Between todays technologically advanced society and being a college student, perhaps the pinnacle of my social life, I use many different channels of media and forms of communication in the span of a weekend. The first instance which I encountered came when I needed to communicate to a professor, who ran a very small discussion style class, that I have to miss his class this upcoming week for the Jewish holidays. I decided to speak with him face to face rather than a more lean type of media such as email. Both forms of media would work, however, I decided to use face to face for several reasons. The most important reason was because I assumed I would gain the most information from face to face communication. Being perhaps the richest form of media, I figured I could find out the most about that class I would miss, any assignments I had questions on, and any other questions I may have had. In addition, it would be a great opportunity to speak with my professor on a one to one basis. By doing so, I could regulate and decide how to present myself to him and help him form an impression of me based on some of the facets of self presentation and impression management we discussed in lecture. Had we communicated via email, it would have been the most efficient way; however, it would not have been very personable and I would remain just another student in his class. In addition, I may not have received the most information about the class and all of my questions may not have been answered. This interaction which I encountered definitely supports the ideas of O’Sullivan and his Impression Management Model. This is the case because this model is not entirely about efficiency but rather the media chosen is a channel to regulate impression management and self presentation.
The second interaction which I encountered was over the weekend when I had to contact a freshman teammate on the track and field team and relay a message to him about a Saturday practice. As a sophomore, and him being a freshman, I have not really had the time to become friends or hang out with the person, and decided it would be best and least awkward to send him a text message rather than a phone call. At one point in the near future we will most definitely have a face to face conversation. Face to face media, being perhaps the richest form of media, would be a better channel to have an introductory conversation and aid in my self presentation, thus the text message was sent to avoid an awkward phone conversation and postponing that introductory conversation for a “richer” time. This also supports the O’Sullivan theory. Though a text message is more efficient, efficiency wasn’t my primary goal. Instead it was to avoid an awkward conversation and regulate my self presentation.
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2 comments:
Hi Scott,
It was interesting to me that you chose the FtF medium to your advantage when informing your professor about your absence. You stated that you would get more face time with him, which essentially could lead to a better grade, easier class interaction and hopefully a higher grade.
With your teammate, you saw no visible advantage in using FtF, since "he is a freshman". Instead of wasting your time personalizing a message, you stated the facts in the most efficient way. Like the Media Richness Theory states, you used a leaner medium for a less equivocal task.
However, this was not the case with your interaction with the Professor. Even though this might have been viewed as a "difficult" task, which according to O'Sullivan would call for CMC, you chose FtF because of the advantages it offered you. Perhaps O'Sullivan's theory could be modified to include the exception of "when there is no visible benefit of advantage of speaking FtF, people are more likely to choose CMC in difficult social tasks."
Hi Scott, great post. Contrary to what Caton said, I was not surprised that you chose FtF when you informed your professor about your absence. It is surely not an easy task. I am one of the people who are afraid of talking to professors. However, the advantages you can get from your choice of FtF outweigh the difficulty of this task. Therefore, overall valence is considered to be positive. In my opinion, your experience with your professor supports O'Sullivan's Model. I also enjoyed reading about your interaction with your teammate. It seems to fall under the category of self locus and negative valence. By choosing a lean media, you were able to avoid an awkward atmosphere that would have been formed very likely if you chose to talk to him on the phone.
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