Do people tend to be more uninhibited online and if so, why?

Guidance

For general guidance about what is expected in your essays for this module, see the general criteria.

What Key Features Do I Look For? Familiarity with relevant texts Evidence - the stronger the better Argument - coherent and balanced Theoretical discussion - relation to relevant theories Understanding of relevant concepts Reflexivity - reflections on methodology Examples - insightfully analysed Style - readability and effective presentation

Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text (not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher. Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this department, click here.

Advice for this particular assignment:

As well as reflecting on the existing academic literature, this assignment should include an online investigation of your own, with short illustrative extracts on which you comment. You probably need to refer to more than one type of online communication environment (social media, blogs, Vlogs, chatrooms, messaging systems). You might focus on self-disclosure and/or on flaming. If you discuss flaming, consider questions such as the following. To what extent (and how) does the medium contribute to the phenomenon of flaming? Who does the flaming and why? Is it more common with men or women? How do people deal with it? Find some examples of flaming to discuss in more detail. In recent years, Twitter has offered many examples that you might find it useful to discuss: some people have found themselves in court for what they have said about others in tweets. Why does this happen? Do not be tempted into moralising about the subject: focus on evidence from reputable academic sources rather than rants in the tabloids. You have already been introduced to some of the existing academic research on this topic and you should refer to this, as well as seeking out further examples of relevant research. 'Self-disclosure' is a relevant issue: under what circumstances do people tend to offer information about themselves to communicative partners online (we are not dealing here with scams or identity theft)? Look up the concept of the 'Johari window', for instance. It is often suggested that anonymity encourages disinhibition online, but what about blogs and Vlogs - some of these are also remarkably uninhibited. Focus in some detail on particular examples (with extracts and screenshots) rather than generalising about the issues. Do not assume that the medium 'causes' uninhibited behaviour (you are not in a position to assess this anyway) since at least some of the uninhibited online behaviour of invididuals might be more reasonably be ascribed to their everyday behaviour (whether online or off). Do not digress into discussing moral panics about the internet (such as those about paedophiles online). Definitions of key terms can be found in Chandler and Munday (2011).

Some suggested reading

• Chandler, Daniel and Rod Munday (2011) Dictionary of Media and Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Gauntlett, David (Ed) (2000) Web Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age. London: Arnold
• Joinson, Adam N. (2003) Understanding the Psychology of Internet Behaviour: Virtual Worlds, Real Lives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
• Joinson, Adam, Katelyn McKenna, Tom Postmes & Ulf-Dietrich Reips (Eds) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Lombard, Matthew & Theresa Ditton (1997) 'At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence ', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 3(2) [September] [WWW document] URL http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue2/lombard.html
• Mackay, Hugh with Wendy Maples & Paul Reynolds (2001) Investigating the Information Society. London: Routledge
• Nass, Clifford & S Shyam Sundar (1994) 'Is Human-Computer Interaction Social or Parasocial?', Submitted to Human Communication Research [WWW document] URL http://www.stanford.edu/group/commdept/oldstuff/srct_pages/Social-Parasocial.html
• Thurlow, Crispin, Alice Tomic & Laura Lengel (2004) Computer Mediated Communication: An Introduction to Social Interaction Online. London: Sage
• Turkle, Sherry (1997) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster
• Wallace, Patricia (2001) The Psychology of the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Wood, Andrew F. & Matthew J. Smith (2001) Online Communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum