Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 462
Proficient on the platform, failing the team
Computer-Mediated Communication Competence separates platform fluency from the capabilities and context required for effective, appropriate digital interaction
Premise
Platform fluency can conceal communication incompetence. A person may operate email, chat, videoconference, and collaborative tools easily while choosing the wrong channel, overwhelming colleagues, mishandling timing, failing to coordinate turns, or achieving the task at relational cost. Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Competence treats those failures as communicative rather than merely technical.
The distinction changes diagnosis. A “digital skills” intervention is poorly targeted when the constraint is media judgment, attentiveness, response norms, relational tone, or constant-availability expectations. Competence is a person-in-situation judgment rather than a permanent quality inside the user.
What the model is: Computer-Mediated Communication Competence in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainConversation & Relationships
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.