Response to Herring article

I would have to agree with the conclusion of the Herring article that states that the CMC is male-directed rhetoric. Herring states in the conclusion of her article that men and women have different discourse positions in cyberspace that affect how language is used among them. Herring's argument is well-placed and urges women to contribute more to communicating in the cyberspace world. I feel she makes a strong and truthful argument about how women should contribute more to web-based communication and conversations. She also mentions that there should be more strategies geared at promoting womens' interests into the cyber network. I also agree that the cyber network is male rhetoric based and should have some action taken to promotet womens interests to these sites.

Herring does make a good observation about both male and female communication but in the end i would have to disagree. I have to agree with what a lot of people have said and that men and women have a different language depending on the situation. If they were having an online chat with their friends that were men and women it would be different than a chat online with men and women about academics. She says that male style is characterized by adversarialty which are put-downs, strong, and contentious assertions. While female characterstics are supportivness and attentuation. These to me are sterotypical and Herring should have looked deeper into more online discourse communities.

Herring Post

Overall I would have to disagree with Hering's article. I don't think that someone can tell the gender of a post from the way in which it was written. There are different situations when different tones comes across. If a woman is very passionate about a topic, she may write with the "force of a man." It is important to remember why posts were written in the first place. I know many men and women who do not conform t the ideas presented in Herring's article.

Herring

In the reading it says that, the female style has the desire to be addressed and be ratified and liked, it doesn't want to impose upon, whereas the male style is in contrast and confronts or threatens for alternative views. I think that this is true to an extent. Not every guy is that way. I know many women who are always arguing with their boyfriends for example, and their boyfriends are the ones who are less dominate. It also depends on the topic or situation upon which these people are talking about. In general, males are naturally just more aggressive then females. I don't think this is always a bad thing. I thought she made some good points in her article but overall I don't agree. You need to look at the situation and the person before you can judge a whole group.

Response to Herring

In Herring's article "Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier," observations were made to evaluate how the communication styles of men and women differ concerning computer-mediation communication (CMC). Herring discovered that men found "the barbs and arrows" entertaining online, as long as the conflict and aversion was not aimed towards them. Women were more evasive towards internet conversation that contained conflict and intimidation. In conclusion, Herring decided that men "control" conversation online and that women need to make more of a contribution to these ways of communicating.

I feel that Herring's research of communication online is valid, but at the same time it is not entirely accurate. Considering that a lot of communication in the present day is virtual it is relevant to study the way that men and women communicate in such a setting. Although I feel she might have a strong case that men are more verbal then women, I feel that there needs to be several other factors taken into account such as: What is the topic being discussed? How old are these people using the interenet? Other then a forum, how do men and women communicate on a device such as Instant Messenger? I feel that a forum only represents a portion of the ways men and women communicate online. What about emails? Can the same arguments be made for these forms of communication?

Herring's CMC

I think that it's hard to say that men and women have a specific style of communicating. What this article fails to do is to state what the men and women are writing to. For example, if you are writing to a Honor organization you must use "netiquette" even if you are a man or a women to be accepted in that particular discourse community. If you are writing to find that special someone or just have fun then it is more likely (but still not absolutely so) that the men and women will respond the way that Harring states in her journal article. I believe that messages have their own rule on how they should be replied. Such sites as Facebook, AIM, Myspace, and True.com, have people talking more than showing when they are communicating, where as if you are writing a resume, or a letter to a professional being you are showing more than you are talking while you are communicating. I believe its hard to cite any particular area in this article because its too discrimitive based on the sex of the people. Communication is based on what the situation is not what the person is.