Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) And Social Media

Human beings have been “posting” information about themselves and their lives to an audience of their peers long before the advent of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) and Social Media. Used colloquially, the verb “post” describes the act of displaying or submitting information through a digital medium (Random House Kernerman Webster 's College Dictionary, 2010). However, within the context of this paper, I will be using the term in a much broader sense, as in “to affix (a public notice or bulletin) to a post, wall, or the like’ or ‘to bring to public notice by means of a poster or bill’ as in ‘the notice was posted on the wall’ (Random House Kernerman Webster 's College Dictionary, 2010).” First, I will establish that the use of symbols

Although the book focuses primarily on one communication technology, the principles and examples are applicable to a much broader range of media. The author spends considerable time describing the social mores of the American people and the resulting cultural metamorphosis that appears to have occurred because of the technological changes. He begins with a quote issued by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), “The telephone is essentially democratic; it carries the voice of the child and the grown-up with equal speed and directness…It is not only the implement of the individual, but it fulfills the needs of all the people (Fischer, 1992).” If we substitute the word posting for telephone, you can see how this concept applies to a much broader technological and temporal field. Similarly, published in 1881, just 35 years earlier, in an article about the telegraph, the journal Scientific American, stated, “(it) promoted a kinship of humanity (Fischer, 1992).” Again, by applying that same concept to the general act of posting reveals the relationship between early iconography and modern social media posts and it becomes clear that the “specific devices” are less important than the need for recognition and subsequent act of communication in and of

82).” According to Walter Ong, the act of communication through writing heightens ones consciousness and begins to change the way in which the writer thinks. This in turn facilitates the development of increasingly sophisticated technological advancements. Early pictographs were typically monotone and very simplistic in nature. However, as the technology evolved, humankind developed multi-hued writing media that improved the visual accuracy of the images created and subsequently improved the complexity of the message delivered. Essentially more visual detail equals a more complex symbology and abstraction. Some major milestones in the evolution of communication technology include the simplification of earlier literal depictions in the late Paleolithic era, the development of the first “alphabets” as quasi-abstract symbols representing the basic sounds of spoken language. These early alphabets were extremely complex and cumbersome until the Phoenicians developed a “totally abstract and alphabetical system of twenty-two simple phonetic signs, replacing the formidable complexity of cuneiform and hieroglyphs (Higgins, 2003).” The inhabitants of Greece and Rome adopted this system of writing which was in effect by 1500 B.C. and later developed what we know as the