Hi,
The media richness theory states that the medium someone selects for communication is dependant on the importance of the task. The richness of the medium chosen is directly proportional to the equivocality of the talk.
My first media selection was a need for me to contact my father about some important papers he needed to turn in on my behalf. I chose the most rich medium available being four hours away by making a phone call. I could’ve chosen to e-mail him or text message but since it was crucial that the papers were handed in by a deadline I needed a rich medium. The richness that I needed were availability of feedback, I needed an immediate answer to my question. I also needed personalization being that I was talking to a close family member about a personal matter.
My second was asking a friend if they wanted to play tennis sometime this week. I chose a very lean medium by text messaging them. It was a very unequivocal task, and didn’t require synchronous communication. There was no concern of ambiguous language as this was something I do often with my friend. A rich medium in this case would be unnecessary. The most efficient means for this instance is something quick and easy to deliver involving the least amount of time, thus a text was sent.
I tried to link both of these to the O’sullivan model as well but it doesn’t relate as neither experience deals with a negative or positive. However, if my father wanted to tell me he forgot to hand in the papers on time the O’sullivan model predicts a mediated interaction like e-mail. Or if I were to cancel plans with my friend for tennis because I just didn’t feel like it or had a bad excuse I would also use a more mediated form of communication.
2 comments:
Great post! You did a thorough job in relating the theories to your media selections. Choosing a lesser medium to discuss such a personal matter requiring immediate feedback is not likely if using mediated sources such as email or letter writing. By using a richer medium as you did, both you and your father were presented with an abundance of cues to further enhance understanding. Then of course having the opportunity to give instant feedback increases understanding and decreases any ambiguity. If using a lesser medium, the message you are trying to get across may be misinterpreted due to the lack of message personalization. When it comes to using text messaging, I use it mainly for convenience and to avoid unnecessary conversation. As a lean medium, the situations required are ones that don’t involve complexity and confusion. Your example is a perfect one as there’s no mystification present. There’s really no need for a multiplicity of cues here as the text message doesn’t contain much density and immediate feedback isn’t as important or as necessary.
Chris,
Your post was very clear about how your experiences demonstrated the media richness theory. The thing I was most intrigued by though was how my preferences are almost the opposite, although I don't think it changes the applicable theory. Whereas you used a rich medium for contacting your father, I typically use a lean medium like email for the same purpose. If there are important papers, and since I know he checks his email frequently, I'd use an email to get the important information across quickly, and avoid diluting it with the more personal conversation that would result from a phone call. With making plans with a friend, I'd rather use a richer medium as I would enjoy the richer conversation that would probably result. In that case. Rather than a different model applying, I think our preferences differ because we look for different things in the actions, but both of us would follow primarily the media richness theory in these cases.
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