engaged in the virtual classroom. Another challenge has been to make students interact with each other and the teacher. The authors of this paper believe that Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) addresses these concerns head-on. There are two reasons for this: first, its emphasis on real-life language through meaningful tasks; and second, it is student-centered. This paper provides a brief background of TBLT and technology-mediated TBLT. It will show how some coursebook materials could be used in TBLT to help online learners improve their language skills. The paper also outlines with examples how technology-mediated tasks could be deployed to encourage learners to use language in productive ways. Finally, the authors discuss some of the anticipated challenges concerning the application of TBLT in online teaching and learning contexts.

Democracy is based on freedom of voting but also on meaningful discussions about matters that are put to the vote or about people who wish to be elected. E-democracy cannot therefore be reduced to e-voting. It should also include Internet-based services that ...

In an effort to help more people appreciate the ongoing loss of a dark night sky for much of the world's population and to raise public knowledge about diverse impacts of excess artificial lighting on local environments, the International Year of Astronomy's Dark Skies Working Group has established six ``Dark Skies'' programs and six ``Dark Skies'' resources. The Dark Skies

... Review (Becta, 2009) revealed that only 10% of teachers were using the provided virtual learning environment (VLE). ... Authors: Dr Damian Maher lectures in Education at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at ... The focus of his research is on the use of ICT in primary schools. ...

It is not well understood how privacy concern and trust influence social interactions within social networking sites. An online survey of two popular social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace, compared perceptions of trust and privacy concern, along with willingness to share information and develop new relationships. Members of both sites reported similar levels of privacy concern. Facebook members expressed significantly greater trust in both Facebook and its members, and were more willing to share identifying ...