Interpersonal and Affective Communication in Synchronous Online Discourse

This article examines the communication of text-based synchronous online discussion (chat) participants during the process of information sharing. It addresses the communicational constraints imposed by the computer-mediated communication (CMC) channel on participants’ expression of interpersonal and affective stances, analyzes the mechanisms participants employed to overcome these constraints, and describes the characteristics of information seeking in chat interaction. Data for this study are derived from a math help chat group for K–12 students, facilitated by the Virtual Math Teams at Drexel University. Participants employed a variety of creative linguistic and paralinguistic devices to express interpersonal and affective stances, such as contractions of linguistic forms, prosodic features, and typographical conventions such as capital letters and emoticons to simulate gesture and facial expressions. The analysis of data suggests that effective interpersonal and emotional communication is a critical factor in enhancing group involvement and collaboration as well as information service in a CMC context.