Social information processing theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Social information processing theory - Essay Example Many different theories of communication have also sprung up to make the subject of communication more academic and easier to study and understand. One of these theories, which also transcends into a form of communication is the social information processing theory proposed by Joseph Walther in 1992 (Hissam and Daniel, 2009). In this essay, there is a critical analysis of the theory in terms of how online communication relationships may be established, the differences that exists between computer mediated communication, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of computer mediate communication. Online Communication Relationship One of the fundamental aspects of the social information processing theory is the use of online communication. Indeed, the advancement of technology has made online communication a very common phenomenon of late. Through devices such as smart phones, laptops, desktop computers and tablet computers, people use the internet to interact with one another. A unique feature of online communication is the kind of relationship that is established between two people communicating. ... on, as per son offered several avenues to send and receive information including the use of verbal communication, video calling, text messaging, pictures and the kind. All of these avenues help in making relationships forth coming and effective (Humphrey, 2001). The only hindrance identified with online communication relationship is that it trust and interpersonal relationship development takes a very long time to develop. This is because in most cases, there are very few things that can be learnt about people involved in the communication at a time and so the need to be sluggish in developing interpersonal relationship has always been advised. New technology and computer mediated communication Comparatively, computer mediated communication and for that matter social information processing theory has become better than it used to be in 1992 when it was first proposed by Joseph Walther. The reason behind this is the indulgence and evolution of new technology, most of which has come in the form of internet assisted information sharing. Examples of such new media include authoring tools like internet blogs, social information aggregation such as scratchmysoul.com and collaboration tools including the Wikipedia (Humphrey, 2001). Other forms of new technology that has enhanced computer mediated communication is tagging systems like Flickr and collaborative filtering such as Yahoo Answers. But of all these, social networking could be said to be the most influential towards the advancement of computer mediated communication. When it started newly, social networking was used only on a friendship communication but today the trend has changed such that social networking is used by almost every organization and institution that matters for communication purposes. Computer