One online standard to which I have recently had to pay close attention is the notion of proper e-mail etiquette, or “netiquette.” Having worked in the Forbes Magazine offices this past summer, I was exposed to the netiquette of the corporate world. Certain norms, including formality, the lack of cap-locked writing, no slang, proper signatures and appropriate titles were well understood and highly utilized cues among the members of the Forbes online network.
Employees and interns usually learn the lay of the land via informational seminars and company policy packets. These habits are enforced and internalized over time as individuals become accustomed to the environment’s standards of behavior. As an intern this past summer, I attended an online conduct and e-mail writing tutorial. Before sending any e-mail, I would always check to make sure I had followed company dogma. Through my increased experience as the weeks pressed on, the norms of the company became second nature to me. I even noticed an unintentional increase in formality in my net behaviors with friends and family. I imagine that long-time employees can hardly remember writing e-mails in any other way.
The Leviathan – in this case, social/professional approval or acceptance – is the invisible police force dictating our online behaviors. It goes unnoticed as long as we abide by convention (specifically, Forbes company policy) and only becomes apparent when conduct goes awry. If one fails to exercise proper netiquette, he or she will likely be apprehended by the given medium’s embodiment of the Leviathan. In the case of the Forbes e-mail network, the Leviathan might be the colleague to whom we send an inappropriate e-mail, the superior to whom they forward this e-mail so that action is taken against the non-conformist, or the IT department with access to the entirety of the network’s e-mail system. We self-moderate so as to protect ourselves from social rejection or job threats. We give up freedoms (including using slang to abbreviate messages and informality to ease our writing tasks) for the sake of both maintaining public approval and the online status quo. For, if not, we risk not only reprimand, but the chance to get fired!
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Lauren,
I liked your blog. It made me think back to my internship at the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council (a hotel union). I feel as though it would have been a veryyyy different atmosphere at my office than at yours. Emails were sent out with improper grammar, and usually without punctuation. I was at first surprised by the netiquette I came across at the Union, probably because I am used to typing out full sentences, with proper capitalization and punctuation (it bothers me when people don't capitalize "I" or write long sentences with no periods). Although I quickly noticed that this was the email norm of the Union, I decided to not conform, because I was new. I figured that once I felt accepted into this group, that I could start using their norms. It was as if they had this privilege of communicating with each other through abbreviations and uncapitalized run-on sentences (I don't know why this would be a privilege!). Being new, I wanted to give it some time before I acted as if I were one of them. So while I tried to self-moderate to protect myself from social rejection or job threats, I was not yet at a point where I felt comfortable to conform. I was not yet in the in-group, but I hoped that I would get to the point where I would one day be able to conform and go along with the social norms of the company!
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