>E-mail is changing the way we communicate. In this episode we explore how writing is being changed by this new technology and how this effects our everyday communication. We also learn some ways to stop spam and address e-mail privacy and security issues.
Guests
Professor Laura Gurak
Professor Laura Gurak
Professor Gurak is a nationally recognized scholar of rhetoric and communication whose research focuses on the Internet. Her latest book is Cyberliteracy: Navigating the Internet with Awareness. She also is the author of another major work on the relationship between the Internet and society and is the founder and director of the Internet Studies Center at the University of Minnesota where she examines special areas like the use of language, gender, and privacy issues.
Frank Grewe
Frank Grewe
Frank Grewe is the assistant director for Internet Services at the University of Minnesota. Frank was one of the developers of the original University of Minnesota e-mail system.
For Your Files
Professor Gurak gives some advice on writing a good e-mail.
"Shorter is better, but do pay attention to things like spelling and grammar. I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten a message that says, “Do you want to have a meeting on Monday, February 11th?” Well, February 11th is a Tuesday this year. That can really mess things up if you send that to ten people. Because now they’re all going to write back and say, “Well, do you mean Monday the 10th or Tuesday the 11th?” So you’ve just wasted people’s time. So do realize that it’s a speedy medium, you do want to press send as fast as possible, but take a second, as you would with a piece of paper, to just read quickly before you send it out."
Frank Grewe talked about preserving the privacy of your primary e-mail account.
"One way that you can protect yourself is by using an e-mail address that you can throw away when you sign up for these types of [free] services, such as using a [free] e-mail address from Yahoo, Hotmail, or Excite. If that e-mail address begins to be used my junk mailers on a regular basis, you can simply throw it away and get a new one, and begin using [that one] for these types of things. But keep your primary e-mail address that you want to use for friends and family private."
Frank also gave us some tips to remember when shopping for an e-mail provider.
"Most Internet service providers will provide you with software that will filter spam as well as filtering for viruses. When you’re shopping for an Internet service provider, these are some of the questions that you should be asking.
- Do they have good spam control tools?
- Do they have good virus protection tools?
- Do they have things that will protect your children from these types of things on the Internet?
Many of the local service providers do have some really great tools that allow you to filter the email prior to it coming into your mailbox."
Cyberliteracy
Cyberliteracy means being able to sort fact from fiction, to detect
extremism from reasonable debate, and to identify gender bias,
commercialism, imitation, parody, and other aspects of written
language that are problematic in online communication.
Emoticon
A series of keyed characters used especially in e-mail to indicate
an emotion, such as pleasure [:-)] or sadness. [:-(]
Spam
According to several online dictionaries, the term comes from a skit on the Monty Python's Flying Circus television show about Spam, the trademarked canned meat product. It now refers to unsolicited e-mail.
Telegraphic
A brief and concise style of writing that is well suited to e-mails.