Over the weekend, I studied the various ways that I chose to communicate with people and how it related to the Media Richness Theory. The first instance of media selection that I noticed was when I wanted to meet some friends for lunch. Without thinking, I pulled out my phone to text a few people. This supports the Media Richness Theory because I chose a lean medium in order to communicate a non-important message. Using text-messaging was the most convenient and efficient way for me to get a simple “hey, lunch @ oakenshields?” to several people at the same time. Since I wasn’t counting on verbal or non-verbal cues to understand their answers, using a quick, lean form of communication was the optimal choice in this instance.
The other instance of media selection that stuck out to me was when I wanted to talk to my best friend from high school. For her freshman year, she is in Italy through a program at NYU, so I hadn’t spoken to her since mid-August and had a lot to tell her. Although this was not the most important of messages, I still wanted to use a rich medium so that I could see her reactions and draw information from both verbal and non-verbal cues. I chose to use the computer program Skype so that we could video-conference. This form of communication is a synchronous chat that also lets me see the person to whom I’m speaking, which gives me access to vocal, verbal, and non-verbal cues. Not only could I hear her voice and draw information from her tone, prosody, exclamations of enthusiasm, and word choice, but I could also see her facial expressions, gestures, and reactions, almost as well as if we were face to face. Since I was seeking a more intimate form of communication, this rich medium was perfect.
Media Richness theory supports both of these instances because I chose the form of communication I thought was most appropriate and convenient for the messages I wanted to convey. For the unimportant, impersonal question I wanted to send to multiple people, only a very lean medium was necessary; however, when I wanted a very personal form of communication, I chose the closest I could get to face to face, which in this case was video conferencing.
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I wonder how the valence and locus of your conversation with your friend in Italy works out. When you look at it through O’Sullivan’s impression management model you may find that there is an equally valid reason for why you chose the rich medium that you did. If you were talking about mostly positive things relating to each other, then it makes sense that you would not seek a mediated interaction. But if perhaps you had some negative details about your life that you wanted to share you may have decided to use a leaner communication medium, such as a telephone or an IM conversation.
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