Dialogue in and between Different Cultures - International ...

130 Angelika Fröhlich & Sonja Lux
The first sentence already introduces the notion of culture. According to this
‘rule’, every group on the Internet shares a specific set of beliefs and values that
should be respected by others. More important – getting to know the culture of
this group takes some time, it is not obvious in the beginning, what this culture is
like. It can only be experienced on the Internet. Every chat room has its own
netiquette with rules applied to the specific group (cf. Misoch 2006:177ff). Rules
for students in a chat group with the instructor (1) are of course different from
rules for children (2) (cf. Fix 2001:52f).
(1) Your instructor's role is not to censor, so please use good taste when involved in a
WebCT chat.
Do not use acronyms - Example ROFL (rolling of the floor laughing). Not all students
will know the meanings of these.
Do use emoticons sparingly to help others understand the tone for your message.
Example :) happy or :( sad. A list of basic emoticons are at the bottom of this page.
Remember to stay focused on the chat room assignment. Do not drift from the assigned
topic or purpose of the chat. 3
(2) DON’T respond to any messages that are mean or in any way make you feel
uncomfortable. If you do you should tell your parents right away so that they can contact
the online service or monitor of the chat room.
DON’T send a person your picture or anything else without first checking with your
parents.
DON’T enter a chat room posing as another chatter, or take another chatter's nickname.
DON’T use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in a chat room. This is considered yelling and is
rude. 4
According to definitions of cultures and its inherent values, beliefs and rules, this
seems to be an urgent need of users – to regulate interaction on the Internet. The
result of this regulating seems to give birth to a new culture – the Internet culture.
Hence, the question is whether people with the same cultural background develop
a specific cultural behaviour (e.g. forming rules with a netiquette) in the chat
room that may be also found in other chat rooms where people from a different
culture meet. In other words, as stated before: the question is whether the ethnic
culture or the internet culture will prove to have a stronger influence on the
overall behaviour of chatters.
3.3 Access to the Internet
Over the last two decades having access to the Internet became more and more
popular in private households and the Internet-community grew rapidly in
3 Spartanburg Community College
4 Kid’s Turn Central