Media and computer mediation

This essay reviews approaches to nonverbal communication related to media and computer-mediated systems. Following presentation of traditional research on verbal and nonverbal channel reliance, the essay reviews several theories and principles concerning the presence or absence of nonverbal features in online and offline platforms and users' adaptations to same. The next section discusses the manipulation and influence of nonverbal features in traditional mass media and new social media, including multimodal communication such as audio and video conferencing. A section on human-computer interaction covers the ways in which computers cue social responses and can be used to persuade, as well as their functions in online collaboration tools. A section on virtual and immersive environments considers virtual and augmented reality as well as embodiments such as intelligent computer agents and avatars that incorporate nonverbal features. The essay closes with a cursory introduction to some of the new means by which digital media systems facilitate recording and analyzing nonverbal communication in native face-to-face and mediated settings and concluding observations about variations in the level of specificity and rigor in the conceptualization and study of nonverbal communication in mediated interaction.