Examining African American and Caucasian Interaction Patterns Within Computer-Mediated Communication Environments

This study explored the extent to which student emotion management factors and normative orientation (belief that chat rooms have normative standards of conduct similar to face-to-face interaction) circumscribe the sending of hostile messages within electronic relay chat rooms on the Internet. A questionnaire survey collected data from 114 undergraduate and graduate students from a large university in southeastern Michigan. The results of the survey revealed statistically significant differences between African American and Caucasian chat room users in terms of how the emotion management factors of shame, guilt, and embarrassment affect communication. The normative orientation of the chat room users was shown to have an inverse relationship regarding the flaming messages between both ethnic groups. This article describes how these factors are influenced by gender and ethnicity/gender. Findings regarding the perceptions of racism within electronic chat rooms are also discussed.