Revisiting propinquity in interpersonal and intergroup dynamics

Drawing on the earlier notion of electronic propinquity as postulated by Korzenny (1978), the role of several factors like communication skills, bandwidth, information complexity, mutual directionality, to name a few, all play a part in determining the amount of propinquity achieved in an electronic social interaction. This notion of propinquity has found its way into several studies of online interactions, notably by researchers studying collective identity formation, such as social movement researchers or community theorists (see, for example, Calhoun’s, 1998 article, “Community without propinquity revisited: Communication technology and the transformation of the urban public sphere”). Many of these studies look at the processes underlying the construction of collective social identity and community in online interactions. As an early work postulating the role of the channel, feedback processes, and complexity of information online (somewhat reminiscent of Shannon’s 1948 mathematical model of communication) Korzenny’s study emphasizes the role of these factors in structuring electronic communication. While it does not look at the role of identity formation or intergroup dynamics, the notion of electronic propinquity nevertheless highlights many of the important elements of relational dynamics and media that the later perspectives extend and draw on.
SIP (Social Information Processing) effects fall under what Postmes & Baymes (2005) have categorized as theories of technological determinism. These theories tend to assume that the characteristics of the medium usually determine the characteristics of the social interaction being investigated. Thus SIP models would emphasize “CMC’s limitations in terms of speed of relational development” (Postmes & Baymes, 2005, p. 216). Postmes and Baymes (2005) clarify that the theories that fall under this category posit that “social effects are due to technology reducing the individual’s capacity to encode or decode social signals” (p. 216, see also Haythornwaite, 2002, as cited in Postmes & Baymes, 2005, italics in original). In other words, the lack of social cues might affect the interpersonal dynamics of interaction online negatively (Walther & Parks, 2002). Under this perspective, SIP would say that technology would determine how social information was processed whether at an interpersonal or intergroup level.

SIDE (social individuation/deindividuation effects) theory, on the other hand, is categorized under the category of social determinism, which would argue that any particular use of technology is socially constructed. It also looks at the social from a perspective that combines the interpersonal and the intergroup relations. According Lea and Spears (1991, 1992, 1993, as cited in Cranton, 2001), technological medium reduces the number of cues available to communicators about each other relative to fact to face communication, and therefore, when people communicate with others who may be new to them online, they experience “feelings of isolation, anonymity, and deindividuation” (Cranton, 2001, p. 349). Postmes and Baymes (2005) make an interesting point in noting that while technologically deterministic theories view the individual from a cognitive point of view, socially deterministic theories view the users from a sociological point of view. This perspective is embodied in the social identity approach which postulates that “the social is not external to the self, but that it is internalized through a social identity” (Postmes & Baymes, 2005, p. 224).

Theories of social determinism from an intergroup perspective build on the concept of social identities, which is understood as “socially shared conceptions of what the defining features and boundaries of these structures are” (Postmes & Baymes, 2005, p. 224). SIDE extends these shared conceptions to argue that the derivation of social identities involves a process of “comparison and differentiation from relevant outgroups” (Postmes & Baymes, 2005, p. 224). These social identities therefore go beyond simple group membership to encompass the “affective consequences” of group membership (p. 224). Postmes and Baymes cite an example of Mitra’s (1997) study of the discussion group “soc.culture.indian” which finds that “Indian immigrants define their identities as Indians in opposition to other Indian subcultures, rather than defining themselves as members of a collective and common Indian diaspora” (as cited in Postmes and Baymes, 2005, p. 230). As most of the subgroup categorizations in this case draw on fundamental cultural, social, religious, and political affiliations, this example illustrates the importance of considering the role of outgroups in defining a group’s identity in intergroup dynamics.
Thus while SIP perspectives are necessarily technologically deterministic in their assumption that technology determines how social information is processed, SIDE perspectives, are by comparison, less technologically deterministic. This may be so because they also consider the processes of categorization along with identification and therefore incorporate the role of the environment and context along with the identification process. Thus in considering the role of the social in determining the individual as well as group levels of identity, they incorporate an interesting interplay between technological and social determinism and the process of structuration and adaptation in intergroup dynamics. SIP perspectives, on the other hand, may embody an interpersonal bias in looking at how certain characteristics of interpersonal relationships develop. Studies that adopt a contextual as well as interpersonal perspective might prompt the use of SIDE models as such models will allow the researcher to study the social construction of group identity in dynamic interplay with the identity of an outgroup in intergroup dynamics. In their study looking at communication and trust in global virtual teams, Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998) also look at the role played by social communication and behaviors in fostering trust within groups and analyze the conversation threads that lead to the development of teams with high or low trust. As a study looking at the formation of group identity in the completion of a task, it evaluates the factors that play a role in ensuring successful online collaboration. While Postmes and Baymes (2005) have explored the social identity perspective in researching the implications of technologically mediated communication on intergroup relations, such perspectives may be usefully studied by the researcher adopting a qualitative research methodology in order to draw out the richness of the intergroup interactions.
References

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