In the previous chapter, we looked at the various functions of communication and made a distinction between the actual content of our words (or in other words the transactional messages) and the underlying, hidden messages related to power, identity, hierarchy, and intention (which we might call meta messages or relational messages). We have seen that nonverbal communication plays a crucial role in how we make sense of these “meta” messages, and we have concluded that it is perhaps the lack of these cues that makes written digital interaction problematic at times. In this chapter, we dig deeper to consider exactly how we make sense of cues that signal “meta” messages, and we learn about a method that could ...
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