Assignment 3 - When He Was A Girl

P1.

Performing both a gender and age swap, I entered an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) as a 20-year-old girl. The IRC was as the synchronous vestige to a music site. IRCs are appreciably the same as chat-rooms: they may be synchronous and, though meant for a group, allow for personal messaging. As a psychological space, the chat-room format is lean enough for me to self-present based on a limited, completely non-verbal set of tactics.

I chose to color my font light blue, which I felt revealed to my chat partner (identified as a male) a typically feminine concern (i.e., styling font to reflect emotion). I tended to overuse exclamation points and use emoticons, things that I, however conscious I am of the stereotype, associate with female chatters. I tried to be warmer, as with the use of emoticons, and avoided heavy criticism of people’s opinions. I also used the space, a new music discussion room, as a gender-cue or “Social Association” (one of the five “Tactics”): my favorite new band was St. Vincent, a brash, but emotional female (Bask in Reflected Glory, one might interpret). As for my age, I felt it would only temper my vocabulary and diction, but that it would not alter my enthusiasm through emoticons and punctuation. Obviously, the space limited my ability to reflect age, and gender, through tonal and oratorical cues. Even adults sometimes use emoticons and color their lettering, so specifying age with such cues is not as easy in a IRC space.

P2.

After a conflict--specifically, verbal--one might be careful on choosing the next media for communication. I, to deflect further conflict, would probably choose a leaner channel, one with less "Media Richness," in order to limit emotional tones or adopt a neutral tone to let each party remove themselves from the polarity of the conflict. O’Sullivan says that in potentially threatening situations, mediated interactions are typically chosen. I agree, as the mediator allows for a “buffer effect.” In this case, the Media Richness theory does not have the breadth to include the buffer effect idea, because of its emphasis on efficiency. In this sense, the Media Richness theory is disproved, but it does account for equivocation, which O’Sullivan’s theory also supports as an element of channel selection.

If I was meeting a potential employee, the Media Richness Theory would prove handy. In order to avoid equivocation, I would choose the richest medium – face-to-face. According to O’Sullivan’s hypothesis, in this type of self-locus situation, where the valence was meant to be positive, a FtF, non-mediated interaction would most likely best serve the situation. The theories support each other on these grounds. I would definitely choose a medium that would allow me to not only review the potential employee’s resume, but to get a sense of his social skills. With a lean medium, I would not be able to test the employee in a truly synchronous environment, nor read his tone of voice (nervous, angry, etc.).