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Mediated communication refers to any exchange of information or ideas facilitated by an intermediary technology. These mediating technologies include all varieties and mediums of communication such as words on paper, transmitting dots and dashes to communicate in Morse code, speaking person-to-person over the telephone, or sending an email over the internet. Each of these intermediaries can be thought of as repeating the information or idea intended to be communicated and stands in contrast with first-person or face-to-face communication.

Mediated communication is distinguished from first-person communication in that it engages fewer senses, transmits fewer symbolic cues such as human-perceptable microexpressions (most mediated communication does not transmit facial expressions), and, generally speaking, fails to convey the emotional meaning, context, or punctuation often expressed in communicative discourse through the perceptable physical dispositions [ body language] of both sender and receiver. [5][6]

Much of the study of mediated communication takes place in the fields of communication theory and sociology — much of that focus is on the effects this absence of nonverbal cues imposes on interpersonal communication, interpersonal relationships, and society broadly in an increasingly digitally mediated age. Today, the mediation technologies used are often computer or smartphone related, giving rise to the popular term, computer-mediated communication. However, a communication mediation technology need not be distinctly “digital,” computer or smartphone-related, to be considered a communication mediation technology, as is exampled by a common [analog] paper and pencil.[2]

Historically, mediated communication was much rarer than the face-to-face communication. Though humans have been communicating with the use of mediating technologies for millennia. Such is true of early cave-dwellers blowing pigments on the wall of the caves at LaSalle, France; The ancient hyroglyphs in Seti-I’s burial tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings; Or smoke signals sent from guard station to guard station, one relaying their message to the next, atop the Great Wall of China. It was not until Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press that the power of mediated communication was realized at scale, to be spread from one to many, and ushered in widespread adoption of any single means of mediated communication in the 15th century.[3]

Historically, mediated communication was much rarer than the face-to-face method.[3] Even though humans possessed the technology to communicate over space and time for millennia, the majority of the world's population lacked skills such as literacy to use them.[3] This began to change in Europe with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg that led to the spread of printed texts and rising literacy from the 15th century.[3] Separately, the first print culture was Chinese in origin.[4] Whatever the tradition, face-to-face interaction has begun to steadily lose ground to mediated communication.[3]

Compared to face-to-face communication, mediated communication engages fewer senses, transmits fewer symbolic cues (most mediated communication does not transmit facial expressions) and is seen as more private.[5][6] Parties usually require some technical expertise to operate the mediating technologies.[7] New computerized media, such as mobile telephones or instant messaging, allow mediated communication to transmit more oral and nonverbal symbols than the older generation of tools.[7]

The type of mediated technology used can also influence its meaning.[7] This is most famously rendered in Marshall McLuhan's maxim "the medium is the message".[8]

Lundby (2009) distinguished between three forms of mediated communication: mediated interpersonal communication, interactive communication, and mass communication.[9] Thompson (1995), however, treated mass communication not as a part of mediated communication, but on par with mediated and face-to-face communication, terming it "mediated quasi-interaction".[6]

Differences from face-to-face communication [edit]
Mediated Communication and face-to-face communication, though often similar in their intent, often the way in which the two function can lead to far different outcomes as it relates to communication within interpersonal relationships. One of them is that interpersonal coordination is present in both face-to-face and mediated communication. However, when comparing mediated communication with face-to-face communication, differences often emerge in style and tone due simply to the change in modality. These differences can be vast, often changing the entire meaning within an exchange. Mediated communication tends to be more limited in nuance in comparison to compared with face-to-face communication. Writing in communication media and speech in face-to-face communication are different in terms of their lexical density, range of grammatical structures, varied connectivity between sentences, syntax, permanence, etc.