beginnings

I think I'm about to start writing an article about the significance of personal communication media in processes of constituting and reconstituting personal relationships. My notes are messy, and I have some problems choosing what main persepctives to use. Moreover, I hope I'll manage to separate this article from another article where the focus will be more on the characteristics of mediated social interaction (where I'll deal more with presentations of selves and stuff). Both articles will of course make a point of the interdependency between online and offline interaction. Which reminds me of something I find intriguing: my informants always value face-to-face interaction as the ultimate form of interaction. Still, they acknowledge the hyperpersonal characteristics of computer-mediated communication: they are or they know others who are more open and honest when computers intermediate the meeting. Of course, in many ways I feel the same: there's magic in shared presence. And then there's awkwardness in shared presence.