Content area
Full Text
While relational maintenance has been found to be an important aspect of interpersonal relationships within the face-to-face world, the nature of relational maintenance among partners within computermediated relationships is a relatively unexplored area. This study examined the use of maintenance strategies and perceptions of relational partners among (N = 178) undergraduate students within exclusively Internet-based and primarily Internet-based relationships. The findings indicated that positivity and openness were the most frequently used maintenance strategies. People who used positivity and on-line activities had higher perceptions of attitude similarity than people using avoidance strategies, and people who used positivity and openness perceived their partner's quality of communication to be higher than those who used other strategies. People maintaining primarily Internet-based relationships had higher relational communication and background similarity scores than people maintaining exclusively Internet-based relationships. Finally, people maintaining exclusively Internet-based relationships had different perceptions of on-line friends and acquaintances based upon their frequency of on-line interaction.
Relational maintenance is an important part of all relationships, and communication scholars have found it to be crucial to the survival of a relationship and for relational partners to be satisfied (Ayers, 1983; Bell, DaIy, & Gonzalez, 1987; Dindia & Canary, 1993; Vangelisti & Huston, 1994; Wood, 2000). In recent years, the advent of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has increased the opportunity for people to establish and maintain new relationships on-line as well as providing individuals with a new medium for maintaining relationships they originally formed in the face-to-face world (Barnes, 2003; Parks & Floyd, 1996).
Communication researchers have traditionally examined relational maintenance in face-to-face relationships (Ayres, 1983; Canary & Stafford, 1994; Dindia & Baxter, 1987; Dindia & Canary, 1993), and most research to date has not specifically addressed how people use computer-mediated communication to maintain relationships. As opposed to relational maintenance in the face-to-face world, there are two broad types of relationships that people maintain on the Internet, exclusively Internet-based relationships and primarily Internet-based relationships.
Exclusively Internet-based (EIB) relationships refer to relationships that are developed without any face-to-face interaction or interaction through traditional media, such as the telephone, letters, etc. EIB relationships are becoming more prevalent due to the growth and popularity of on-line communities where people who are geographically dispersed develop relationships and do not typically interact with each other...