Encompassing so much more than a simple please and thank you, the term manners could be referred to as a broad statement which includes various etiquettes regarding socially acceptable behaviours. However, the introduction of New Media has meant the introduction of a new vocabularly as well as an entire new etiquette for what is considered socially accepted.
Hamelink (2006) reasons that “lies and deceit are important tools in our social and personal communications”, a statement I’m certain would have my Nana turning in her grave. A thought pattern such as Hamelink’s is enabled by the Internet, a means for fostering lies and deceit.
Enter ‘netiquette’, the term given to communication etiquette on the Internet. The ‘Ten Commandments for Computer Users’, referred to by Hamelink (2006) are simple adaptations of what most would consider the moral foreground of our communities, however, this does not necessarily mean they are well received.
Misleading information is only a mouse click away on the Internet, with many articles and reports the carefully constructed the work of PR professionals and those in the journalism industry (Hamelink, 2006).
It would be fair to say that ‘netiquette’ has been introduced and remains, for the most part, an ignored concept. Social behaviours and communications are rarely polite offline, so why would they be any different online?
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References:
Hamelink, C. (2006). The Ethics of the Internet: Can we cope with Lies and Deceit on the Net? In Ideologies of the Internet, K. Sarikakis & Daya Thussu, pp. 115-130. New Jersey: Hampton Press.
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