Despite the monsoon like downpour on Saturday night, I still found myself trekking down the hill to west campus where I was supposed to meet up with a bunch of friends at a party. When I arrived, I didn’t see my friend Rachel right away so I sent her a text message: “I’m here, meet me outside!” The music was loud and she probably wouldn’t have heard what I had to say on the phone. Needless to say, I didn’t actually go through this whole thought process while I was waiting outside. Past experiences in similar situations have given me the wisdom and insight to send a text rather than waste my voice screaming on a phone.
This instance best supports the Media Richness Theory because the communication task at hand- sending a message in order to find Rachel- was incredibly straightforward. I chose text messaging, which is a leaner medium than the phone, because a phone call would have been useless in the particular situation. Text messaging was just more efficient. However, in analyzing the situation with the Impression Management Model in mind, I found it difficult to even assign a positive or negative valence to the situation and to clearly define the locus. Therefore, since these aspects of the Impression Management Model could not be incorporated in this particular situation, I would like to point out that this situation does not disprove the model.
Another situation I encountered this weekend involved contacting my friend who just arrived in
I think that the Media Richness Theory oversimplifies the situation and doesn’t exactly explain everything. Thinking more closely about the topic of my conversation, I am not sure I would have chosen to speak on a phone even if it was available to me. While the convenience and feedback aspect was definitely important in this overseas discussion, I think that I would have chosen a mediated interaction because I could more easily think things through before I actually sent them over an instant message. There was definitely some negative valance in this conversation (we were not having deep discussions about why the sky is blue!) but I cannot define a locus (things were mutual, and if I didn’t say something first I bet she would have).
But, this type of situation raises the question of whether both models can actually interact at the same time. Professor Hancock pointed out that the Media Richness Theory was mainly concerned with efficiency, and O’Sullivan’s was concerned with the struggle between clarity and ambiguity in impression formation. Are we constantly forming impressions, even if we send just a text message for efficiency? And, can we also be efficient while struggling for the right balance between clarity and ambiguity?
This assignment was difficult because the theory that was a better fit for the situation depends on what aspect of the situation I chose to interpret. What are your thoughts?
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2 comments:
Hi Diane, I really enjoyed your post because I think you offer some great insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the theories we are working with. I too struggled with very similar issues when I was trying to interpret my experiences in choosing forms of communication, and in applying these interpretations with the theories we have learned in class. The problem with these theories is that communicating is rarely ever just about regulating equivocality and efficiency, or clarity and ambiguity in managing impressions. First of all, we are rarely communicating with people that we haven't already spent much time forming impressions on, and second of all, there are so many more motivations that come into play. What I noticed throughout this assignment was that my decisions with choosing forms of communication were mostly based on whatever was most convenient for me at the time: where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, were all factors that limited my options greatly to being with. I found it easy to wrap the theories around my experiences and make them fit, but for me, and I think also for you, the whole practice seemed a little forced and didn't fit quite right. Perhaps this is simply because they are theories and aren't meant to fit perfectly with every specific situation, but in this exercise I definitely felt you pain.
I completely agree with you on the difficulty the situations we find ourselves in have in fitting into either theory.
After all the theories have to be vague and general in order to try to fit as many situations as possible. So although i understand your frustration, I think it has more to do with the fact that communication is as far from as exact science as anything can be. This prevents us from actually being able to have theories that fit 90% of all situations since each person will act differently when faced with the same problems. It's human behavior; impossible to control.
I do like the way you argued back and forth to yourself on which theory would fit the situation better, although I think both of your examples fit the Media Richness theory MORE than they fit O'Sullivan's theory.
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