Cultures in cyberspace: Interpersonal communication in a computer-mediated
Environment
Introduction:
The fast and widespread expansion of the internet allows its users to interact with each other
in spite of the distance fact. Yet the cost and rapidity of communication via internet is far less
comparable with other communication tools. This orients most of the people to use this
technology for their subjective purposes. Especially internet becomes a meeting point where
people from different cultures shares their opinions on any particular subject; what we call as
“network socialization”. Moreover internet is being used by business objectives either
individually or corporately.
What seems original with Internet is that it provokes the emergence of elements of
transformation which concern not only the human communication but also the transmission of
the information. The networking brings to the foreground new possibilities in the field of the
goods and the services (e-commerce), in the government (cybergovernment), in the
educational sector (distance learning), in the medical domain (telemedicine) and in the field of
the arts (art-network).
Internet can thus, turn out to be an important factor of change, as far as it fits the other
dimensions of the communication itself. Basic interpersonal communication possibilities that
we find on the internet, such as e-mails, forums or blogs, have already become part of the
intercultural communication, especially for those who prefer to communicate with foreigners
via mentioned tools. Internet has also an effect on the behaviors of the individuals at the level
of identity. For example Lévy
asserts us that, it is the individual who makes it exist, it is him
who diffuses the information, who realizes its’ contents. Internet has the possibility of
1
LEVY Pierre, (1994), “L'intelligence collective. Pour une anthropologie du cyberespace”, La Découverte”,
Paris, Collection de poche en 1997
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Convention