I am taking a college in called Issues in Technical and Professional Writing (essentially, theories of communication). I need to do a study of how communication works within a group/community/organization, and I have chosen to do my project on the online propping community. I am going to study how communication works/happens in the community and what issues come into play. I want to find out what causes breakdowns in communication, and what factors are involved in successful communication.
I have some of my own basic, general theories on what issues are involved. For one thing, the anonymity of the internet is a factor, where people say things they wouldn’t normally because they aren’t directly interacting with people, and how misunderstandings happen due to plain text not carrying verbal cues (i.e., people taking offense at something someone said jokingly because they didn’t know it was a joke). There might also be international or multi-cultural aspects that would add further complexity and possibility of misunderstanding. In addition, newcomers coming into the community may be unfamiliar with how communication works in the community, and may break rules, whether they are written or merely assumed.
I would like to have some input from the community on how communication works. I would like to get a sense on what the various issues/factors are, and if why they exist. Any comments on this would be appreciated.
In addition to any general comments made in reply to this thread, I also have a questionnaire for anyone interested (if you are interested, you can simply answer the questions in the thread, but if you’d prefer you can send your comments or answers to this questionnaire either by pm or email me at [email protected]):
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What is your overall sense of the way communication works in this community? In your opinion, is the communication successful overall?
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How do you think the anonymity of the internet would affect communication?
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What affect do international, cultural, language, or age factors have on the way we communicate, and what potential barriers might they present?
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What factors do you think contribute to successful communication?
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What unwritten rules or guidelines of communication do you think we have as a community that a newcomer may be unaware of? Why do we assume that they would know them?
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Why do you think so many newcomers to this community seem to repeat the same questions and break the same rules (written or otherwise), any why do you think this upsets some of the more experienced members? Are these newcomers simply lazy, or is there more to it (it may be helpful to remember back to your own experiences as a brand-new member of this or any other similar community for a point of reference)?
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What other problems, issues, or obstacles do you think might affect the communication in the community, and to what extent are they present or to what extent do they have an effect?
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Can you think of any real-life specific communication events (threads, for instance) that have happened in the community where communication was handled poorly? Why did communication fail in these instances? How might things have been handled differently? A link to the thread(s) referenced would be helpful if possible.
Note: Please remember that the point of this is not to cast blame on anyone; the point is to simply analyze why the communication failed in order to not repeat the same mistakes in the future; besides, rarely is any one person entirely to blame in any failure of communication.
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Along the same line as the previous question, can you think of any events where communication was handled well? What factors contributed to the success of the communication? If the situation was similar to the one in the previous question, why did this communication work, while the other failed? What might we learn from this to improve communication in the community?
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How do you think communication in the community might be improved, or do you think any improvement is needed?
Any other comments would be appreciated.
