• Conversational Structure and Personality Correlates of Electronic Communication

    Author(s): Jill Serpentelli
    Tags:
    Communication

    Jun, 1992

    Abstract: Differences in communicative structure was studied on three electronic communication systems, two interactive (LambdaMOO and Internet-Relay Chat) and one non-interactive (VaxNotes, an electronic bulletin board), in two different subsettings (on each system, a topic focused on computing and a more general topic) by coding transcripts of conversations according to type of utterance. Significant results were found that the LambdaMOO setting had more greeting statements, statements indicating interaction with system code, statements relating to computing, and a trend toward more affectionate statements. Notes, however, contained the most biographical information statements, more statments coded "other", and a trend toward more humorous statements. The experimenters concluded that this study provides some basic data that can delineate the differences between different systems of electronic communication, and that can be generalized to speculate on some personality correlates of people who use these systems. However, the researchers also concluded that much more work needs to be done on both communicative and personality aspects of electronic communication.

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  • THE MODAL COMPLEXITY OF SPEECH EVENTS IN A SOCIAL MUD

    Author(s): Lynn Cherny
    Tags:
    Communication

    Sep, 1995

    Abstract: The availability of the emote modality, combined with social responses to object and room-persistence in MUDs, creates a more structured and flexible communication environment than is found in other single modality chat programs. The emote command is used for ritual greetings and goodbyes, for back channels during conversations, for play interactions, for reports of activity in "real life" which might distract a user from the conversation, and for presentation of background information during conversations. I discuss the status of emoted actions as speech acts, and how their interpretation depends on frame of reference within the virtual world and the real world.

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