Traditional vs nontraditional gendered roles in Instant Relay Chat

Communication technology, such as the Internet, reflects social norms in society, including gender roles. The author explored traditional and nontraditional gender roles in Instant Relay Chat (IRC) rooms. This quantitative study tested five hypotheses: H1: Participants who portray themselves as women tend to use more supportive language than men in IRC; H2: Participants who portray themselves as women tend to use more attenuated language than men in IRC; H3: Participants who portray themselves as women tend to use more graphic accents (GA) than men in IRC; H4: Participants who portray themselves as men tend to use more challenging language than women in IRC; and H5: Participants who portray themselves as men tend to flame more than women in IRC. Based on the results of the tested hypotheses, the author found no significant difference between those who portrayed themselves as men and women in their use of supportive language, attenuated language, challenging language or flaming in IRC