RyuJin wrote: i think it's because online our physical defenses don't exist...we have to rely entirely on our psychological defense...and being a text only medium we don't have the benefit of seeing body language or hearing vocal tone...which puts added strain on our psychological defenses....it's like stripping away the flesh surrounding a nerve, leaving the nerve exposed and tender....it's just a matter of time before the annoyance becomes pain...
Good comment. In media theory there are the notions of cold and hot media. According to Marshall McLuhan, media are to be judged in how many ways they act on the recipient. A medium that acts on a variety of senses, such as TV (which acts on both the eye and the ear, predominantly on the eye) generate less response from the recipient than cold media (such as radio, which only acts on the ear and which prompts the recipient to complete the missing sensorial information in the mind, thus engaging the recipient more). Generally speaking, media that primarily act on the visual level are hotter than those that primarily act on the ear, because visual information tends to be fuller and requires less of a cognital response.
Print media are considered hot media -because they're visual, but also because they're linear in nature. I'd say forums, however, are cold in nature - the linearity is lost, as the they're interactive. Because of the latter, they engage the reader in a dramatical way - there's very little sensory information available when reading, but the way the reader can interact prompts a massive mental / cognitive response. At the same time, the internet user, who is by and large an anonymous entity, knows that there is little chance that his or her interactions will have direct physical consequences, so there goes the inhibition. Strong mental response combined with a lack of inhibition leads to the kind of outbursts that are typical for some internet forums. Depending on the forum (I'd say that TotJO is quite civil compared to other places), there are fewer or more circumstances present that may prompt inhibition in the reader. If a reader wants to be a long-term member of an online community, he or she will be more inclined to stay polite than if someone's just a one-time poster.
Anyway, was an attempt at explaining forum outbursts from the view of a media theorist.
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