Introduction: Discourse processes evolving

Many of us now routinely engage in new modes of discourse that would have been unimaginable in even the relatively recent past: texting on sophisticated mobile devices with emoji and audio attachments-maybe even dictating the text message rather than typing it; posting visual images on social media networks for friends that may well be seen by strangers; providing information to an automated telephone agent on the way to talking to a live human employee; writing a quick response to an online newspaper article that is immediately available to be seen by millions; or chatting with family members across the world via video, from our living rooms or while we are walking on a city street, while also seeing ourselves in a “self view” window. We respond to voice messages with an email, switch to talking face to face in the middle of a text interchange, and forward news items to individuals and groups with breathtaking ease. And we communicate across the globe in unprecedented ways, seeing immediate live news feeds from places we may know little about, posting messages that go viral and cause unanticipated effects in sectors we hadn’t imagined they would. We have access to more and more different kinds of information, and to the means of delivering anything we might be thinking about to others, than have ever been available or might even have been anticipated in the recent past.