Face-to-face Contact

During oral face-to-face conversation non-verbal communication always takes place along with verbal exchange, and it comprises at least the following⁴:

• visual perception: facial expressions (which allow to monitor the other person’s minute-by-minute reactions to what is said), gestures (sometimes they are culture-specific and may have a fixed meaning within a semiotic code or else spontaneous but still interpretable); posture, movements (other than gestures); information exchange about the physical appearance of the interlocutors (age, sex, face, eyes, body, clothing, makeup, physical attractiveness), visible signs of their health condition (visible injuries, health problems reflected in the appearance of a person, also being drunk/sober); moreover, visual contact provides unmistakable information about the actual location of both interlocutors;
• olfactory perception: natural or artificial fragrances deliberately used to communicate some information about the person or communicating such information against the person’s will;
• tactile perception: tactile contact (esp. between loved ones) may also impart a great deal of information; in case no tactile contact takes place during a conversation, there is at least a possibility of such contact, which also has certain psychological implications (as opposed to situations where tactile contact is absolutely out of question).

Normally there is no face-to-face contact during a non-rehearsed dialogue via instant messaging software (certainly there are video conferences, webcams and IP telephony (auditory contact), but these would have to be discussed separately), where two users communicate by means of a keyboard and a screen on which text is shown; the screen thus acts as a necessary mediator in the process of communication. As Lev Manovich points out,

“The computer screen also functions both as a window into an illusionary space and as a flat surface carrying text labels and graphical icons. We can relate this to a similar understanding of a pictorial surface in the Dutch art of the seventeenth century, as analyzed by art historian Svetlana Alpers in her classical The Art of Describing. Alpers discusses how a Dutch painting of this period functioned as a combined map/picture, combining different kids of information and knowledge of the world.”⁵

Thus, instead of a face-to-face contact with all its non-verbal informative advantages, in the process of e-chatting each interlocutor only sees the screen, on which his utterances and the utterances of the second interlocutor appear one after another (vertically; sometimes the utterances of each user are shown in a different colour, sometimes they are delimited by a horizontal line) and which in this case acts as a window into another dimension, where both interlocutors who are physically far away from each other may meet, again virtually, in order to communicate.

Moreover, interlocutors have no visually evident information about the actual location of the other interlocutor (IPs may give a clue, but cannot be relied upon, because they may be fake) and no direct proof of identity of the other interlocutor (voice, appearance). The only thing that tries to imitate personal contact in instant messaging are avatars, which would identify a person and be displayed to the other interlocutor during conversation (an avatar is thus a sign that signifies the actual person behind it). This absence of personal contact certainly gives one much freedom in the sense that one may freely express oneself and one's idea of oneself by means of this virtual “face”, which may take any shape and does not depend on one's actual physical appearance.

Another thing to mention here are nicknames, which are frequently used even when communicating with close friends, family members or colleagues (nicknames are usually shorter than real names, besides, in large networks each user must have a unique username, it is not surprising then that such usernames as John or Jānis are instantly taken up and all other persons thus named are forced to choose different usernames). Nicknames then (which in most cases are again chosen to express a certain idea a person associates with himself or wants other people to associate with him, e.g. “GoodGirl” or “Funkythug” or, for young maximalists, “Nothingness”, etc.) also become a part of the virtual “face”.

However, although virtual “faces” (graphic identifiers and nicknames) may be changed from time to time (for example, to show current mood or a shift in self-image) they are still quite static as compared to human gestures and facial expressions.

Emoticons are another non-verbal but deliberate way to express emotions during a computer-mediated conversation. They do imitate facial expressions but certainly lack individuality and are to be perceived as pre-defined graphical symbols that signify emotions and have nothing to do with individual facial expressions and gestures.

Thus, non-verbal features of a face-to-face and computer-mediated dialogue may be summarized as follows:

Footnotes:
⁴Communication, which takes place by means of resources of communication other than vocal apparatus, i.e. based on non-auditory perception.
⁵Manovich, L., The Language of New Media, page 96.