Crafting Supportive Communication Online: A Communication Design Analysis of Conflict in an Online Support Group

Abstract

This manuscript is one of many in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Communication Research on “Communication and Distance,” Volume 38, No. 1.

This study examines the constitution and maintenance of supportive communication at a distance by analyzing an episode of conflict in an online cancer support community. Reconstruction of the flaming and hostile communication at the conflict's surface revealed a deeper struggle among community members about how interaction generates supportive communication. Findings indicate that, unlike conventionally understood sources of online conflict, the conflict in this context develops over (a) the right to criticize, (b) the role of venting, and (c) the value of disagreement in communicating support.

Keywords:

• Supportive Communication
• Online Support Groups
• Communication Design
• Flaming
• Hostile Communication

Acknowledgements

The authors thank editors Laura Stafford and Erin Sahlstein and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Notes

1. The message examples used in the remainder of the paper are referred to by a number that represents the appearance of the contribution in the overall sequence of messages in the corpus. Each line in the message is numbered for ease of reference in the analysis. Misspellings in the text of the message are misspellings from the original contribution.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Aakhus

Mark Aakhus is an Associate Professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Esther Rumsey

Esther Rumsey is an Associate Professor at Sul Ross State University