He says, she says: Do they 'say' in the same way? A case study of gendered online communication.

摘要

Gender communication, an area of focus in the mass communication interdisciplinary field, is one that has continued to grow and expand since its inception. The mid 1970's thrust this communication focus into the research limelight with Lakoff's (1975) work on gendered language use. Since then, research in this area has matured to offer not only important theoretical implications of and for gender communication, but also practical ways in which gender communication may be understood.;Gender communication studies aim to answer questions about how men and women communicate and started initially with studies focused on gender communication in the traditional face-to-face setting. The field has since grown and shifted from that initial focus to study the gender communication interactions that occur in a variety of communication settings. An example of this is the focus of this study; gender communication in the cyber world.;Researchers focusing on gender communication have been interested in studying if there are any observable similarities and/or differences in the way the two genders communicate; both within their gendered groups (i.e., how men communicate with other men or alternatively, how women communicate with other women), as well as between their gendered groups (i.e., how men communicate with women and vice versa) and if there are, what explanations can be offered for these.;This study discusses the results and implications of an analysis into gendered American online communication in reaction to a news story on a Sex Strike by women in Kenya, a country in East Africa. This study was undertaken to see if the differences that have been suggested by earlier researchers to exist between the ways the genders communicate in traditional face-to-face communication, is replicated in computer-mediated communication. A set of hypotheses and one research question derived from an amalgamation of several gender language theories were examined. Looking specifically at the use of disclaimers, emotional appeals, linguistic solidarity, cohesive language and power/status language, this study sought to see how in their online communication, American men and women communicated both among their significant genders and also across their respective genders.;From the results of the hypotheses tested, and research question posed, results of this study indicate the communication practices of American men and women in an online setting mirror those of their face-to-face traditional communication practices. A subtopic that the online communication garnered for this study gave an opportunity to study was that of racial intolerance. Findings show that both American genders in online communication about Kenyan women are racially intolerant in their dealings with other races with the male gender, however, being more so.;By undertaking this study, this researcher hopes to have contributed not only to research on gendered communication, but also to research on the way and manner the genders communicate their lack of tolerance (in this case racial tolerance) on the Internet.;Keywords: Gender, Language, Disinhibition