CMC Is Dead, Long Live CMC!: Situating Computer-Mediated Communication Scholarship Beyond the Digital Age

Abstract

As the term “computer” and the processes and effects of technologies in human communication broaden, there is a need to have an accounting of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) subdiscipline. After identifying some of the changes that have occurred in both devices and our theories of CMC, suggestions are offered for how to uniquely situate CMC in the future. Ultimately, this article calls for a realignment of CMC scholarship away from focusing on the technological devices and toward an increased focus on the process, role, and effects of mediation. A litmus test whereby future researchers, authors, reviewers, and editors can help assess whether a study is of CMC or simply uses CMC is offered, and in doing so this work provides a foundation to develop theory and scholarship germane to the context of mediated interaction for the future.