This study examines issues of online identity and language use among male and female teenagers who created and maintained weblogs, personal journals made publicly accessible on the World Wide Web. Online identity and language use were examined in terms of the disclosure of personal information, sexual identity, emotive features, and semantic themes. Male and female teenagers presented themselves similarly in their blogs, often revealing personal information such as their real names, ages, and locations. Males more so than females used emoticons, employed an active and resolute style of language, and were more likely to present themselves as gay. The results suggest that teenagers stay closer to reality in their online expressions of self than has previously been suggested, and that these explorations involve issues, such as learning about their sexuality, that commonly occur during the adolescent years.

The purpose of this article is to examine the communication behaviors of online leaders, or those who influence other members of online communities in triggering message replies, sparking conversation, and diffusing language. It relies on 632,622 messages from 33,450 participants across 16 discussion groups from Google Groups that took place over a 2-year period. It utilizes automated text analysis, social network analysis, and hierarchical linear modeling to uncover the language and social behavior of online leaders. The findings show that online leaders influence others through high communication activity, credibility, network centrality, and the use of affective, assertive, and linguistic diversity in their online messages.

This article explores the role of weblogs in promoting literacy in classroom settings. Literacy remains paramount in learning, not only for language development, but also as the foundation of all academic disciplines including science and mathematics. Storytelling ignites literacy and remains an important part of life from childhood through adulthood. Weblogs resemble personal journals or diaries and provide an online venue where self-expression and creativity is encouraged and online communities are built. Therefore weblogs provide an excellent tool where storytelling and literacy advance for both individual expressions and collaborative learning. Furthermore, weblogs can be used across academic disciplines, making it a viable tool for educational technologists.

The purpose of this study is to examine how language affects coalition formation in multiparty negotiations. The authors relied on communication accommodation theory for theoretical framing and hypothesized that language can help coalition partners reach an agreement when it is used to increase a sense of unity. Findings of an experimental study support this hypothesis, demonstrating that greater linguistic convergence and assent increase agreements between potential coalition partners whereas the expression of negative emotion words decrease agreement. The implications for coalition formation and the study of language in negotiations are discussed.