Communication Theories - Essay Example

6 October Communication Theories Of the four computer mediated communication (CMC) effects of sender, receiver, channel, and feedback, the one that has the greatest relational impact is sender. Let’s take Facebook as an example to analyze this. In daily life, most people don’t talk to others and wait to be approached by them. Everybody wants others to make the first move and then the two can get along with each other. Likewise, in CMC, when someone sends a friend’s request on Facebook, the recipient feels honored and likes the fact that he/she has been approached.

Most often, the recipient accepts the request and the two become friends. In this case, the sender assumes prime responsibility for the intimacy between the two friends because if he/she did not forward the request, the two would not have been friends. Of all the friends we have on Facebook, we tend to interact with the ones commenting on our statuses more than others. We reply their comments and they reply our replies. Being listed in the friend’s list is different from chatting with a friend on-line.

Of course, the latter approach promotes intimacy between friends. Hence, the feedback effect of CMC has the second-largest relational impact. The receiver effect has the third-largest relational impact. On Facebook, we receive notifications, invitations to events, and invitations to games. Most of the invitations are received because the sender “sends to all” in the friends’ list. The channel effect’s relational impact is the least It does not matter whether a message is received through email, online chat or message.

What promotes intimacy is the fact that a message or comment is received.