Research Podcast

    When looking for a podcast on online communication, I chose to look on Spotify since it is an application I use frequently to listen to music, and I knew it was a popular place for podcasts. I listened to a podcast episode called "How and why we communicate differently online." from a podcast called "Online Communication" by user EthanLovesCats (me too, Ethan). 

Screenshot from Spotify page

    Ethan discussed how we implement emojis, abbreviations, and caps in our online communication. I want to focus on the emoji aspect, as they are a unique form of communication that are still developing to this day. Emojis are also interesting in the sense that we only use them for certain types of communication, typically casual conversation with people we know. We rarely use them in the professional setting. Ethan states that "72% of people between the ages of 18 and 25 are more likely to express emotions with emojis rather than words" (EthanLovesCats, 2023). We use emojis frequently to express emotions, but what role of communication does this fill?

From Oxbridge

    One explanation for our use of emojis can be traced back to the idea of channel-rich contexts and channel-lean contexts. Our textbook describes face-to-face conversations as channel rich because they involve words, facial expressions, gestures, and tone, while texting your friend would be channel lean since it only involves text (Floyd, 2021). With how common text conversations have become in place of face-to-face communication, emojis help make up for the channels of communication we are losing. They can represent facial expressions and can set the tone of a message. For example, we cannot tell the tone of plain text, but if it is sent with a laughing emoji, we know it was a joke. In summary, emojis have become a common practice of online communication because they supplement the human factor we would otherwise be missing. 

Since I mentioned my love for cats, I figured it was only fair to include a picture of mine :) (her name is Rose)