True Emotions Revealed

Abstract

There has been a shift for people to prefer communicating online rather than face-­‐to-­‐face during the past few years, as technology-­‐mediated communication is becoming easier each day. Most of this type of communication takes place in social media, on sites like Facebook, which were designed for easier networking, but this shift has not come about alone. Negative communication can be found all over social media and the topic alone has gath-­‐ ered much interest in Finland. This research spans over analysing patterns of the technol-­‐ ogy-­‐mediated communication within Finland to explain this phenomenon, and study how poorly managed personal crisis communication is connected in this situation. Drawing upon previous studies this research was done from a new angle, where the focus is on individuals instead of organisations. Personal crisis communication is included from a new perspective of it being part of the reason for negative individual communication on Facebook. This research was conducted using a survey, as a main method for gathering data, as it offered the possibility of a fast, efficient and low-­‐cost distribution, while insuring that each participant received an identical initial experience. The questions were divided into themes, each presenting an intake on negativity. The comprehensive scope of participants offered a reliable data to be studied, which revealed factual and reputable findings. In ad-­‐ dition, the gender differences were seen in parts of the data. Misunderstood communication, group communication, anonymity in communication, memories of communication, background affecting communication and choice filled com-­‐ munication all had a role in creating negative communication on Facebook. This was con-­‐ firmed after analysing the data and assessing them against the previously created theoret-­‐ ical framework. Some of these different aspects have previously been involved with the negative communication organisations are involved with, but this study established the re-­‐ lationship of them with individual communication.