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Professor Ellen Helsper

This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Data, Networks and Society, MSc in Media and Communications, MSc in Media and Communications (Data and Society), MSc in Media and Communications (Research), MSc in Politics and Communication and MSc in Strategic Communications and Society. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is 'controlled access', meaning that there is a limit to the number of students who can be accepted. If the course is oversubscribed, priority will be given to students who have the course listed on their Programme Regulations. Whilst we do our best to accommodate all requests, we cannot guarantee you a place on this course.

There are no formal pre-requisites, but students are required to prepare a statement of no more than 200 words in response to the following question, which must be submitted when selecting this course on 杏吧论坛 for You: Why do you want to take this course, what would you bring to it, and what do you think is the most important issue in Interpersonal Mediated Communication?

Please do not email the teacher with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place.

Communication media have simultaneously been blamed for a breakdown of social relationships and been hailed as powerful social tools that can connect people from all walks of life. This discussion is more important than ever, especially now the COVID 19 pandemic has moved our social lives online in unprecedented ways. The course looks at the impact digitisation might have on relationships and interactions. The aim of this course is to provide students with a critical understanding of mediated communication within small groups and dyadic relationships. It examines the influence of media on three key fields of interpersonal interaction which are identified as personal, social and professional communication. We will study the ways in which interpersonal relationships and communication are influenced by mediation, looking at harassment, discrimination, and social isolation but also at collaboration, connection and mutual understanding.

The first half of the course addresses the history of media in interpersonal communication as well as general interpersonal communication and relationship theories. The second half looks in more detail at how the interaction between media and interpersonal communication has been studied in relation to the cross-cutting themes of privacy/trust, isolation/socialisation and multi-modality. These central concepts of the course are reflected upon through theories of social norms, affordances, social capital and supplementation/substitution, and discussed from the perspective of different disciplinary and methodological paradigms. Application of theory to everyday life, practitioner and policy examples will give students the tools to understand what the practical implications are of the ways in which these different paradigms suggest that interpersonal communication processes vary depending on the type of platform this communication takes place on as well as the type of relationship that is under investigation and the context in which this relationship develops.

As a result of the course the students will be able to evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of the theories that aim to explain apparently contradictory observations about the practise of interpersonal mediated communication. This can be applied to professional areas such as intra-organisational communication, and the design, moderation and regulation of social media and discussion forums.

10 hours of lectures and 20 hours of seminars in the WT.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of term.

This course has a number of formative elements, besides the creation of podcasts and weekly case study work, students create a wiki for each week which they present in class and receive feedback on. Based on the material brought in for the wiki, students write a formative assignment of 1500 words detailing how theories can be applied to a specific case study.

• Anderson, J. A. & Meyer, T. P. (1988). Mediated Communication. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
• Baym, N.K. (2016) Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Oxford (UK): Polity Press.
• Burke, P. & Briggs, A. (2001). A Social History of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Hartley, P. (1993). Interpersonal Communication. London: Routledge.
• Joinson, A. (2003). Understanding the psychology of Internet behaviour. Virtual Worlds, Real Lives. Palgrave: New York.
• Joinson, A.N., McKenna, K., Postmes, T. & Reips, D. (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kovarik, B. (2016) Revolutions in Communication. London (UK): Bloomsbury.
• Kraut, R. Galegher, J., Fish, R., & Chalfonte, B. (1992). Task requirements and media choice in collaborative writing. Human Computer Interaction, 7(4), 375-407.
• Lea, M., Spears, R., & de Groot, D. (2001). Knowing me, knowing you: Anonymity effects on social identity processes within groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(5), 526-537.
• Solomon, D. &  Theiss, W. (2013) Interpersonal Communication: Putting theory into practice. Hove, UK, Routledge.
• Walther, J. B., Anderson, J. F., & Park, D. W. (1994). Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction - a Metaanalysis of Social and Antisocial Communication. Communication Research, 21(4), 460-487.
• Whitty, M.T. & Joinson, A. (2009) Truth, Lies and Trust on the Internet (pp 97-108). Hove, UK: Routledge.
• Yee, N., & Bailenson, J. (2007). The Proteus Effect: The effect of transformed self-representation on behavior. Human Communication Research, 33(3), 271-290.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the ST.