Research Interests
My main research areas are technologically-mediated communication, multimodal discourse, and gender and digital technology. I am interested in understanding and describing the nature of these phenomena, their effects on interpersonal interaction, and their social impacts. I have also studied telepresence robot-mediated interaction, and I am fascinated by the concept of holographic telepresence. Recently, I have been thinking about the future of technologically-mediated communication, particularly the integration of AI into human-human communication and the implications of "deepfake" technology.
My current doctoral students are researching credibility and fake news; self-presentation through digital filters; (mis)construal of graphics in mobile messaging; social interaction through intelligent conversational assistants; abusive language detection; online metalinguistic discourse about language varieties; and crowdfunding through livestreaming.
What's New?
Language@Internet will be moving to a new hosting platform starting in mid-January 2024.During the transition, the full journal contents will be available in the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20240101215357/https://www.languageatinternet.org/
The Table of Contents for the 2023 volume, with links to the articles, is available here.
Selected Recent Publications
Herring, S. C., Dedema, M., Rodriguez, E., & Yang, L. (In press, 2024). Strategic use of video face filter types: Influence of audience, gender, and culture. New Media & Society. Prepublication version: https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/Filters_and_audiences.pdf
Ge-Stadnyk, J., & Herring, S. C., & Sa, L. (In press, 2024). Multimodality in digital discourse: Exploring image-text interrelations in WeChat sticker use. In C. Vasquez & J. Chovanec (Eds.), Experiencing digital discourses: Multimodality, engagement, activism. Palgrave Macmillan. Prepublication version: https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/Ge-Stadnyk.Herring.Sa.pdf
Herring, S. C., & Ge-Stadnyk, J. (In press, 2024). Emoji and illocutionarity: Acting on, and acting as, language. In: M. Gill, A. Malmivirta, & B. Warvik (Eds.), Structures in discourse: Studies in interaction, adaptability, and pragmatic functions in honour of Tuija Virtanen. John Benjamins. Prepublication version: https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/festschrift.prepub.pdf
Zhou, J., & Herring, S. C. (2023). Understanding the sorting algorithm: Emotion contagion and comment ranking on a politically polarizing news article. Language@Internet, 21, article 2. https://web.archive.org/web/20240108022920/https://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2023/zhou/index_html/fedoradocument_view
Fox Tree, J., Herring, S. C., Nguyen, A., Whittaker, S., Martin, R.. & Takayama, L. (2023). Conversational fluency and attitudes towards robot pilots in telepresence robot-mediated interaction. Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10606-023-09476-5
Zhang, Y., Herring, S. C., Tan, R., Zhang, Q., & Shi, D. (2023). From compensation to competition: The impact of graphicons on language use in a Chinese context. Discourse & Communication. https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/zhang-et-al-2023.pdf
Zhang, Y., Herring, S. C., & Gan, S. (2022). Graphicon evolution on the Chinese social media platform BiliBili. In Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media (Emoji2022). https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/emoji2022.corrected.pdf
Herring, S. C., Dedema, M., Rodriguez, E., & Yang, L. (2022, July). Gender and culture differences in perception of deceptive video filter use. In HCI International 2022 - Late Breaking Papers. Interaction in New Media, Learning and Games. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13517. Springer. https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/hcii2022.pdf
Herring, S. C., Dainas, A. R., & Tang, Y. (2021). "MEOW! Okay, I shouldn't have done that": Factors influencing vocal performance through Animoji. In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media (Emoji2021). https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/Emoji2021.herring.dainas.tang.pdf
Fox Tree. J. E., Whittaker, S., Herring, S. C., Chowdhury, Y., Nguyen, A., & Takayama, L. (2021). Psychological distance in mobile telepresence. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 151(July 2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2021.102629
Herring, S. C., & Chae, S. (2021). Prompt-rich CMC on YouTube: To what or to whom ro comments respond? In Proceedings of the Fifty-fourth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-54). https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/HICSS.2021.herring.chae.pdf
Herring, S. C., & Ge, J. (2020). Do emoji sequences have a preferred word order? In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media (Emoji2020). DOI: 10.36190/2020.05 http://workshop-proceedings.icwsm.org/abstract?id=2020_05
Herring, S. C., & Dainas, A. R., Lopez Long, H., & Tang, Y. (2020). Animoji performances: "Cuz I can be a sexy poop." Language@Internet, 18, article 1. https://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2020/herring/
Herring, S. C., & Dainas, A. R. (2020.) Gender and age influences on interpretation of emoji functions. Transactions on Social Computing, [Special Issue on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media], article 10, pp. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3375629. Prepublication version: https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/herring/EmojiGenderandAge.pdf
Konrad, A., Herring, S. C., & Choi, D. (2020). Sticker and emoji use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for graphicon change. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25(3), 217-235. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmaa003