TY - JOUR AU - Mikal, Jude PY - 2011/08/15 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - When Social Support Fits into your Luggage: Online Support Seeking and its Effects on the Traditional Study Abroad Experience JF - Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad JA - Frontiers VL - 21 IS - 1 SE - Research Articles DO - 10.36366/frontiers.v21i1.302 UR - https://frontiersjournal.org/index.php/Frontiers/article/view/302 SP - 17-40 AB - <p>In a study abroad context, the maintenance of dual&nbsp;on and offline personas provides students with the opportunity to demolish&nbsp;communication barriers with the home culture created by geographic distance.&nbsp;Conversely, online communication may help bring down communication&nbsp;barriers created by linguistic and cultural differences, providing students&nbsp;with exciting opportunities for face-to-face social interaction with host&nbsp;nationals. Yet, very little is known about how students are using the Internet&nbsp;in the development or maintenance of social support networks during study&nbsp;abroad. The goal of the present research project is to understand how Internet-mediated&nbsp;support complements, supplements or supplants traditional support&nbsp;seeking and how online support seeking leads to changes in the traditional&nbsp;study abroad experience. In this article, &nbsp;I will present relevant&nbsp;literature on the subjects of acculturative stress, social coping, and Internet-mediated&nbsp;social support in order to ground the research question and study&nbsp;findings.</p> ER -