What are the consequences when the “social truth” about someone is obscured?

One’s social truth, as I see it, completely depends on the individual choosing to be authentic. Then it is a matter of whether or not the receiver intuitively chooses to believe the interaction to be authentic. This zone of proximal orientation is now what is open to scrutiny as well as constant interpretation in any social / cultural exchange in CMC environments: “A … characteristic of CMC is the limited information available regarding participants. The notion of reduced social cues remains central. However the effort has shifted from asking simply what effect this has to more nuanced efforts to understand the variety of possible consequences…“ (Baym, N. 2006, p.38).

I believe that perceptions of culture are what become obscured in small subtle and incremental ways over time. “Interactions between two individuals can thus have consequences for social formations larger than pairs” (Baym, N. 2006, p.38). With such a potentially vast impact, these grains of dis-truth certainly have cumulative affects. One might even extrapolate that these affects might lead to wars between countries over time. The question remains, what can be done?

Baym, N. (2006). Interpersonal Life Online. In L. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (Eds.), The Handbook of New Media, Updated Student Edition (35-54). London: Sage.