My mission this weekend seemed fairly simple; I was to take a drive to the mall in
I avoid confrontation whenever possible, so I immediately decided to email my parents about my financial woes instead of calling. I chose the leaner medium to avoid being chastised, i.e., “minimizing costs,” as per the Impression Management model. Although it would have been less ambiguous, and I could have tried to do some damage control with a more synchronous medium, I still opted for the leaner medium. After a few hours I returned the phone call they gave me upon reading the email; both my parents had cooled off and we had a conversation at a relatively normal volume. I chose the medium not based on efficiency as the Media Richness Theory suggests, but based on the Impression Management Model outlined by O’Sullivan.
I also had to confess my irresponsibility to one of my roommates who is in charge of house finances. My first reaction was to send an instant message to her away message when I knew she wasn’t home. I was planning on sounding as casual as possible; playing it down in hopes that she wouldn’t think it was a big deal. I wanted again to use O’Sullivan’s model and choose a lean medium to avoid seeing her reaction. However I was also worried about how she would react to my delay in payment. I didn’t want to cause her undue stress, or have her think less of me as a friend; therefore I felt it necessary to engage her in a face-to-face conversation. I chose a medium that would clear up equivocality and be more efficient than a leaner medium, more in line with the Media Richness Theory. My confession to her went smoothly, she was angry at first, but by being face to face, I read her non-verbal cues, apologized when necessary, and we ended up laughing by the end of our interaction.
Another factor that I believe influenced my medium choice in these two similar confessions was my relationship with the receiver. With my parents, I knew they would be extremely irate when they first found out, but I knew it wouldn’t put a long lasting tension on our relationship. With them I could “take the easy way out,” and choose the leanest, most ambiguous medium possible with few repercussions. Although my friend and I are also close, I wasn’t nearly as sure about what strains my mistake could put on our friendship, so I opted for the richest form of communication possible, even though it was uncomfortable for me.
Something I found interesting about this scenario was that at the time, I didn’t connect these choices to theories we learned in class. It was only after the fact that I realized I was behaving in ways consistent with what we have been learning!
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-from-ebay-to-cornell.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-devout-cahtolic-man.html
4 comments:
It's interesting to see how complex our decision making process is when determining how to contact different people. When I observed my own choices this week, I noticed that I chose mediums based on my knowledge of how people interact with those mediums. In a similar way you chose a medium based on what you thought people's reactions would be.
I was thinking about how I break bad news to my parents versus my friends, and in many cases I think I would do things the same as you. On the other hand, I also notice that I have a tendency to use more technologically mediated forms of communication when contacting friends my own age. Although both my parents know how to use text messaging and IM, I still associate calling home as the preferred way of contacting my parents. When contacting my own friends however, I think nothing of shooting off a quick text message because I know they are more comfortable with the medium.
First off, I just wanted to say that I admire that you are willing to share something personal like this to the class because it can encourage others to be more honest about their experiences. Plus, it shows that what we learn in class really is applicable in daily life.
I’m just struck by the difference in your actions between confessing to your parents and to your roommate. When the lectures are bound to be coming, O’Sullivan and common sense dictates that e-mail would be a better idea than a phone call. On the other hand, it’s not so easy to avoid a roommate and a face to face discussion about the issue would be best.
On a different note, maybe it’s a blessing that the CFO theory doesn’t hold true. Could you imagine if your parents came up every time they wanted to talk to you about your grades or to ask how you were doing, or worse, to yell, just because there would be more cues?
When I first did the readings, there was one point that I felt the Media Richness Theory really analyzed well: the need to use a richer medium in cases such as yours. Depending on the "closeness" between the two people in communication and the level of obligation one has to another, a richer medium takes the uncertainty away from a conversation and that is definately what you need when you're speaking about a relationship. Here's a question to think about however: Do you feel that it is good to use some sort of lean medium to guide the conversation so he doesn't get confused by any of your points or do you feel that you understand each other so he won't be able to have any uncertainty at the end of the conversation?
Nice post!
Caslynn,
I think its fascinating how you chose your media not only based the richness of a media or having a buffer, but also on your relationship with the person. How you chose to talk face-to-face with your roommate so that she wouldn’t think less of you as a friend or cause her undue stress, but at the same time you decided to email your parents because with them you could “take the easy way out” (even though you did call them back later). I think if I had been in your situation I might have reversed the way you did things, call my parents and email or instant message my roommate. I would have done it this way because I think that I would have felt more comfortable knowing that my parents would forgive me, and not knowing a roommate might react I would’ve wanted that buffer. You did a superb job on connecting your experiences to both the Impression Management Model and the Media Richness Theory and I agree with your reasons for choosing each.
I’d like to thank you for sharing such a great example of putting what we learned in class into real life circumstances. When I thought this to myself when I first started reading your blog I also thought it was interesting how we talked about in class the idea of confessions like this being public vs. private, and I really applaud you for putting this out on the internet in such a public setting.
Thanks for an interesting and relatable blog!
Lauren
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