I. Introduction

Since the invention of the Internet, communication and information technology, including the media, is growing very fast. This has resulted in social change, including changes in interpersonal communication, group, organizational and mass communications. The number of people involved and the distance are no longer a problem. Internet-based communication media can perform its traditional functions with more efficient, both in terms of cost, effort and time. In fact, the Internet-based media no longer requires synchronization of time and place. These are indisputable advantages which are owned by an Internet-based media than conventional mass media.

In context of interpersonal communication, the weaknesses of traditionally interpersonal media such as telephone and conventional mail can be eliminated by Internet-based media, including social media, that have a lot of advantages, are: (1) low cost; (2) interactive ; (3) not limited by place and time ; (4) conversation history can be restored; (5) can be used for both one to one communication and one to many; (6) the process of building a relationship is relatively very easy; and able to overcome public anxiety as existed in face-to-face communication. It is the one reason of some Indonesian people using social media, such as Facebook (FB) and Twitter. FB users in Indonesia is growing fast from time to time. In 2012 Indonesia is ranked number 4 for FB users in the world with 42 million account in the world(Nasution, 2012). In 2014 in Indonesia, there are about 65 million active FB users, as many as 33 million active users per day (http://kominfo.go.id/) and inJanuary 2015 the number of social media users in Indonesia is up to 26% of population (Digital, Social and Mobile Worldwide in 2015, January 2, 2015). In addition to FB and Twitter, dating site is also a fairly popular media to develop interpersonal relationships. Based on study conducted by Stanford University, the internet has become the second most common way for American couples to meet, just after being introduced by friends (“You Had Me@LOL: Finding Your Soul Mate on Social Site, December 18, 2012). In Indonesia, the number of online dating site and the people who view is getting increase. (http://www.inabuy.com/2012/07/10-situs-cari-iodoh-gratis-terbaik.html). The rapid growth of social media especially dating sites can be caused by the a cultural reason that is Indonesia’s social values require women to marry. Women will be the gossip of society when in a certain age are still single (not married). This is indicated by the labels attached to women, such as: “old maid”, “unsold virgin”, “chronic singles”, “problematic women”. This value pressures women with all sorts of efforts to find a partner. However, on the other hand, Indonesians are still not familiar with the marriage broker. Looking for a mate through marriage brokers is ashamed thing. as submitted Sugiono, as follows:

“Beberapa orang menolak bergabung dengan online dating takut dibilang depresi. Padahal banyak juga yang mendapat jodoh dari Facebook atau media sosial lain,” [...] Orang Indonesia sangat sering berbagi segala macam tentang hal pribadi mereka sendiri dan juga berjual-beli di Internet, namun ketika berurusan dengan mencari pasangan, mereka cenderung menghindari situs-situs kencan.“ (“Situs Perjodohan ‘Setipe’ Diluncurkan Secara Resmi”, 12 Desember 2013)

In this context, social media and online dating site play a great role and very helpful. Using this media, women who look for their mate can be hidden from public but can be very open to be viewed by other members of the online dating service. Referring to the above description, it can be concluded that Internet-based communication media have a very important role in interpersonal communication.

The article’s purpose is to explore a pattern of social media usage by Indonesian female in building interpersonal relationships with foreign male. This study is expected to provide two important things on the relevance of social penetration theory in the context of interpersonal communication (1) which uses Internet-based interpersonal media, and (2) involve particitpants who have different cultural backgrounds (Indonesian and Western). Referring to the characteristics of Internet-based media, this study assumes that there will be changes in the process of creating and maintaining relationships, especially on some of the participants with different cultural backgrounds. Thus, social penetration theory was built in the era of face-to-face communication is no longer sufficient to explain the phenomenon of interpersonal communication era of Internet-based media.

Research is done by participative observations where the researchers (I and my colleague) collect the data from self-experiences associated with the process of building interpersonal relationships using social media and Internet-based dating service. The study was conducted for approximately one year while the participants of the study are the researchers who interact with several men from other countries, mostly from UK and USA. The research method is conversation analysis.

II. Conceptual framework

A. The Process of Interpersonal Relations Development

Interpersonal relations, referring to the social penetration theory, evolved through not intimate toward the intimate stage. At each stage is characterized by different intensity of self disclosure (SD) both in breadth and depth of topics. In the early stage is indicated by lower intensity of SD. The topics discussed are not too diverse and also not deep. The next stage the intensity of SD is high and the topic is various and deep. Because there is a clear indicator, the development of relationship can be predicted and identified. SD in one side is an important key to penetrate but in other side, to depenetrate. It occurs because of the SD which is done not at the right time, for example, SD is done too quickly or without careful leads to depenetration. (West and Turner, 2008; Griffin, 2007; Little John, 2005).

On the other hand, uncertainty reduction theory states that the decision made two strangers to continue or discontinue their interpersonal relationships, depending on several pra conditions, are: (1) when the other person has the potential to reward or punish; (2) when the other person behaves contrary to expectation; and (3) when a person expects future interactions with another (West and Turner, 2008: 175). Uncertainty reduction theory explains that high uncertainty about the verbal and non-verbal behavior of others to drive to seek information about the other party. More uncertain, the higher of information seeking. Easier a person to predict the behavior of partner, more likely interpersonal relationships to be built and maintained.

Those theories have the similar assumptions: (1) interpersonal relations are deliberately created, but with certain conditions, (2) interpersonal relations gradually progress from superficial to intimate relations, called the penetration and so do the depenetration, (3) interpersonal relationship can go forward or backward depending on our ability to predict the expectation of verbal and non-verbal behavior, thus can avoid violation or can adjust quickly when it already occurred; and (4) the interpretation of verbal and non-verbal symbols are culturally bias.

Several theories previously described are in context of Western culture and focus on face-to-face communication which allows physical interaction. Those theories assume that humans are rational. It has implications on: (1) human would only want to build and involve in interpersonal relationships if only profitable; (2) human is capable to predict the meaning of verbal and non-verbal behavior, including predict the development of relationships; and (3) Western people always do a planned and intended behavior. While the characteristics of face-to-face communication are (1) no delayed feedback, so it minimizes the possibility of misunderstanding; (2) coordination of meaning can be easier because each participant can utilize all of their senses to capture the symbols; (3) two consequences of face-to-face communication brings greater possibilities in terms of achieving the communication goals.

B. Social Media in Interpersonal Relations Process

Several research related to the role of social media in the development of interpersonal relationships conclude that the presence of social media changed the way we communicate. A study (“How Does Social Media Affect on Interpersonal Communication”, May 12, 2013) showed that (1) social media has changed the concept of “friend”. The word “friend” in Facebook (FB), for example, does not necessarily mean our relationship with the intimate and close friends. However, it is recognized there are some FB users do not regularly receive or request friendship from/to people who are not familiar with at all; (2) social media change the way of thinking about social networking. Most users see a big number of FB friends but do not intend to deepen relations. The greater number of friends, the wider social networks and this has increased in popularity; (3) social media changed the way we show our existence and expression to others and change the way people perceive or see us. FB provides opportunities for users to show the data themselves, and to whom the personal data submitted. In other words, social media allows managing se lf-disclosure, open about what and to whom, wants to build a relationship; (4) social media can drive the formation of public support, (5) social media gives a person the ability to see the history (past) of somebody else, such as whom he is associated with, what he talked about, without having to be involved directly at the same time.

On other study, Paul Booth said, “There has been a shift in the way we communicate; rather than face-to-face interaction, we’re tending to prefer mediated communication. We’d rather e-mail than meet; we’d rather text than talk on the phone.” (“Social Media and Interpersonal Communication”, May 2013). The presence of social media has changed the way we communicate. People prefer doing mediated communication, rather than face-to-face, people prefer to use text (writing) rather than talking on the phone. Therefore, bonding relationship formed by using social media tend to be weak (weak ties). Further, he said that there are three important issues related to the use of social media in building interpersonal relationships: (1) people will credulity on the other side so that they are more open; (2) people are less likely to build relationships in intensive way - “they tend range to exist in the status quo”; and (3) they tend to agree and to interact with others who have the same perspective with them, therefore they do not get a diversity of perspectives. Thus, socially mediated interpersonal relationships are fragile because it does not quite have the experience in dealing with differences. In other words, social media become a mainstay in communication and interpersonal relationship building at the present time. Social media has brought about important changes in the way of communicating the implications for the diversity of consequences, plus and minus. However, there is a study shows that the development of relationship based on social media usage is not different from the relationship which develops by face to face communication. Social media can be used to increase predictability, self disclosure and trust and to reduced uncertainty which are important factors to create a relation. It means that the interpersonal communication theories is still relevant to be used to analyze the new context of relationship. (“I’ll poke you. You’ll poke me!” Self disclosure, social attraction, predictability, and trust as important predictors of Facebook relationship.”, 2009)

III. Research finding

A. Pattern of Internet-based Media Usage

“A” (an initial name) is a social media user but categorized in “newcomers” whereas “B” (an initial name) is “old player” using social media since the media was invented. When compared with “B”, “A” tends not very active in social media because she only uses FB. While “B” uses all social media such as twitter, FB, Path, Line, LinkedIn, Skype, Twoo and Netlog. “A” thinks that FB has a fairly complete communication facilities such as chat, photo and article upload, link and interaction/ communication with others. Meanwhile “B” uses all social media to see the advantages of one social media compared to others. However, the two women (A and B) are active and they like to use FB.

Therefore the following description focuses on the patterns of FB usage.

The most important thing of using FB is an easiness to build relationships. FB itself has such facilities are “friend request”, “message inbox” and chat. Those facilities are used to send and receive private messages which can be opened only by its account owner. In this facility there are two parts, one is the “message inbox” and the other is “others”. Message sent by friends who have already been in friend list is located in this message inbox, but the message is sent by people not from friend list will fall in “others”. Those are considered as spam so that the account owner is not given “alert” for incoming messages. Similar to “A”, “B” uses FB to make friends. In addition, “B” uses FB because (1) to know current social issues and (2) to interact with old friends. “A” and “B” were also more likely to use “friend request” menu to make friends than “message inbox”.

In a friend seeking, “A” and “B” give more attention to accept or reject friends than to request friend. The requests generally come from colleagues from same and other work institutions, and students, where as friend request who are from “others” usually comes from people who are not in friend list. In A’s FB account, there are around 100 requests , while “B” has about 363 request, mostly come from foreign men, especially from the US and UK, aged 40 to 50 years, admitted widower with or without children. “A” and “B” are also selective in accepting the friend request. Co-workers and students are preferred. But for A, this group is still selected, she only accepts friend requests which actually became friends in the real world (not the virtual world). For “A”, virtual friends are also friends in the real world. “A” does not accept friend requests from people who are totally unknown, but for a certain interest “A” will request a friend. For special cases, including for research, “A” and “B” accept friend request from “others” menu. Until 2014, a virtual friend of “A” and “B” are both almost 1000 people, but not more than 10% were communicating intensively. The most forms of interaction is giving “like”, commenting on other’s posting, photos and statements. In the case of uploading photos and comments or posts, “B” is more intensive than “A”. So in general, the intensity of the using of social media by “B” is higher than A.

B. Meaning of “Friend” in Social Media

Though a number of virtual friends are relatively same as a real friend, for “A”, the essence of virtual friends and real friends is different. The concept of “friend” in cyberspace or social media in particular is just a label that has been created by the social media engine, it is given and automatic. Once we click the “accept” or “confirm” button, our friend is added, even though we do not know one to another, no contact and connection, no message exchange or conversation. While in a real world, friends are not that simple. Friend is indicated by a mutually deep conversation and having deep information about others. Similar to “A”, a virtual friend of “B” is not too much different from real world friends.

C. Penetration Process of Virtual Friend

As described, almost foreign men who offer friendship through social media is white male (Caucasian), generally claim to be from the USA and UK and opnly few from Asia, Africa and Center East with more diverse both in terms of age, and country. The interesting finding is these strange men began introductions in the same way that using firstly sweet and pleasant greeting, for example, “Hello my dear”, “hello princess”, “Hi my beautiful lady”, “my sweet heart”, or “hello angel”. It was followed by admiration and praise to “A” and “B” and then they closed their conversation with their real purposes. The development of relations after the first conversation depends on the response given to this first greeting, even if the response is only a very short sentence, like, “hi, too” or “hello, I am fine”. It is understood as a symbol of friend request acceptance. Deeper conversation is a common sentence, for example “how are you today”, “how was your work today”, “have you eaten?”, and “what are you doing now?”. After this conversation usually interpersonal penetration process begins and there is media shifting, from message inbox to chat. Frequency to comment on any posts made by B is also increasing. Comments are usually praise statement, or “like”. The migration of communications media to chat shows that the penetration process intensified. Personal information begins to be exchanged. It generally is occupation, marital status and family history, especially as related to the status of marriage. Related to marital and family status, in general, these people claim to be a widower with one or two children, shown by photographs of their familiarity. The wife had died, and the cause is always two things: (1) cancer illness, and (2) an accident. In general they have been widowed about 3 to 5 years. They also told that they are using FB because of lack of time to find friend, their work locations that do not enable them to find a friend such as under a sea, or in a war zone , or in a forest. In fact, in the case of B, the personal information is likely to be more aggressive and make her inconvenient, such as a question of “do you really love your partner”, or “what is the best position in sex with your partner”.

Following paragraph are a shirt description of a case of social penetration process which is done by “A” with a man from the UK, name is JA (initial name), as told by “A” herself.

D. The Process of Social Penetration: A Case of JA

I start to open an interaction with a foreigner who called JA in November 2013. He is looks very well established, kind and thoughtful. JA admitted was born in Liverpool in 1969, from the United Kingdom, precisely in Manchester, graduated from West London University and worked as a structural engineer at a big private company in Liverpool.

The first statement of the conversation with JA is natural as well as it is in general. Beginning of friend requests with the initial greeting, “hello my dear” until later I sent a reply to a friend request with a short sentence, “hi, too.” The conversation continued. He sent a message through the chat. The first sentence he said was, “Hello dear, thank you so much for accepting my request. How are you doing?”. I replied, as usual, fine. At this stage, a common topic of conversation was about the weather and the local time. He claimed has visited several countries in Asia but never been to Indonesia. Other topic is about what I was doing or he did after away from the office to home, and also the physical condition after hard work. The next stage, after telling himself more general, he began to ask about me, “What are you doing for living?” or “What is your daily routine activity” and “How old are you?”. I replied that I am a lecturer, but I did not tell my age. At this stage, some time we did chat and told information about work, day activities and plans for the next day. We also began to design a suitable time to communicate because of the different local time between UK and Indonesia.

Through chats, our conversation begins more fluently. I receive a lot of information I thought is private. He is a widower with no children. His wife has died from cancer and he still loved her so much. He greatly missed her but he had to move on. That’s why he was interested to ask friends with me. Some of the following statements show the message on the chat that occurs during a few days after the interaction has occurred intensively.

“I will visit your country when I finish my contract. How was your night and where are you now? Here is 9:20 pm and I just get back home from church. Will you be my wife?”

“I just feel to be with you as my wife because it has been more than 3 years am alone now. Because I have not find the one my heart choose again as my late wife. But I do not have the options Because I won ’ t ask you to divorce your husband.”

“I am speechless and can only say that I love you so much and want to be with you.”

The first statement above is quite surprising. I wish only to be a friend because of my status on FB was already married. He should have already known about it. I then said that was impossible, I was married. At the time I thought that our relationship will end soon because it is not in accordance with the purpose of friendship he thinks. I also began to think that "the research process" to disguise also coming to an end when I need more data up to the penetration as in the social penetration theory. But I think it did not happen. He still continued to chat as the second statement. After he wrote it, I say, so, what will you do? So, he replied as the third.

Thinking that JA’s profile is as in the picture, and if I were still single and not do participative research, I might have fallen in love with him. His statements were very romantic and touching. But, on other hand, I think the kind of statement is too quickly said before we knew each other well. So, I said this to him:“How come you say it while we do not have enough information about us. How could the relationship will happen while we live in different countries, and the distance is very far away.” Then the following sentence is very seductive.

“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you was beyond my control. I really do not know exactly how you look, but I truly love the person am seeing in the pictures and I have faith that you are the one I want to spend my life with.”

“The will of God must be done no matter how we try to achieve our aim, and I can not question God Because he created all things Including us human beings and I have Mourn the death of my late wife as I can and need to forge ahead with life. Out of all you wrote to me in your last message, I do not understand exactly what you mean. What do you want between us?”

He stated the same sentences over and over again. I rationally said two things: (1) have never met him face to face, and yet I have much information, and (2) long distance relationships are not easy, especially between two different countries: Indonesia - UK. But he kept saying that he was in the completion of the contract. He plans, after the contract finished, he would go to Indonesia. I was also saying that this is a very high cost relationship. For this, he expressly said that he was financially very secure. Everything can be set when the two have agreed to establish a relationship. For the second case, he also repeatedly insists that love is a gift. People have to believe in the God-given love. Love means to believe. One thing he wants to say is that although we have not met and not quite know each other, if we have faith that God has betrothed us, then everything would have happened and passed.

It is already very intimate conversations. He talked about the future and a full life, marriage. It happened just two weeks after the first ‘meeting’. In the third week, I was surprised to a call from a number with the country code +44, UK code number. It was JA’s phone number. Several times we talked via phone. However, the longer the call, the voice through hand phone is less clear, and often interrupted. Therefore we decided to go back to the old media, chat. I did not propose to video chat to just know the actual figure was over there because I do not have a computer device such facilities. I did not know why he did not propose it. Maybe the problem is the same, but maybe he wanted to “hide” the real him.

Actually I found something weird during my interaction with him. Early phase of penetration process is really left. Messages are delivered only love, love and love, and did not want to speak about daily issue as people do. I felt the awkwardness when in the following days he had never talked about his family, his job, his friends and other personal information. His FB’s timeline does not show many photos of his daily life, and is also inactive.

Two months later, he began to be frustrated after I still did not give the progressive development of relationships and still are not sure that the relationship between people from different countries and cultures and also never met face-to-face will work so well. It is seen from his message in chat, as follow:

“Love works with faith even when the two have not yet met other call now. I have severally ask you when you want me to come, but you said nothing.”

“You sound sarcastic and nasty.”

“Thank you for remembering me today but love without trust and faith is rubbish.”

“You are very funny Yudi, I love you too but love does not work without faith.”

Even if so, there is no sentence that expressed a desire to stop the relationship. The relation “like hanging” for some time until then I tried to search pictures of JA on the web Google Image. There were a lot of pictures of JA, but with different names and identities. I also found the same things in foreign matchmaking sites, social media abroad and also media entertainment/artist. The big question is which the real owner of the photo? The facts lead me to make confirmation. Here is his reaction: “You do not trust me and you are not sure if I am the one talking with you.”

This sentence is followed by other messages that seem showed anger.

“Yes because I do not want to call or sms you again until after we meet.”

“So let everything be pending.”

“I lack words for you.”

“Because I’m tired of your insults.”

After this sentence appears, chats from JA were increasingly rare, although he still wanted to wait as if I came to Manchester. After a few weeks I saw JA‘s FB account has been closed and could not be called by phone.

Discussion

A. The Aspect of Cultural Differences

The process of social penetration through social media, even with strangers, is not different from the process of face-to-face or conventional interpersonal relationships. The relationship development is a gradual process, from early stage until the intimate stage. Stages of the process are identified based on the subject or topic which exchange in conversation, both in breadth and depth of the topic. Referring to the social penetration theory, stage one will run gradually toward the next stage. This means that the process of building relationships can’t jump or negate the stage that should be passed. Therefore, according to this theory, the process of the development of interpersonal relationships can be predicted. Referring to some of the experiences described earlier, it can be concluded that which distinguishes it from interpersonal relations based on social media in this study is the time required to progress from one stage to the next. The speed of the progress is faster than conventional relationship. It could be motivated by a low context culture of the conversation focuses on the goal (goal oriented) - marriage. For Indonesian people, especially women, may experience a shock related to this kind of communication model. Indonesian is categorized in a high contextual culture which tends to communicate with more on non-verbal symbols. Model of communication “to the point”, “bluntly” especially in a fast tempo sometimes perceived as a form of communication that is not polite. It can be the one of inhibiting factor on relationship development. On other hand, for Western culture, this communication style which people not say explicitly can be perceived as a not serious attitude or "playful". In this case misperception occurs because of the cultural background.

In another aspect, the stages of depenetration also takes place. It also runs gradually and fast. The topic of conversation becomes unfocused, rarely communication, and finally no interaction at all. In some cases, the symbols of depenetration do not expressed verbally by foreigner male. They prefer to make action, for example to stop contact by closing the account of email, FB, or made no active the phone or did not reply to the message. Whereas Indonesian woman tends to be expressed verbally for instance by texting of message: “should leave this relationship because ....”. For Indonesian women, direct action like this is regarded as outrageous behavior, impolite, unwise and “no macho action”. In terms of Western culture, again, “do not want to beat around the bush, concrete, clear, and straightforward, efficient and effective.”

Some of these issues can be understood in the context of East versus West cultural differences. West adheres low context culture and Indonesia as a high context culture. Implications on cultural variations are in the style of communication and this could have implications for the different perception, including violations of the non-verbal symbols expectation Discomfort in communicating on two people with a different culture could be caused by the less information about each other and expectation violations which lead to misperception.

B. The Aspect of Social Media

Characteristics of communication by social media which is interactive, relatively inexpensive, and private have consequence on the development of interpersonal relationships. There are some changes in this process when compared with the development of interpersonal relationships through the conventional process (face-to-face was physically meet). These differences are (1) the nature of the concept of friends and friendship, (2) the process of building, developing and maintaining relationships, and (3) the quality of relationships.

Referring to the experience which has been described previously, the definition of a friend is easily attached to the interpersonal relationships that are built through social media. It includes the time required, which starts from the meeting of two strangers who do not know each other until decided to establish friendship. Just need a second to proceed by push the button of accept/confirm. However, this process can be a little longer when before deciding to accept or reject, one examines first the background of the person by opening the “about” in FB menu. Completeness of the information we get depends on the completeness of the information written by the person in the “about” menu. The information provides history of education, current employment, home address, phone number, FB account, date and place of birth, gender, and marital status. In addition to these features, there is also a gallery of photographs. It can be seen as a whole if we’ve become friends. Through these two menus, one can fairly be helped to decide whether we want to accept strangers into our friends, or vice versa. Based on the experience above, in certain circumstances, to decide accepting or rejection of a friendship does not need to find information about the person. It happens in the condition: the person who offers the friendship is actually a friend of our FB friends. It means the credibility of our friends determine us to accept or reject them.

When compared with the conventional concept of “friends” and “friendship” has a definition and a more complicated process. Referring to the social penetration theory, strangers or people will become our friends when involve in the process of communication and do the self-disclosure. It is an important key to progress the relationship. However, the progress from one stage to the next stage requires a relatively long time because of the self disclosure has also risk, that is depenetration or dissolusion. It is also explained in the social penetration theory in the term of cost and reward of self disclosure. Other factors that hampers the development of relationships, good progress forward and backward is a semantic factor, physical, psychological and physiological. Meanwhile, the relations based on social media, obstacles like it could easily be overlooked or minimized, unless the semantic barriers because of the limitation of verbal symbols to express people think and feel. Rapid process in relation based social media impacts on the low quality of the relationship, It is being more fragile, when compared with a conventional relationship. Referring to the case, the friendship can happen so quickly, but also so easy to break up (depenetration and dissolusion).

IV. Conclusion

In the introduction to several foreign males above, the penetration process tends to take place with the same pattern. Introduction to the process towards a more intimate relationship occurs not much different from those described in the social penetration theory but a process from one stage to the next stage takes place faster. It is caused by (1) the purpose of the relationship is clear, has been set at the beginning, and (2) high openness. This is understandable when considering that the men were from countries with have low context culture. In selecting and interpret symbols (encoding and decoding), culture is more straightforward, open, what it is, meanings and symbols have a high consistency. Communication models “straight forward” - oriented to goal achievement is more dominant than the conversation ‘niceties’ as is mostly done by a culture of high context. On the other hand, the use of social media is a very important role in the process of accelerating the process of deepening the relationship. Indonesian women who tend to have cultural values such as “ashamed”, “too careful”, “slow down” and “closed” greatly helped with this social media. However, the other side of this aspect, the character of social media that is able to hide its privacy leads people to communicate very openly and straight forward. It potentially causes psychological discomfort. Keeping much the privacy also leds communication participants becomes suspicious of the truth of information, including the identity and purpose of the actual relationship. In fact it is the primary inhibiting factor to process of penetration and depenetration. Conventional interpersonal communication that relies on face-to-face communication and physically contact has the possibility of dishonesty, prejudice, misperceptions, and other inconveniences, but it is less than the distance interpersonal relations that relies on Internet-based media. It because face to face communication offers greater opportunity to elaborate non-verbal and verbal symbols from other participant(s) or from the surrounding environment in order to create meaning.