Daily Knowledge Valuation in Organizations

6Communication, CMC and E-mail: A Brief Survey

6.1. Introduction

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of communication before presenting how we use computer-mediated communication (CMC) analysis in order to keep track of knowledge from interactions between actors (Chapter 7). To begin, we make a brief presentation of the main concepts and theories of communication. We start by defining communication and showing its evolution from a traditional view to an interactional view. We then present some current research into language in use: the pragmatics of interactions, ethnography of communication and interaction analysis. In addition, we present pragmatics and speech acts theory. Finally, we present the CMC studies and illustrate this presentation by reporting on some main empirical works dealing with CMC and interaction; CMC and culture; CMC and workplace communication; and CMC and knowledge management.

6.2. What is communication?

Communication is a complex phenomenon that includes several situations: ordinary conversation, mass media, phone communication, interpersonal communication, communications at work, online communication, etc. Communication science studies were formed precisely to try to think of those situations in their complexity.

6.2.1. Traditional view of communication

The definition of communication prevailing before the interactional or orchestral view can be represented by that of Shannon and Weaver [SHA 49], two theorists of communication sciences. They ...