Flame Wars Get Started Co120 Gu Social Media Perc

Social Media Perception

Our choices of social media shape our perceptions of events, issues, and people. Cultural memberships influence the content of digital and online communication. Social media have altered how we perceive time and space. People tend to feel anonymous online, even when they have a name associated with their avatar. On the internet, computer mediated conversations lack body language, voice intonation, and other important nonverbal elements. Without these features, people are compelled to fill in the gaps with assumptions about the nonverbal elements.

For some reason, people become much more sensitive when they’re online, and they tend to blow things entirely out of proportion—for example, taking a couple of sentences originally meant to be humorous or sarcastic entirely the wrong way. It’s even worse if you’ve had a bad day and you’ve decided that “no one likes you” (we’ve all had those moments); you’re much more susceptible to misunderstanding messages. Once that happens, everything can go downhill quickly. Instead of asking for clarification (“You were kidding, weren’t you?”) or just ignoring it, many people—forgetting that they’re dealing with another human being on the other end—decide to defend themselves and tell the originator of the offending message exactly what they think of him or her. This outcome is what’s known in the business as a flame. If both sides begin insulting each other, it’s called a flame war (kind of like fighting fire with fire). These digital battles often erupt in “public” and can sometimes be very entertaining to the lurkers.”

Read the article “The Secret Cause of Flame Wars” to get started on this topic.

Assignment Details:

Create a 5 – 10 slide PowerPoint Presentation with audio. Add your own audio recordings to each slide.

Include a title slide (with your name and introduce the topic you’ll be sharing in the presentation).

Then include slides and describe a situation online where you witnessed trolling and flaming. What was the situation? How were the comments handled?

Do you think this same situation would have happened in a face-to-face environment? Why or why not?

How can situations like this be minimized? Please use the terms for your text about social media and nonverbal and guidelines for improving nonverbal communication found in Chapter 5 to respond to this question.

Your audio PowerPoint presentation should be 3-5 minutes in length, citing specific examples and providing detailed analysis incorporating reading and textbook material. If outside sources are used, proper citation of the source should be included at the end of the PowerPoint on a reference slide.

Tip: 3 – 5 minutes of an audio presentation is roughly equal 600 to 750 words.

To add audio in PowerPoint go to the top INSERT tab and to the right under Media you’ll see “Audio” where you can record your voice for the presentation.

The Secret Cause of Flame Wars

You may think of yourself as an e-mail maven, but a new study says when it comes to interpreting electronic missives, most of us are way off the mark. By Stephen Leahy.

“DON’T WORK TOO hard,” wrote a colleague in an e-mail today. Was she sincere or sarcastic? I think I know (sarcastic), but I’m probably wrong.

According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I’ve only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they’ve correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time.

“That’s how flame wars get started,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. “People in our study were convinced they’ve accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance,” says Epley.

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The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers.

Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time.

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“People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they ‘hear’ the tone they intend in their head as they write,” Epley explains.

At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times.

The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren’t that good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person’s perspective.

“E-mail is very easy to misinterpret, which not only triggers flame wars but lots of litigation,” says Nancy Flynn, executive director of the e-Policy Institute and author of guidebooks E-Mail Rules and Instant Messaging Rules. Many companies battle workplace lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail, according to Flynn.

People write absolutely, incredibly stupid things in company e-mails,” said Flynn.