[Air-L] the internet resembles face-to-face

[Christian Nelson]

Bob,
Those are my words you quoted, not Alex's.
As for your words, I have a few responses. First, you seem to have  
misconstrued my claim that a lot of the Internet resembles f2f  
communication. You suggest that I am thereby claiming that ONLY the  
Internet (and not billboards, etc.) can or do resemble f2f  
communication. I am certainly NOT claiming the latter. I am sure that  
any communicative message, regardless of communication mode, can be  
made to resemble a f2f communication in some way. All it takes is the  
use of parasocial techniques that have been adapted to the  
communication mode in question. The parasocial literature indicates  
that newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and films have all been used to  
communicate f2f-like messages. Second, I believe you are inaccurate  
in claiming that certain types of websites are incapable of creating  
an impression of f2f interaction. A number of articles in the  
parasocial literature suggest otherwise. So do the articles that  
originally articulated and stem from Norman Fairclough's notion of  
synthetic personalization--the mimicking of personal and f2f  
interaction by a company with its current and potential customers.  
One needn't look hard for examples on the Internet that affirm these  
articles. Finally, I think you are particularly inaccurate in  
claiming that pornography sites do not successfully seek to mimic f2f  
interaction. Like the advertisement images that mimic them, many  
pornographic images seek to create a sense of f2f interaction between  
the viewer and the pictured model. They do so by seeking to make  
viewers perceive that the camera's position and point of view is  
theirs, and that they are the subject of the models expressions of  
desire.
--Christian Nelson

On Jan 21, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Robert Whitney wrote:

> "Perhaps this quote is the most useful for supporting Pam's thesis
> (one I've been working on, too) that much of the Internet resembles
> face-to-face communication. Why else would Internet researchers have
> to be reminded that posting emails is a form of publication unless,
> of course, Internet posting is so pervasively considered to be
> something other than publishing--e.g., f2f communication."
>
> - Alex Halavais, last week
>
>
> I find this statement curious for a number of reasons.  For  
> instance, I feel
> that many books and print works have the same visceral quality as  
> face to
> face communication, while many print ads or commercials,  
> billboards, etc.
> feel cold.  I think that the same is true of the net, so that "desktop
> publishing" resembles face-to-face in so far as it is personalized  
> in some
> way by the writer.  However, since the formal establishment of  
> signs and
> signifiers is not quite present, static, or established in our
> consciousness- and since the volume of information that we deal  
> with is so
> daunting that these things often have shifting meanings and  
> allusions, we
> are confronted in a far more colloquial manner.  I believe that  
> individuals,
> in most informal cases (such as this), write more as if they were  
> having a
> conversation, which should be obvious but, I question very much if  
> it is
> anything beyond that.  We all know that the internet has "changed  
> the way we
> communicate" but I think that behind all the rhetoric, and the obvious
> difference in tools, the nature of the message behind it all is the  
> same
> (though moving at a much faster rate).  An unpersonalized message,  
> or a
> corporate site- something anonymous does not resemble the visceral  
> qualities
> of a conversation to me no matter how it is presented.  Also, are you
> proposing to set aside the great deal of pornography which engulfs the
> internet and would you say that it resembles f2f?
>
> -Bob
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