Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction -- 2. Primary forms of Islamic expression online -- 3. Muslim diversity online -- 4. Politics, Islam and the Net -- 5. Digital minbar: Islamic obligations and authority online -- 6. Cyber Islamic futures

Anthropologist Victor Turner suggested that all social worlds are composed of two parallel, yet seemingly contrasting models: society as social structure and society as communitas. The relationships between these two basic elements of human social and cultural life are mediated by ephemeral experiences of liminality. Other major theoretical traditions also recognize these relationships, representing a distinct conceptual framework of direct significance to advancing understandings of the internet. The internet is a natural environment for liminality and ekstasis, a place where self and society must be made to exist in a process where both are translated into the conventions of the medium. Some people actively toy with these representations while others do not. However, in the final analysis these communicative dynamics are rooted in the liminal characteristics of the medium - not the motivations and intents of internet users themselves. Approaching the internet in this way stands in stark contrast to other latent conceptual orientations that are largely concerned with moral dynamics.

Deception is omnipresent throughout the evolution of life, inseparable from the development of various modes of communication. By effectively manipulating the behavior of others, apparently by taking advantage of recipients' own rules, communicators are able to gain an advantage while negotiating meaning in a cross-cultural environment. Even though much research related to deceptive behavior and its detection has been conducted in recent years, little of it has concentrated on deception outside of a North American context. This monograph addresses that lacuna. Consistently, most research on deception has examined face-to-face verbal communication and ignored computer-mediated communication. In response, this book also provides detailed insights into how computer-mediated communication and adopted cultural values affect deceptive communication and deception detection across cultures, namely in Poland and the USA. It focuses on discussing theories about why cues to deception exist, theories specific to verbal cues to deception, and theories about computer mediation in communication. The book also proposes a research model postulating relationships between computer-mediated communication media, cue detection, media familiarity, national culture, espoused cultural values, veracity judgment success, and deceptive communicative behavior.

As part of a university course activity, one group of Canadian and one group of Iranian students were randomly partnered to exchange e-mail messages via the Internet for seven weeks. Before beginning their correspondence, all students completed a questionnaire measuring their stereotypes, attitudes, and knowledge about the people and culture of their prospective e-pals. Students from both countries then exchanged messages and photos. In addition, students within each country met with one another to discuss their e-pal exchanges each week. At the end of seven weeks of e-mail exchange, all students again completed the original questionnaire. Pre-posttest changes in attitude, stereotypes, and knowledge about the culture of e-pals show that attitudes of participants towards people from the other country became more favourable, even though their judgments of the similarities between two cultures remained unchanged. Negative stereotypes changed towards more realistic ones. Attitude change was affected by the quality, topic, and frequency of e-mail exchange. Knowledge of participants about different aspects of the other culture became more complex and realistic over time. However, for many aspects of each culture, there was no consistent relationship between raising the level of knowledge and a change in attitude.

This study adopts the functional perspective of group decision making as the theoretical framework to examine the differences between computer-mediated communication groups and face-to-face communication groups in terms of their decision-making process and performance. A field experiment was adopted by the study, which was built into a communication course involving two classes in a national university in northern Taiwan. These classes comprised 23 groups of 4 or 5 members each working for their final group projects. Of the 23 groups, 11 (51 persons) were randomly assigned to perform the task via computer-mediated communication, and the remaining 12 groups (61 persons) via face-to-face communication. The data analysis shows that most findings of the study confirm the notions of media-capacity theories. However, the findings of this study do not support the propositions of the functional perspective of group decision making. More detailed findings are discussed in the article.