#3- Decisions, decisions

For this assignment, I decided to take the option of describing two instances of media selection. My first incident happened over the weekend. I had a rough time with my boyfriend since I was exhausted from a stressful week. I was snappy whenever I was with him, which caused him to become frustrated with me. On Saturday night at around 2:00 in the morning, he sent me a text message, asking me to call him as soon as I could so that I could tell him what was wrong. Even though I was tired and did not expect the call to go well, I called him anyway. I thought that calling him would allow me to explain myself better than sending him a text message or talking to him online.

This example of calling my boyfriend even though I was the locus and the outcome was expected to be negative refutes O’Sullivan’s impression management model. By relying on richer media, I did the exact opposite of what O’Sullivan predicted for the “confess” tone. My decision to call my boyfriend instead of using leaner media supports the media richness theory because I chose a richer media for an equivocal task. Rich media allowed me to express my feelings better than lean media. However, the fact that my boyfriend had asked me to call him may also have played a factor in my decision to use the phone. If he had not asked explicitly, I may have decided to wait until later to call or to use a different media channel to communicate with him.

I had another example of media selection in making plans for the weekend. One of my friends wanted to meet up with me for dinner, so he initiated contact with me through a Facebook message. I responded to him with another message telling him when I was free and where I wanted to go for dinner. My friend confirmed plans with me through a final Facebook message.

My friend had no need to use rich media to set plans with me because the task was unequivocal and simple; again, this matches up with the media richness theory. However, it is interesting that he did not choose to call or instant message me, which would have helped with efficiency by allowing us to make dinner plans quicker; perhaps he wanted a little ambiguity in setting up plans just in case I did not want to meet up with him for dinner. The desire for ambiguity indicates that the impression management model is involved. Thus, this particular incident seems to involve both the media richness theory and the impression management model.


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