As more and more conversations become mediated by new technologies, such as the Internet, how do individuals detect deception without physically being co-present? Mediated communication presents interesting questions for deception research, such as what is the effect of lack of physical presence, the availability of lean or rich media, use of synchronous or asynchronous messaging, and degree of participation? With the rise of the Internet, the popular press has questioned how truthful people are online, a concern popularized by the cartoon "nobody knows you're a dog on the Internet" from the New Yorker. A few assumptions found in popular press are that (1) humans are more truthful in face-to-face interaction, (2) deception is the result of mediation, and (3) the Internet is a special case of a medium that may facilitate and foster deception. Yet, few academic studies have examined mediated deception.
These assumptions were the impetus for the present endeavor, which led us to revisit our recent deception research conducted under the auspices of Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT; Buller & Burgoon, 1996) and to launch a line of investigation of deception in mediated contexts, with special attention to the principle of interactivity. In this presentation, we will first outline in more detail the nature of interactivity. We will then review some of the more provocative findings we have unearthed to date that are relevant to how features of interactivity affect deception in familiar and unfamiliar relationships and conclude with a preview of where future research directions are taking us to further plumb this topic.