With so many ways available to communicate with people, is there truly one method that is better than the rest in a given situation? I often find myself torn, doubting myself as to which is the best and most efficient medium to use to communicate with others. O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model really resonated in my mind and got me thinking about what types of media I have used in the past. At first, it was hard for me to believe something so systematic in figuring out what types of media a person will use, but after reflecting on some recent events that I have had to deal with, I realized the accuracy to which the Impression Management Model truly predicts the type of media a person will use. I was interested to see if the locus and valence was truly indicative of the type of media a person will opt to use.
I recently moved into an apartment with four other girls, all of whom were close friends of mine, but I was hit with the harsh reality that being friends with a person doesn’t necessarily make them the best people to live with. After a few unspoken skirmishes between the five of us, there was definitely tension in our apartment that everyone tried to pretend was not there (think huge elephant in the middle of a room that everyone refused to acknowledge). There were numerous issues that needed to be dealt with; people being disrespectful, irresponsible, immature and thoughtless. However, no one seemed to know what the best method of dealing with the situation was, no one wanted to be the initiator and no one wanted to be the one blamed. Instead of confronting one another in person, we decided to deal with our problems through email. By relying on this leaner medium, we were able to articulate our feelings without the worry that we would be attacked while at the same time, remain a bit equivocal. This behavior falls right in line with O’Sullivans hypothesis that when ‘accusing’ (negative valence and other locus) one another we opt to use a mediated channel helps to diffuse some of this anger. In addition, by being able to thoughtfully and tactfully compose an e-mail, it enabled us to confront the issue without letting our emotions get entirely out of hand. People can respond on their own time, when they are ready to deal with the issue and eventually things will get worked out. Our decision to confront our problems using a mediated channel to communicate is supported with O’Sullivan’s theory, which suggests that the use of an asynchronous, leaner channel enables a person to be able to ‘manage interactions competently’.
Although I found it to be a bit annoying at first, the Facebook news feed has become my crutch when it comes keeping myself in the know regarding what is going on in my friends’ lives. After logging on to Facebook tonight, I found it fascinating to truly observe how much information is released about a person on this one channel, both good and bad. Everything on the news feed for the most part involves a locus of self, the person is revealing something new to the world of Facebook. When it comes to categorizing the valence however, the concept of negative and positive are not so black and white. In accordance with O’Sullivan’s theory, the valence of this news feed update should focus more on the negative (confess and accuse categories), since people are more inclined to use a mediated channel for a negative valence however, this is not the case; The positive valence (boost and praise) are just as likely to be revealed. A person is just as likely to reveal that they are ‘in a relationship with ___’ as they are to reveal in this mediated interaction that they are ‘ no longer in a relationship with___’. Although this doesn’t entirely disprove O’Sullivan’s model, it demonstrates that it does not hold true in all instances, and that there are definitely some gray areas that are not addressed by the model.
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