I've been cogitating on Markham's three types of metaphors and it has occurred to me that each type reflects a theory of communication. The metaphor of the Internet as a tool, particularly the idea of the Internet as a conduit, is strikingly like theories of communication which focus on the alignment of intentionality. That is, communication consists of the process by which people come to know, either through verbal or nonverbal means, what the other's motives are and therefore how to interpret what the other is saying. The metaphor of space, at least as Markham describes it, seems to imply the idea that communication is about the coordination of action (not intention, which is subjective). That is, What is important in communication is not that people necessarily share meanings but rather that they successfully bring off social interaction, even if both people interpret what has happened differently. Finally, the way of being metaphor (and this is admittedly a stretch) seems to me remarkably like Heidigger or Buber's notion that communicaiton is about opening oneself to hearing the other's otherness. That is, if we think of technology as the other, the construction of ourselves as cyborgs means that we are open and accepting of the affordances of the new communication technology and find ways to bridge the gap between the strangeness and weirdness of, say, the Internet and therefore modes of acceptance (open ourselves) to it in a way that integrates both self and other (technology).
Now maybe this is just an academic exercise but I think personally not. To me it is a way of connecting the idea of metaphor with the idea(s) of communication and perhaps (although I haven't thought this part through) might lead to some interesting ways to frame online behavior. Any thoughts you have on this craziness greatly appreciated.
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So as I was reading this post I was very excited because I was trying to bring together all of the metaphors that Markham uses. I know that they are all intertwined, but I was having difficulty identifying a common thread. Theories of communication makes a lot of sense because the internet is a communication tool and thus the different metaphors should reflect different types of communication theories.
But then when I was finished I started to think about different types of communication theories. I was looking around and of course I stumbled upon nonverbal communication theories http://psychology.about.com/od/ nonverbalcommunication/a/nonverbaltypes.htm . You can check out this site just to look at different ways that we communicate nonverbally. So then I started thinking about how we can communicate nonverbally online. I know that we have emoticons, but what about body language? [Can this be replaced with avatars?] And what about subconscious actions, how can these be replicated if we do not even know that we are doing them? So I think this leads me to see obvious differences between the reality online and the RL reality. I do not think this has any judgmental overtones, just the idea that we must be conscious of the different communication medium begin used.
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