CMC and Context

Rourke, L., Andersen, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social presence in asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education. http://cade.icaap.org/vol14.2/rourke_et_al.html

In their discussion on the community of inquiry model, particularly the core component of social presence, Rourke and his colleagues provide a nice overview of computer-mediated conferencing (CMC). In their discussion, they integrate much of the literature that makes up the history of CMC – work by Sproul and Keisler (1986) and Walther (1994), just to name a few. They even mention a piece by Angeli, Bonk and Hara (1998) that concentrated on a content analysis of messages created in a social setting. While these pieces serve to frame the concept of social presence, and the authors also acknowledge the tension between certain perspectives outlined by these historical pieces (lack of cues versus hyper-personal for example), they do not mention one factor: many of the studies conducted in the “early” days of CMC were done so in labs. The context was not an authentic one, and the study participants were not as invested as students relying on CMC in an online course may be. This is not to suggest that these lab-based studies are not valid or important; they are. As social informatics researchers would say, though, context matters.