As I previously stated in a comment I posted on another classmate's blog in regards to the Ethics article. I believe that writing can't be "learned," but ultimately influence and precedent sets the tone for how we are to write, in fact in a professional writing. Today's politics and media bias in which one canidate or party attacks the other and return impacts super delegates and the popular vote, many times done in a subliminal manner.
To even comment on the statement from class and the point Tom made about respect of others via emails, text, etc. Many times I think because we communicate about issues via text or emails is because we loose the face to face interaction and thus sometimes do not always fully understand what the other person means by what they are saying because you are not their to read the non-verbals, etc. non-verbals communicate much more than verbals, and I think this is what is contributing to our interactions and the substance of our language and communication changing.