I was just trying to switch identities and enter into a psychological space, but I received a text-message in the middle of it and decided to switch my blog to observations about media selection. The text was from my girlfriend saying “hey when can you talk later tonight?” I responded by picking up my phone and calling her. This action contradicts the Media Richness Theory. According to the theory, I should have simply responded back by the most efficient media for the task, in this case, probably responding with a text back. However, I chose to call back, a much richer media which was inefficient for simply answering a question about when we could talk. There is one twist to this simple looking interaction. Part of the reason I made this decision was because I am a notoriously poor text-messager and it would have taken me longer to actually type a response than it took to call. Media Richness Theory (MRT) looks for the “optimal match between equivocality of a communication task and the richness of the medium.” I can’t specifically see how MRT addresses the “ease of use” of different mediums and wonder if there is any literature about this topic.
A second media selection I noted recently was in a communication I had with my advisor about an upcoming meeting that was scheduled. I chose to e-mail my professor about rescheduling the meeting. The use of a nonsynchronious chat such as e-mail is a very ambiguous form of communication with very little cues. For a small task such as changing the meeting time this choice supports the MRT as it is a lean media for a task that is not very equivocal. With regards to O’Sulivan’s Impression Management Model, neither of my examples were particularly positive or negative, so it is difficult to measure my communications as having any valence.
3 comments:
You bring up an interesting idea about ease of use in relation to media choice for communication. Although the Media Richness Theory emphasizes the match between the equivocality of a message and the richness of the medium, it’s also important to understand that sometimes the optimal choice is more about efficiency than equivocality. If you understand the Media Richness Theory to say that people should use the most efficient form of communication appropriate for a task (which usually would match importance of the message and the richness of the medium anyways), then your choice to phone someone instead of texting supports it perfectly. In your case, texting was not the most efficient means of communication, so you chose a different, but more efficient medium. This proves that with every theory there are exceptions, so thank you for sharing! Great post!
I also agree about your example being a great way to demonstrate the fallibility of theories, especially in such a new, unpredictable, and ambiguous field.
Additionally, I like your comment about there being no mention of a ranking in terms of ease of use for the for the various media of communication - that's the sort of question that I could easily see prompting a new study to gather information, because again, this is a field which has only recently been tapped for (socially) scientific research, and there is plenty of research yet to be done, many questions to be answered.
You bring up a very interesting point about the “ease of use” of a particular medium. I also believe that the internet, as a whole, may serve as a predicament and pedestal to many people who are still not confident navigating the different technical environments available to them.
I also know someone who, like you, does not text because of its difficulty and personal inconvenience; however, even more so than its difficulty, he does not text because of his inability to comprehend why someone would resort to "texting," when he or she could just pick up a phone and call him. Although he is very well educated and well-off, he, unlike the majority of us on this blog, chose not to fall under this current trend and would be considered “old-school” to many when it comes to how up-to-date he is with technology.
Hence, I agree with you that your personal experience, along with my friend’s, would disprove the Media Richness Theory (MRT), which states that people seek efficiency in the medium they use to communicate with based on the degree of equivocality (ambiguity) of the task.
Post a Comment