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Nonverbal Mashups: Exploring Metacommunication In Mediated Interpersonal Contexts, Evelyn Plummer

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

Contemporary communication is highly mediated, whereas much of the extant research in nonverbal communication derives from studies referencing face-to-face contexts. This teaching activity explores the continued relevance of this foundational knowledge about communicating without words and the ways it continues to be manifested in new ways and in new contexts. For example, although the dimensions of his findings often are misrepresented, Albert Mehrabian's (1972, 1981) initial findings indicated that the nonverbal channel is a primary tool in the communication of emotions and feelings. Similarly, the emotional messages within mediated communication often are accomplished with non-word tools, providing a metacommunicational functionality--reflecting …