Emotions and the spatialization of social relations in text-based computer-mediated communication

This paper advances our knowledge of emotions in virtual teams using text-based computer mediated communication (TB-CMC). The literature’s preoccupation with the absence of physical cues of emotion has meant we lack both an understanding of how emotions are co-constructed through interaction, and an explanation of their role in the social relations of virtual teams. Adopting a communicative view of emotion, we present the findings of a longitudinal study of a virtual team within a trans-national collaborative project. We present three aspects of interaction that demonstrate how team members’ experience and understanding of the emotions expressed through, and suppressed from, text-based messages are influenced by the styles and patterns of interaction enabled by technology. Where our three aspects tend towards stasis, we argue that emotion provides a temporal dimension to a process of ‘spatializing’ social relations by connoting what should change, or what should endure, between people.