17 e-Mediation - Mediate.com

Noam Ebner
– External experts can be consulted with, or brought into the process as necessary,
regardless of their geographical location, and without disrupting the process’ dynamics.
3.3.2 Disadvantages of E-Mediation
3.3.2.1 Disadvantages for Parties
In cases where parties file a case and are contacted by a mediator assigned by a service
provider, it is challenging for parties to connect with mediators or to assess them. Parties
cannot rely on local reputation, and there are few internet resources to assist them. 30
– Good face-to-face negotiators, able to steer interactions (including mediated interactions)
their way through communication techniques, conversation dominance, volume
or body language, may be handicapped online;
– Archived materials – preserved as video or text – are always out there. Once a party
posts something in a discussion forum or participates in a recorded videoconference,
their words are out of their hands forever. While many service providers are explicit
about their security procedures, there are no certain guarantees in internet security.
3.3.2.2 Process Disadvantages
– The most commonly discussed process disadvantages are the lack of warmth, empathy,
immediacy, rapport and other attitudes and affects that make face-to-face mediation
what it is. While efforts are made to explain how to compensate for these in online
communication, and even to utilize certain characteristics of online communication
to achieve gains on these elements beyond what face-to-face communication permits, 31
this is still, in many aspects and to many communicators, an uphill battle.
– Messages conveyed online, and particularly those conveyed through text, are prone to
misinterpretation, 32 to misattribution 33 and to causing deterioration of trust. 34
– The online venue challenges the function served by apology in mediation, given that
party sincerity cannot be gauged without contextual cues. 35
30 For those seeking to translate this into a business opportunity, is presently available
for sale.
31 See M. Morris et al., “Schmooze or Lose: Social Friction and Lubrication in E-Mail Negotiations”, Group
Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice (2002) 6, 1; N. Ebner, “Trust-Building in E-Negotiation”, in
L. Brennan & V. Johnson (eds.), Computer-Mediation Relationships and Trust: Managerial and Organizational
Effects, Hershey, PA, Information Science Publishing 2007; Ebner et al. (2009).
32 Thompson (2001).
33 J. Nadler & D. Shestowsky, “Negotiation, Information Technology, and the Problem of the Faceless Other”,
in L.L. Thompson (ed.), Negotiation Theory and Research, New York, Psychology Press 2006.
34 Ebner (2007).
35 See, for example, the Cyberweek 2010 discussion forum led by Sam Edwards, Eileen Barker and Michael
Cote. available at , and the panel webinar on
mediation styles and mediator moves in the online environment, available at
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