A Study of the Relationship Between Gender and Online Social Presence

Transcription

1 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September A Study of the Relationship Between Gender and Online Social Presence Chih-Hsiung Tu, Northern Arizona University, USA Cherng-Jyh Yen, Old Dominion University, USA Michael Blocher, Northern Arizona University, USA ABSTRACT CMC has been considered a democratizing technology; however, research indicates that CMC does not automatically result in social equality, and points to the importance of social and cultural factors surrounding the adoption of technology. Research suggests that CMC may impose a disadvantage to females, demonstrating lower levels of social presence. This study assesses the predictive relationship between gender and online social presence. A total of 395 graduate students participated by responding to the Computer-Mediated Communication Questionnaire. Quantitative research designs and analyses were applied. This study concluded that online social presence is not related to gender; therefore, gender cannot serve as an effective predictor for online social presence. A female s online social presence can be as high as a male s. Effective strategies to improve online social presence for both genders are suggested. Additionally, this study raises the importance on gender equity in emerging social media. Keywords: CMC, Gender Issues, Online Learning, Social Equality, Social Presence INTRODUCTION Both women and men actively participate in computer-mediated communication (CMC). Although both genders may actively participate in CMC, it is inappropriate to assume that both genders possess an equal level of online social presence. Formerly, men had more access and used more types of technology than women, but a shift to web-based computing eliminates DOI: /ijopcd some gender gaps (Crocco, Cramer, & Meier, 2008). Women seem to be gaining territory in online communication. Based on the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2005, the proportions of men and women communicating online were approximately equal, 68% men and 66% women (Fallows, 2005). The fact that females use CMC as actively as their counterparts does not guarantee that females have positive level of online social presence since degree of social presence is not related to the frequency of CMC use.

2 34 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 CMC is considered a democratizing technology; however, research indicates that CMC does not automatically result in social equality, and points to the importance of social and cultural factors surrounding the adoption and use of technology. Herring (1993) revealed gender differences in communication patterns in online discussions. In fact, based on gender issues in CMC research, literature suggests females may project lower online social presence than men. Wolfe (1999) found that postings of females were ignored in CMC environments while expository communicative styles of men may extrude the epistolary approach of women (Fahy, 2002), which resulted in reduced level of social presence for females. Social presence is a vital affective learning factor which influences online interaction (Garrison et al., 2010). The levels of social presence generated by each gender represent a critical subject of examination to ensure that both genders engage actively in CMC activities. SOCIAL PRESENCE Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999) defined presence as the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as real people through the medium of communication being used. More specifically, social presence represents the degree of feeling, perception, and reaction of being connected by CMC to another intellectual entity through electronic media (Tu & McIsaac, 2002). It will influence online social interaction, and impact individual instrumental voice, value-expressive voice, and the group interaction process (Roberts, Lowry, & Sweeney, 2006). Researchers argue that social presence may instigate, sustain, and support cognitive and affective learning objectives by making group interactions appealing, engaging, and intrinsically rewarding (Rourke et al., 2001). Cognitive learning evaluations suggest that the social presence of teachers is positively related to perceived learning (Russo & Benson, 2005) and perceived satisfaction (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). When social presence is combined with a positive teaching presence, the groups examined demonstrated high levels of cognitive learning. In fact, Garrison et. al. (2010) emphasized on the importance of teaching presence on learners social presence, such as nonverbal and verbal communication skills of instructors enhance the social presence of learners. It is clear that higher social presence would lead to better performance on written assignments and encouraged greater interaction in group assignments (Polhemus, Shih, & Swan, 2001). When examining frequency of discussion dialogues, studies consonant with the results that higher social presence would initiate and maintain a greater quantity of interactions, responses, and lengths of postings (Russo & Benson, 2009). Clearly, social presence has a positive relationship with affective learning because its foundation is socio-cultural learning. Russo and Benson (2009) concluded higher social presence would lead to more positive attitude toward courses while Gunawardena et al. (2001) indicated social presence facilitates the building of trust and self-disclosure within online learning environments. CMC AND GENDER Researchers have investigated equity and dynamics of CMC, regarding gender differences in online environments (Savicki, Kelley, & Lingenfelter, 1996; Savicki, Kelley, & Oesterreich, 1999; Jaffe, Lee, Huang, & Oshagan, 1999; Fahy, 2002) and in CSCL (computersupported collaborative learning) (Prinsen et al., 2007). Studies have demonstrated that there are communication issues that might hinder the success and level of online social presence of females when utilizing electronic communication systems (Blocher & Tu, 2006), impede the flow of ideas and inhibit the social construction of knowledge. Research findings suggest that mixed gender CMC may result in the greatest disadvantages for females because of the differences between genders in social context, online

3 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September communication, and interactivity. The literature seems to suggest that CMC environments may impose disadvantages for females and they may demonstrate lower levels of social presence. Social Context CMC is said to more effective for task-oriented activities which may prevent females from building more social and intimate relationships. In social context, women and men communicate differently to build social relationships and social identity. Relationships of women are intimate, and socially-oriented; while men use more direct statements, are task-oriented, and lean toward competitiveness and dominance (Briton & Hall, 1995). Herring (1993) argued that women build social relationships based on rapport while men report. Specifically, women tend to present attenuated assertions offer apologies, ask questions, come from a personal orientation and provide support in their colleagues on CMC. Men, on the other hand, generally make strong assertions, engage in self-promotion, ask rhetorical questions, come from an authoritative orientation, and provide challenges and humor. With these stylistics, females prefer intimacy as a way of reaching consensus through the establishment of friendships while males negotiate their status or position within a group through competitive styles. Because of these differences, Herring (1999) suggested that men dominate through harassment of female participants in CMC and stated: Due perhaps to the youth and sexual preoccupations of the majority of its users, IRC [Internet Relay Chat] tends to sexualize female participants, and to involve them in flirtatious interactions. Accordingly, the ideal for female interactions in IRC appears to be cooperative flirtation, as it is also in many off-line recreational social realms (p. 163). Wolfe (1999) found that CMC may impose hindrances for females. Females initiate with more agreements and opened-ended discussions while males expressed more disagreements. These effects result in females failing to speak in their own defense when confronted, avoid involvement in adversarial discourses and pursue a low proportion of online discourses. Because of the different approaches toward social relationships, examination of mixed gender communication becomes critical when compared to a single gender group communication. In asynchronous communications, Savicki, Kelley, and Lingenfelter (1996), and Savicki, Kelley, and Oesterreich (1999) examined female only, male only, and mixed gender groups. It was found that female groups perceived high levels of satisfaction with the group process and high levels of group development and labeled high group development communication style (HCS) because they used more coalition language self-disclosure, and personal opinion statements than did male only or mixed groups. The male only groups demonstrated the opposite style and were labeled low group development communication style (LCS). It seems to suggest that mixed-gender group would have negative impacts on social presence on both genders. In examination of the different approaches to build social relationships, researchers found the identification issues of power and representations in CMC are critical to both genders. Women seem to sense their communication disadvantages in CMC; therefore, they intend to project different identities to make up their social presence. Jaffe et al. (1999) found Seventeen (81%) of the 21 male participants in the pseudonymous conference chose pseudonyms that retained their gender identification. In contrast, 13 (81%) of the 16 females in the pseudonymous conference chose pseudonyms that masked their gender identification (p. 227). Women felt communication disadvantages in mixed gender communication so they chose to mask their gender identifications to enhance their communication power. Savicki, Kelley, and Oesterreich (1999) found readers of CMC messages were able to judge or identify gender based upon the general tone of the message. In fact, they concluded LCS messages were most accurately identified by both male and female judges; because they were written with less ac-

4 36 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 curate spelling and more coarse language while HCS identification seemed more difficult for the judges to determine, both male and female judges were less accurate. It is apparent that although pseudonymous identifications can be created by CMC users, but The text-based medium can hide obvious cues. Language used seems to offer some clues, but it can also be misleading (Savicki, Kelley, & Oesterreich, 1999, p. 192). In other words, disadvantages for female CMC users could be still discovered. Online Communication Media rich theory and posting frequency can be impacted by CMC s attributes. Based on media richness theory, lean media are less able to support other communication cues. In a textbased communication environment, CMC is incapable of supporting body language or facial expressions, making communicators less able to send verbal, non-verbal and social cues. This may impact women to a greater extent than men in an online group work where nonverbal cues play a greater role in the communication behaviors of women compared to men (Dennis, Kinney, & Hung, 1999 p. 411). Both the lack of visual cues in CMC and the provision of anonymity might have reduced social presence sufficiently to raise group polarization enough to prevent any group communication. Clearly, it would impose more negative impacts on women s social presence. Whether higher posting frequency would have higher social presence is unclear between genders. Research findings are inconsistent when comparing genders and posting frequency in difference aspects. Li (2006) and Lowlor (2006) concluded that males posted messages more frequently than females while Bostock and Wu (2005) found females wrote more messages than males with no difference in the cognitive quality of message content. In mixed groups, females wrote fewer messages than in all-female groups but males wrote more messages than in all-male groups. Bostock and Wu (2005) concluded, since females wrote more messages; therefore, females prefer CMC and have higher course grades. Interestingly, males enjoyed CMC more than their female counterparts, findings which were not supported by Lawlor (2006). Additionally Jeong (2006) found no differences in numbers of postings and critiques in online debates between genders. This could be explained from the aspect that online debate has more rigid posting requirements. Interactivity Interactivity is determined by different communication styles by both genders. Female and male apply different communication styles to achieve their communication goals; however, it is unclear which style is better to project higher social presence. Fahy (2002) utilized the Transcript Analysis Tool (TAT) to investigate and analyze specific gender differences in communication styles. Female communication style was defined as epistolary, where communicators would use hedges (sort of, kind of, perhaps, it seems to me) and qualifiers (I think, perhaps,). Epistolary style is more tentative, less direct and defusing aimed at supporting ongoing communication. In contrast, male communication style was defined as expository and includes more emphatic and declamatory statements and they utilize intensifiers (certainly, of course, and very). These findings were supported by a recent study (Lawlor, 2006). With these differences of communication styles, females were more likely than males to make attenuated contributions and express agreement, whereas males were more likely than females to make authoritative contributions and express disagreement. In group communication setting, when shared identity is prominent, a comparison of expository and epistolary language is not useful in differentiating between men and women (Reid, Keerie, & Palomares, 2003). Overall, the literature suggested that CMC imposes disadvantages to the online social presence of females and even within mixed gender communications; males may overshadow females even if they attempt to mask their gender identities. It is critical to examine

5 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September whether females possess a lower level of online social presence when compared to males. The main purpose of this study is to assess if there is a predictive relationship between gender and online social presence. Furthermore, this study examines the predictive relationship between gender and the four aspects of online social presence, respectively. METHOD Study Participants In two four-year universities in the U.S., three hundred and ninety-five graduate students participated by voluntarily responding to the Computer-Mediated Communication Questionnaire (CMCQ). The majority of the participants were female (n = 278, 70.4%). As to the ethnicity, the group of Caucasian-Americans predominated (n = 245, 62.0%) and African-Americans composed the second largest group (n = 57, 14.4%). The remainder of the participants were Asian- American (n = 53, 13.4%), Latino-American (n = 16, 4.1%), Native-American (n = 4, 1.0%), and other (n = 20, 5.1%). The participants were also asked about their computer skill levels, 282 (71.4%) of them rated themselves as intermediate, 79 (20.0%) as expert, 33 (8.4%) as novice, and 1 as no experience (0.3%). Measurement of Online Social Presence and Its Aspects Online social presence was measured by the Computer-Mediated Communication Questionnaire (CMCQ). In the previous validation study (Yen & Tu, 2004), all twenty-four questionnaire items on the CMCQ were rated by three panel experts as essential for the measurement of online social presence. In addition, the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was.83 and supported the internal consistency of these questionnaire items. Based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in the aforementioned validation study, twelve items of the CMCQ were actually used to indicate four different aspects of a respondent s online social presence (Table 1). For the overall online social presence, a respondent s responses to those twelve items were summed up to obtain a total score, ranging from 12 to 60, to indicate his or her overall self-perceived level of online social presence. Then, a respondent s responses to items for each of the four aspects of online social presence were summed up to indicate his or her levels on those aspects respectively. Data Analysis For the current study, data analyses were conducted with the SPSS Furthermore, the alpha levels were set at the.05 level for all significance tests implemented in this study. Descriptive statistics of means and variances of the scores on online social presence and its four aspects were computed for participants in two gender groups. A simple regression analysis with the categorical predictor variable (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003) was implemented to assess the predictive relationship between gender and online social presence. In specific, the female group was used as the reference group and coded as 0 in the dummy coding of the categorical predictor variable: gender. The same data analysis was also implemented to assess the predictive relationship between gender and each of those four aspects of online social presence. A two-tailed t test of the regression coefficient (Cohen et al., 2003) associated with the dummy vector of gender was implemented to assess whether online social presence and the four aspects of online social presence were statistically different across gender groups. It was equivalent to testing whether there was a nonzero, predictive relationship between gender and each of these outcome variables. The squared multiple correlation coefficient (R 2 ) and the adjusted squared multiple correlation coefficient (Cohen et al., 2003) were obtained to served as the effect size indices for the predictive relationships between the predictor and various outcome variables. The squared multiple correlation coefficient would indicate

6 38 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 Table 1. CMCQ Test items measuring four aspects of social presence Factor Item no. Item content Social Context 1 CMC messages are social forms of communication. 3 CMC messages convey feeling and emotion. 16 CMC allows me to build more caring social relationship with others. 20 CMC permits the building of trust relationships. Privacy 4 CMC is private/confidential. 18 It is unlikely that someone might obtain personal information about you from the CMC messages. 24 It is unlikely that someone else might redirect you messages. Interactivity 8 Users of CMC normally respond to messages immediately. 13 I am comfortable participating, even I am not familiar with the topics. 23 I am comfortable with the communication styles employed by CMC users Online Communication 10 It is easy to express what I want to communicate through CMC. 22 My computer keyboard skills allow me to be comfortable while participating in CMC. the proportion of variance in the outcome variable associated with the group membership of gender. Moreover, the adjusted squared multiple correlation coefficients (adj. R 2 ) would serve as a more accurate estimator of the aforementioned proportion in the population. The severe violation of the statistical assumptions in regression may result in to inaccurate significance test results and inflated type I error rate (Cohen et al., 2003). Therefore, the assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were checked for severe violations with various statistical tests and statistical graphs (Norusis, 2003). The assumption of linearity was not evaluated due to the predictor variable as a categorical one. Specifically, the assumption of normality was evaluated by the normal Q-Q plot of the outcome variables in different regression models. If there was no severe violation of the normality assumption, the data points should more or less cluster around the diagonal line in the normal Q-Q plot (Norusis). The Levene s test of equality of variance checked for the violation of the assumption of homogeneity of variances. The ratios of the largest variance to the smallest variance in these two gender groups were also inspected. Given a ratio less than 4, the violation of the assumption of homogeneity of variance will not have much impact on the significance test results (Norusis). RESULTS Descriptive Statistics of Online Social Presence and Its Four Aspects The means and the standard deviations of the scores on online social presence and its four aspects are slightly different across two gender groups (Table 2). On average, the male participants are higher than the female participants in online social presence, and its four aspects

7 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September Table 2. Means and standard deviations of the Online social presence and its four aspects for students in different gender groups(n=395) Male Female Mean Variance n Mean Variance n Online social presence Social context Privacy Interactivity Online communication Note. M = mean. Table 3. Levene s test of equality of variance of the Online social presence and its four aspects across gender groups(n=395) Variable Levene Statistic df p Online social presence , Social context , Privacy.01 1, Interactivity.14 1, Online Communication.22 1, Note. df = degrees of freedom; p = observed p value. except online communication. As to the variability, the male participants are more diverse than the female participants on privacy, and online communication. Assumption Checking for Regression Analysis In two gender groups, the data points in the normal Q-Q plots of scores on outcome variables all clustered tightly about the diagonal line. Accordingly, the severe violation of the normality assumption was not suggested. The violation of the assumption of homogeneity of variances across gender groups was not supported by the results in the Levene s tests of scores on various outcome variables (Table 3). While inspecting the actual variances of the scores on the outcome variables (Table 2), the between-gender ratios of them were all less than 2. Therefore, the violation of the assumption of the homogeneity of variances was not a concern. Simple Regression Models with Dummy Coding The results of five simple regression models with gender as the only predictor variable are listed in the Table 4. The results of the t tests for the regression coefficients associated with the dummy- coded vector in those five simple regression models failed to support a nonzero predictive relationship between (1) gender and online social presence, and (2) gender and each of the four aspects of online social presence. In addition, the results of the squared multiple correlation coefficients indicated that less than 1% of variance in online social presence and each of its four aspects were associated with the gender group membership in the sample of this

8 40 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 Table 4. Five simple regression models with gender as the predictor variable (N=395) Outcome variable Online social presence b t df p R 2 adj. R Social context Privacy Interactivity Online Communication Note. b = unstandardized regression coefficient; t = t test statistic; df = degrees of freedom; p = observed p value; R 2 = squared multiple correlation coefficient; adj. R 2 = squared adjusted multiple correlation coefficient. study. The values of adjusted squared multiple correlation coefficients were close to zero. Two of them were listed as zero due to their negative values (Cohen et al., 2003). Therefore, the results of squared multiple correlation coefficients and squared adjusted multiple correlation coefficients were consistent with the t test results and suggested a zero, predictive relationship between gender and various outcome variables. In conclusion, online social presence and its four aspects are not related to gender so that gender cannot serve as an effective predictor for online social presence and each of its four aspects. DISCUSSION Based on the results, online social presence and its four aspects, social contexts, online communication, interactivity, and privacy are not related to gender; therefore, gender cannot serve as an effective predictor for online social presence, and each of its four aspects. These results have shed some light on online gender communications and social presence. This study concluded that there are no differences between the social presence of women and men despite the suggestion in the literature review that women may have lower social presence because they face more challenges and disadvantages in CMC environments. While no difference exists between the social presence of genders; in fact, the social presence of females can be as high as social presence of males. In other words, communication satisfaction of females can be as positive as that of males. Overall, there was no difference in the levels of online social presence between genders. This could be explained from the equilibrium theory which was an assumption to explain how humans balance the communicator behavior; and women engage more in online communicative and collaborative learning (Abbot et al., 2007). In a face-to-face setting, people tend to avoid maintained eye contact and they increase physical distance if personal topics or topics with which a person is uncomfortable are to be discussed. People try to maintain an optimum level of social presence. Although CMC may impose disadvantages and may be challenging to females, they may apply different communication methods to compensate for the disadvantages. Swan s (2002) findings support an equilibrium model of social presence in online discussion which suggests that as affective communications channels are reduced, discussion participants use more verbal immediacy behaviors to support interaction among classmates. Adrianson (2001) examined influences of gender on communication equality, social relations, and communicative processes and studied differences in self-awareness. He concluded few significant findings regarding gender differences, with the explanation that

9 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September females were able to balance their CMC behaviors although Koohang (2004) concluded male had higher positive perceptions of CMC uses. Additionally, Ory et al. (1997) found that there were no significant differences in attitudes toward CMC between genders. Furthermore, Jeong (2006) argued that gender differences in communication styles may not necessarily result from gender differences in response patterns and participation. Although females may engage in equilibrium behavior to balance the degree of social presence, it is unclear whether both genders apply or adapt effective communication CMC skills, strategies, or support to balance their social presence. If they are unable to adjust their communication styles to improve social presence, they may experience uncomfortable feelings resulting in negative CMC experiences and low social presence. These issues are even more critical when mixed group communication occurs if communicators are restrained in ability to adjust their communication styles. Gender cannot serve as effective predictors for the four aspects of online social presence, social contexts, online communication, interactivity, and privacy. Each aspect of social presence is conferred to obtain a better understanding of the effects that social presence of females is as high as that of males. Social Context The lack of difference in the social context aspect of social presence can be explained from the aspects of social relationships, and social identities. Female s collaborative and social orientation styles may cause them to have a positive degree of social presence even as high as males. Social relationships. Females are more social-oriented while males are more taskoriented. When the media lacks richness, females may emphasize the social aspect to attempt to build online social relationships while males would follow the CMC attributes to communicate in a more direct fashion and lead to more competitiveness and dominance. Li (2006) found females had a significantly higher frequency of collaborative instances using CMC than males. In recent social network site study, it concluded that women are more likely to want to use social network sites, such as Facebook, to keep in touch with existing friends, while men are more often attempting to meet new people (Tufekci, 2008). That is, females communication tends to be more collaboratively oriented. This could explain why that is no difference in social context aspect of social presence. Additionally, females preferences in building online profiles may improve their social presence. Lee (2008) concluded that CMC communicators who had exchanged personal profiles with others prior to the discussion were better able to differentiate between strong and weak arguments and were more likely to make conformity decisions based on the message content than those who had not. With these understandings, it raises a question: do female s social and collaborative orientation styles, in fact, project higher social presence than males? Social identity. Effective and positive social presence may lie in positive social identity building rather than gender-stereotypic. CMC allows communicators to apply pseudo names to participate in CMC with different identities; however, it doesn t in fact support females positive social presence. Interestingly, females preferred choosing male pseudonym identities for credibility (Pagnucci & Mauriello, 1999); however, Postmes and Spears (2002) found group member anonymity did not reduce gender-stereotypic behavior. Men dominated when the topic was masculine but not when it was feminine. It is unclear whether anonymity would actually improve the social presence of females in mixed gender communication or just their illusions of the communication. Further examinations are necessary to determine these issues.

10 42 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 Behaviors of females in projecting and managing ideal self presentations may have major impacts in projecting positive social presence. Females may not take full advantage of pseudo names in mixed gender communication to project their ideal identities; however, females apply different strategies to manage ideal identities to enhance their social presence. Strano (2008) concluded that women tend to update their profile image, manage their digital identities more frequently and emphasize friendship in the images they choose to display in digital media. Raacke and Bonds-Raacke s (2008) findings concurred that women were found to update the appearance of their website more often than men. It is assumed that females are more active in managing their dynamic identities, than men, to enhance their social presence. This phenomenon is in accordance with Goffman s self presentation theory. Online personal profile is considered as a representation of self, such as their online social networks, to allow others to peruse with the intentions of contacting or being contacted by others (Gross, Acquisti, & Heinz, 2005). Social identity is relevant to social presence. Higher social presence may support building of positive social identities that increase social presence of females. Tanis and Postmes (2007) reported that the lack of identity cues leads to a greater awareness of the social dimension of interaction ( us ) (p. 959), which facilitates norm-based influence, as communicators adhere to in-group norms as a means of acting as a group member (Sassenberg, Boos, & Rabung, 2005, p. 362). In other words, social identity toward to group identification prompts communicators to acknowledge group norms and their conformity decisions (Lee, 2008). Research has demonstrated the important role of social identity in motivating members contribution in CMC (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006). With building of social identity, online collaborative learning and communication provide more autonomous motivations that bring not only a higher quality of engagement but also more positive experiences such as enjoyment, sense of purpose and well-being. Online Communication Text-based CMC is limited in its ability to deliver non-verbal and social cues; however, both genders employed different strategies in mixed-genders interactions to enhance their social presence. Figurative language is highly recommended to improve both genders social presence. Of particular note, women tend to be better utilizing nonverbal cues in text-based CMC. Specifically, women are more expressive, clear, and able to understand and decode nonverbal cues than men (Briton & Hall, 1995). Flanagin et al. (2002) found men attempted to enhance social cues similar to face-to-face interactions. In fact, Delfino and Manca (2007) suggested using figurative languages to improve social presence. Their findings indicate that the higher the emotional involvement was, the more metaphorical language was adopted and the uses of figurative languages would improve the participants attitudes toward CMC. Figurative language communications may prolong the communication process to reach communication goals in CMC environments. It is clear that both genders need to obtain skill sets in to support them to negotiate social interaction with social media to build positive social identities. Interactivity Both communication styles and discussion topics may impact the interactivity aspect of social presence for both genders. To improve social presence in both genders, more collaborative task, coalition language, and self discourse should be encouraged to resolve the negative impacts in gender-stereotypical discussion topics. Despite the fact that male communication styles may dominate and overpower women s ability to communicate, women perceived their online communication styles equally as comfortable as men in this study. In fact, women s communication styles may be as effective as men s in the CMC venue in certain specific online communication environments. Researchers (Savicki, Kelley, & Lingenfelter,

11 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September ; Savicki, Kelley, & Oesterreich, 1999) found that female only groups perceive high levels of satisfaction with the group process and high group development communication style (HCS) because they used more coalition language self-disclosure, and personal opinion statements which are considered as effective communication methods in CMC in general. Roberts, Lowry, and Sweeney (2006) agreed that more expressive styles tend to lead to effective collaboration and higher social presence. Discussion topics may impinge on gender communication differences in CMC dynamics and may create a difference in social presence between genders. Thomson (2006) concluded that both men and women in discussions about gender-stereotypical topics were more likely to adhere to gender-based group norms ; therefore, they would use more gender-preferential language than in discussions about non-genderstereotypical topics. More specifically, Palomares (2009) found that for more masculine discussion topics, traditional gender differences emerged (women were more tentative than men) in intergroup, not intragroup, contexts and for more feminine topics, differences were counterstereotypical (i.e., men were more tentative than women) in intergroup contexts. Interestingly, for a gender-neutral topic, no differences resulted in either intragroup or intergroup contexts. Privacy Privacy and gender communication is a new area to be pondered in a future study, particularly emerging social network technologies (such as Facebook, Twitter etc.) having impacts on digital communication. Virtually, there was no literature addressing privacy issues and gender communication in related to social presence. Ideally, building more intimate and personal communication environments require greater levels of online privacy. This study concluded there was no difference in perceived privacy in CMC between both genders. Generally, women would require higher levels of online privacy, such as greater feeling of privacy and confidentiality, than men to attain effective and comfortable online communications. Theoretically, females may perceive lower social presence in the privacy aspect; since CMC is not considered an absolutely private communication environment. The result of this study concluded there were no differences between genders in perceived online privacy. This could be explained by nonchalant attitudes, self-disclosure, and illusion of privacy for both genders. Friedman (1990) argued that some educational online users express nonchalant attitudes towards online privacy because they think that all learning-related communications are class work, nothing personal or confidential. Both genders may take for granted that no one would be interested in their personal information, even though they do deliver it online. Online learners express personal and sensitive information online because it is easier to disclose when no one is present to respond to the communication. It is more unpleasant for subjects disclosing private matters in the presence of a large mirror than disclosing without a mirror in a psychological experimental study. This experimental result was used to explain the reduced self-awareness online due to the absence of social context cues; as a result, users feel safe to express private matters and personal information to build closer social relationships. Convenience may override the lack of privacy because online learners are unable to visualize the negative impacts although less private environments may decrease their tendency to online interaction. This is called Illusion of Privacy (Neumann, 1995). Oftentimes less communication cues are presented; therefore learners lose the sense of who else is in the virtual environment, and the size of the audience, which may include lurkers. They feel psychologically secure in their communication. It is difficult for some learners to consider negative consequences that they can t actually see in their minds, and the sharing of information about them is hard to visualize. Consequently, the illusion created is that learners think their communications are much more private than they really are. In other words, certain learners

12 44 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 think that they are invisible if they participate in the online activities. While examining social network technologies, Tufekci (2008) found men are more likely to make their profile visible than women and disclose phone number on Facebook. On the other hand, women are more likely to indicate their favorite music and books and their religion. It is unclear whether both genders have a clear understanding on threats to spatial boundaries of social network sites, and to temporal boundaries because of persistence of data, and intersections between multiple spaces. Implications Ineffective use of text-based CMC may affect the quality of communicative exchange, impairs performance (Cornelius & Boos, 2003), and diminishes the degree of social presence. Although a female s degree of social presence is as high as male s, it doesn t suggest both genders would have positive CMC experiences to sustain social presence. It is inevitable to observe any mixedgender CMC in current digital learning environments. Educators need to design effective online collaborative learning community to improve social presence. Additionally, educators need to identify effective strategies for improving competencies to overcome potential effectiveness brought about by CMC attributes to increase the levels of social presence for learners and instructors of both genders. Cornelius and Boos (2003) argued that CMC competencies can be improved through training. Overall, Stylistic communication styles (Norton, 1986) are effective communication strategies to improve social presence for instructors and learners of both genders: Attentive, Impression-leaving, Relaxed, Acquiescent, Friendly, Open, Animated, Dramatic, and Personal. To avoid gender-stereotyped participation and communication patterns (Prinsen, 2007), it is necessary to explicitly address inclusiveness as aspects of Online Collaborative Learning Community (Tu, 2004) and model effective CMC strategies to ensure positive social presence because Reid, Keerie, and Palomares (2003) found that engaging students in group communication may shift self-definition from idiosyncratic to shared identities (social identities) where both genders are less likely to use gender-stereotyped communications. Based on the findings of this study, several effective communicational strategies to improve online social presence in CMC environments are suggested for both genders respectively (Table 5). Lasswell (1948) argued communication research should focus on who, says what, in which channel, to whom, and with what effect (p. 37). Future research should entail gender issues in social instructions since current digital learning has been shifted to the applications of social media which emphasize social and cultural backgrounds of learners. Gender differences in social presence with social media will be a rich area to examine. New research can assist both genders to enhance their online social presence to improve online interaction in addition to focusing on what attributes of online technologies may impact online learners. CONCLUSION CMC has been considered a democratizing technology. Additionally the literature seems to suggest that CMC environments may impose a disadvantage to females and they may demonstrate lower levels of social presence. This study concludes that the four aspects of online social presence are not related to gender; therefore, gender cannot serve as an effective predictor for online social presence, or each of its four aspects. In other words, female s online social presence could be as high as male s. Communication technology may shape human expression in online learning for both genders; however, online learners can be and should be empowered by effective online instructional communication to further shape online communication technologies. Dharma

13 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September Table 5. Communicational strategies to improve Online social presence in CMC environments for both genders Social Relationship Social Identity Online Communication Interactivity (Communication Style) Male Suggest applying collaborate communication to build positive social relationships Suggest applying less direct, competitive & dominate communication Female Encourage applying collaborate communication to build positive social relationships Encourage applying rapport building Allow ample time to build social relationship & decision making Allow forming smaller groups Apply High Group Development Communication Style Encourage building social identities rather than individual identities Allow pseudo identities if necessary. Encourage management of social identities Engage learners in group communications to facilitate self-perceptions and self-awareness to build shared identities. Suggest applying figurative language Apply more descriptive communication styles to express intended meaning Encourage applying figurative language Encourage frequent communication exchanges. Apply Stylistic Communication Styles Apply text-based feedback Apply story telling style for posting Avoid any competitive activities, such as debate Master Cheng Yen professes, True self is selfless suggesting that the identity of self, or individual, at its core is selfless. This might beg questions regarding gender-stereotyped differences in online learning; isn t it more important how well I have mental engagement within the online community than if I am female or male for my ideas, thoughts, and contributions to be accepted by the community? Or, are there gender communication differences that may cause inequities, especially in online learning communities, where communication is mediated, and sometimes limited by computer systems and networks? CMC attributes may constrain communications but also free communicators physical characteristics; therefore, communicators are not limited to apply gender-stereotyped communication styles. Self-categorization theory represents a shift toward the perception of self as an interchangeable exemplar of some category and away from the perception of self as a uniquely differentiated person (Turner, 1985, p. 100). Communicators can project communication styles they perceive with best values and project ideal social identity to achieve their communication goals. In other words, everyone involved in CMC are capable of using any gender style they best feel suits the purpose of the communication. Their communication styles can be flexible in the language style they apply. The issues are not gender; competencies determine whether communicators are able to manage different communication styles to present equally feminine and masculine issues which are not related to physical gender of the communicators. Thomson s study (2006) confirmed similar arguments, gendered communication styles in CMC are more a function of the context or topic of discussion than the gender of the participants. It is critical to ask if it is more important to focus on a gender gap or gender equity; if female s social presence is as high as male s? The new goals for educators are to focus on gender equity which is different from equality. Gender should be seen as diversity to explore

14 46 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September 2011 rather than a gap to eliminate. Gender equity focuses on treating different genders differently to remedy pre-existing condition of inequality (Crocco, Cramer, & Meier, 2008). CMC environments invite more diverse learners and educators should provide gender equity to support individuals, their needs and assist them to gain communication and collaboration skill sets. For example, how educators can support gender communication when we learn that women took longer in decision making in CMC environments for decisions; however, those decisions were of equal or greater quality than male or mixed gender groups (Dennis, Kinney, & Hung, 1999). Crocco, Cramer, and Meier (2008) questioned the gender gap notion. Although technology culture has been constructed as male, evidences suggested that women use technology well or even better when it serves their interests. They argued that although male technology culture impedes the self-efficacy of women in learning environments, the new Web 2.0 participatory culture holds promise because it relies on collaboration and networking, two well documented female strengths. Web 2.0 technology enhances communications which are attractive to women, who use them extensively (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). Females were found to be more attached to their mobile phone for social purposes and use them more frequently than males (Devitt & Roker, 2009), have a more positive attitude toward Internet and than males, and prefer online communicative and collaborative learning (Abbot et al., 2007) while females make longer calls for personal contacts. Bentley and Metacalf (2009) argued that the use of mobile communication would improve social presence. Could it be in social media learning environments, women may have a higher social presence than men? Or could it be it is not a gender issue anymore, gender equity should have a greater focus in technology integration. Researchers attenuate the trends of social media that may have major impacts on gender communication and their social presence. REFERENCES Abbot, G., Bienvenue, L., Damarin, S., Kramarae, C., Jepkemboi, G., & Strawn, C. (2007). Gender equity in the use of educational technology. In Klein, S. (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp ). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Adrianson, L. (2001). Gender and computer-mediated communication: Group processes in problem solving. Computers in Human Behavior, 17(1), doi: /s (00) Bagozzi, R. P., & Dholakia, U. (2006). Open source software user communities: A study of participation in Linux user groups. Management Science, 52(7), doi: /mnsc Bentley, F., & Metcalf, C. J. (2009). The use of mobile social presence. Pervasic, 8(4), doi: / MPRV Blocher, J. M., & Tu, C. (2007). Bridging the computer mediated communication gap. International Journal of Continued Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 17(2-3), doi: / IJCEELL Bostock, S. J., & Wu, L. (2005). Gender in student online discussions. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 42(1), doi: / Briton, N., & Hall, J. (1995). Beliefs about female and male nonverbal communication. Sex Roles, 32(1-2), doi: /bf Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Cornelius, C., & Boos, M. (2003). Enhancing mutual understanding in synchronous computer-mediated communication by training. Communication Research, 30(2), doi: / Crocco, M. S., Cramer, J., & Meier, E. B. (2008). (Never) mind the gap! Gender equity in social studies research on technology in the Twenty-First century. Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, 2(1), doi: / Delfino, M., & Manca, S. (2007). The expression of social presence through the use of figurative language in a web-based learning environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(5), doi: /j. chb

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17 International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 1(3), 33-49, July-September Tu, C. H. (2004). Twenty-one designs to build online collaborative learning community. Westport, CT: Library Unlimited. Tu, C. H., & McIsaac, M. (2002). An examination of social presence to increase interaction in online classes. American Journal of Distance Education, 16(3), doi: /s ajde1603_2 Tufekci, Z. (2008). Can you see me now? Audience and disclosure regulation in online social network sites. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 28(1), doi: / Turner, J. (1985). Self-categorization and the selfconcept: A social cognitive theory of group behavior. In Lawler, E. (Ed.), Advances in group processes (Vol. 2, pp ). Greenwich, CT: JAI. Wolfe, J. L. (1999). Why do women feel ignored? Gender differences in computer-mediated classroom interactions. Computers and Composition, 16(1), doi: /s (99) Yen, C., & Tu, C. H. (2004). Revisit the measurement of online social presence. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA. Chih-Hsiung Tu, PhD is a professor at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ and an educational/instructional technology consultant with experience in distance education, open network learning, technology training in teacher education, online learning community, learning organization, and knowledge management. His research interests are distance education, sociocognitive learning, socio-cultural learning, online learning community, learning organization, social media, personal learning environments, and open network learning environments. Cherng-Jyh Yen is Assistant Professor of Darden College of Education at the Old Dominion University. Dr. Yen s research interests include education research methodology, quantitative analysis, and educational statistics. Michael Blocher, PhD is currently a professor and coordinator of the Educational Technology MEd Degree program. Michael s teaching duties include teaching Computer in the Classroom courses for pre-service teachers in NAU s teacher preparation program and courses in Instructional Design, Multimedia Authoring, and Distributed/Distance Learning for graduate students enrolled in NAU s online MEd in Educational Technology.