Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

meaning behind a string of words. Mary J. Culnan and M. Lynne Markus believe that the functions
nonverbal behaviors meet in interpersonal interactions simply go unmet in CMC. 9 If so, interpersonal
communication must always be inherently impersonal when it’s conducted using computer-mediated
technologies. This perspective has three underlying assumptions:
1. Communication mediated by technology filters out communicative cues found in FtF interaction,
2. Different media filter out or transmit different cues, and
3. Substituting technology-mediated for FtF communication will result in predictable changes in
intrapersonal and interpersonal variables. 10
Let’s breakdown these assumptions. First, CMC interactions “filter out” communicative cues found
in FtF interactions. For example, if you’re on the telephone with someone, you can’t make eye contact or
see their gestures, facial expressions, etc.… If you’re reading an email, you have no nonverbal information
to help you interpret the message because there is none. In these examples, the nonverbal cues have
been “filtered out” by the media being used. We will revisit this information later in this chapter when we
look at a range of theories related to CMC.
Unfortunately, even if we don’t have the nonverbals to help us interpret a message, we interpret the
message using our perception of how the sender intended us to understand this message, which is often
wrong. How many times have you seen an incorrectly read text or email start a conflict? Of course, one
of the first attempts to recover some sense of nonverbal meaning was the emoticon that we discussed
earlier in this chapter.
CMC Rules and Norms
As with any type of communication, some rules and norms govern how people communicate with one
another. For example, Twitter has an extensive Terms of Service policy that covers a wide range of
communication rules. For our purposes here, let’s examine their rules related to hate speech:
Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on
the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation,
age, disability, or serious disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm
towards others on the basis of these categories.
Hateful imagery and display names: You may not use hateful images or symbols in your profile image or
profile header. You also may not use your username, display name, or profile bio to engage in abusive
behavior, such as targeted harassment or expressing hate towards a person, group, or protected category. 11
This statement is an obvious example of a rule that exists on the Twitter platform. Of course, some
have argued that these rules are pretty flexible at times, given the type of hateful political speech that is
often Tweeted by different political figures.
In addition to clearly spelled out rules that govern how people communicate via different
technologies, there are also norms. A norm, in this context, is an accepted standard for how one
communicates and interacts with others in the CMC environment. For example, one norm by TYPING
IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, which is considered yelling, people can get frustrated. There’s actually
not a consensus on when the use of all caps as a form of yelling first came to be. We do know that
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