3-choosing my media

In just the past few days, I have realized how often my means of communication are subconsciously chosen to fit my needs. I am one of the few people that brought a car to school in my house so I am always being asked to give others riders. Yesterday, it was raining and I was not in the friendliest of moods. When a girl in my house called, I knew she would be asking me to drive her somewhere, making me get out of my cozy bed and get soaked in the few steps from the house to my car. I was unwilling to do this and therefore ignored her call, not wanting to be persuaded by her pleading voice. I proceeded to wait a couple minutes and then sent a text saying, “Sorry, I’m trying to take a nap. What’s up?” She responded by telling me she did in fact need a ride but she would find someone else to drive her.
This choice in medium is in line with O’Sullivan’s theory. I really did not want to drive her, yet I knew that this was something negative about myself. I wasn’t being a good friend and it was my fault, showing that the locus was myself and there was a negative valence. Therefore, I did not want to have a rich medium to engage in a conversation where I would be in some ways confessing how I was being a bad person. Instead, the text was an efficient way to convey the message that I wasn’t going to do it and the subject was dropped completely.
Another instance where I chose my communication medium was when I learned that a good friend of mine from home had made negative comments about me and I wanted to confront him about it. There was no way to approach him in a face to face setting, but I did use the telephone, which is a richer medium than email, IM’s or text. I wanted him to be able to know I was hurt, feel bad about it, and explain to me the reasoning behind his comments. Through the use of the telephone, he was able to explain himself, apologize, and claim that he would never do it again.
My choice in the telephone supported both the Media Richness Theory and O’Sullivan’s theory. I chose the richer medium because I didn’t want there to be any room for ambiguity. I wanted to get straight to the point and have a synchronous conversation, therefore enabling immediate feedback. I also chose the telephone because I was accusing my friend of something. According to O’Sullivan’s theory, there was a need for clarity and the locus was someone else, directing me to choose a richer medium. Although the valence was negative, the locus of another was more important to me and therefore I was able to use the telephone to make my accusation, get my explanation, and ultimately solve the conflict.

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