Assignment 6, Option 1: "Netiquette"

Emails. We all receive and send them, and when we receive emails the norm would be to respond in the similar tone and manner. Just like how Professor Hancock was explaining how he receives emails from students that will vary from: “Dear Professor Hancock…” to “Hey! …” and he will respond in a similar tone. This netiquette is an unspoken rule but is known within the internet world. If someone wrote you a formal email you would not reply with an informal email back filled with slang and jargon. Similarly you would not speak colloquial manner if the person who addressed you was articulating him/herself in a proper tone. This point goes along with Wallace’s view on “The Sign on the Door”. Similar to eating at a fancy restaurant one can read an email in their inbox and then from that know/want to respond in the same manner: conforming to the other person’s tone.

Another theory that Wallace brought up is that of “Conforming on the Net”. I thought it was clever how Wallace stated that emails “fall somewhere between a paper memo and a phone call, even though it could have become something quite different” (p.62). This statement is so true because we respond to each other in similar manners while we and communicating through the phone or paper memo; however, emails are on a different level from these other modes of communication. Let’s break down these two criteria. Phone calls are usually quite personal and this would not be the ideal type of medium to let someone know to meet you for dinner at 6. While paper memos could be linked similar to text messages where they are more informal and to the point (given the short amount of space). Email can be a mixer of the two, as previously stated, but it also something completely different on its own because of the larger space limit, the lack of synchronous cues, as well as many other factors. Another area that Wallace mentions that emailing touches is how people have conformed to abbreviations while using CMC based modes of communication. Abbreviations such as: g2g, brb, ttyl, btw, ppl, asl, thx, etc. have developed into a norm within the CMC spaces and are understood by the majority of people.

Leviathan enforces this norm even though email is not necessarily referred to as a “mediated” source because it is possible for someone to be kicked off an email account by reports to the server which could then deal with the severity at the task at hand and whether it is or is not breaking any violations (p. 70-71).