Student: Anela Arai

Course: CMC

Professor: ELF David Forinash

Final exam

Computer mediated communication is a term used to describe human communication through one
or more electronic devices. This type of communication includes different types of chat rooms,
email, online forums, different apps and even basic SMS texting. Its field of study varies from
sociological impacts computer mediated communication has on people to paralinguistic features
or pragmatic rules. Using Herrings (2007) faceted classification scheme for computer mediated
discourse I will describe SMS and app Discord in terms of medium and situational classification
scheme.

In terms of synchronicity SMS can be interpreted as asynchronous system, because it does not
require both participants to be logged on at the same time. On the other hand Discord is and app
where people can be logged on at the same time and exchange messages and be logged off and
receive them as well which makes it both asynchronous and synchronous system. SMS and
Discord are a one way type of communication where receiver cannot interrupt or know whether
the message is coming. SMS and Discord are, in terms of persistence of transcript, persistent by
default which would indicate the messages remain in the system after they were received, which
means only user can delete them. When we talk about the size of the messages, phone users have
limitations to 160 characters per SMS but Discord users have unlimited number of character used.
SMS is mostly based on characters while on Discord users can exchange photos, voice
conversations and other forms of media. SMS is rather simple when it comes to anonymous
messaging and filtering, because the number exchange makes it rather impossible for it to be
anonymous. Discord encourages its users to have nicknames and be anonymous since it was made
for gamers. It has private messaging and public servers where lot of people can join on the same
topic and people can filter those messages however they like. When message format is considered,
both SMS and Discord receive messages in the way that newest messages appear in the bottom of
the system.
When it comes to situational classification scheme and participation structure, SMS is rather
simple where there are usually two participants but Discord has servers in which many of the
people are part of one guild or game organization which share public conversations and private
messaging. Most of the users are under their nicknames which gives them privacy in server. For
example my nickname is Munchkin. Leaders of the groups are more active than other members.
In terms of participants characteristic I use SMS to talk to people who are the closest to me, like
my family and roommates whose background information I have. On the other side using Discord
to interact with people whose background, skills and experiences are unknown because of the
anonymity. It has a wide range of people any gender, background of professions whose only
common thing is gaming. The purpose of the SMS conversations are usually concerning family
and things I must not forget to do but Discord is an app for people that play different online games
and thus creating communities with a goal to make friends, play with them and get information
about the game. The topics that are part of the conversation in SMS vary from situation to situation
but on Discord is about games and about getting to know people. For example: first legendary
weapon done after playing the game 1557 days xD first and it might be the last for a long long
time im not sure I ever wanna do that again xD. As you can see the tone of conversation in both
situations is informal and friendly. Norms of organization in app Discord are that leader does the
choosing of the members and punishments for misbehaved ones. Leader states the rules of
behaving in the server. In both SMS and Discord usage, people usually have distinct abbreviations,
emote and insider jokes which is seen in the example. In terms of language usage, SMS is usually
written in Croatian but Discord users use mainly English because its users are from all around the
world. Technology and apps have great impact on my life because most of the communication
happens through them. It is a great way for meeting people all around the world and keep in touch
with close family members. I believe that through technology we are able to meet so many people
around the world that we would not be able to meet just through eye-to-eye interaction. By meeting
a lot of people you learn about their cultures. There has to be a balance between normal interaction
and computer mediated communication so people do not become distant.

Communication today mostly happens through phones and computers and apps people download
to make their communication easier. By using different app you can be connected to anyone in the
world and have conversations with many people of just one any time of the day. Todays
communication would seem impossible without computers.