To further my point, I will use an example from the summer before college. I had been attending the same camp for eight summers and I was finally going to become a member of the staff. I had signed the contract, received my staff shirts in the mail, and was ready to begin by ninth summer at
Though I clearly have difficulty with confrontation, I often do think it is best to handle certain situations face-to-face with someone, rather than through a more mediated form of communication. I recently had an issue about the electricity in my apartment, which I had to discuss with my landlord. I called the office, assuming that this would be the most efficient way to handle the problem, but was promptly told that they prefer e-mail, and they hung up the phone. On the one hand, I felt a little brushed off that they did not want to hear my voice and have a conversation with me over the phone. Rather, they wanted me to send a short, effective e-mail of what I needed and they would promptly respond. So, I sent an e-mail with my complaints and requests, signed my name, and within an hour I had an answer in front of me on my computer screen. This experience seemed to fit mostly with O’Sullivan’s findings that when the valence is expected to be negative and focused on the self, one will choose a more mediated form of communication, which in this case was e-mail. My landlord knew that I had a complaint and that it would be focused on him, so he actually took control of the interactional channel and asked me to change my preferred means of communication to his own. This way, he would have the most control over his response so that he could produce the most positive and beneficial impression of himself.
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6 comments:
Hi Randy!
The two interactions you described were great examples. In the first instance with your camp director, I completely agree that the Media Richness Theory applies here because the situation was equivocal and needed a detailed explanation that would probably be hard to convey via a lean media source. You realized that because of the complex situation, which involved someone who you had known for a long time, it was necessary to use a rich media source such as the telephone.
The second example you described was great in that it showed a contrast based on the relationship between the two people. In this case, your landlord was not someone you were close with, and therefore, a different form of communication was used. I agree with how this example relates to the O’Sullivan model but you could also look at it from a different point of view and apply it to the Media Richness Theory. Since your landlord is probably accustomed to receiving complaints, he may have concluded that it would be most efficient to be able to quickly read through people’s complaints and answer them one by one. This method is probably effective because most apartment issues are unequivocal and can be explained in a brief email. This idea would satisfy the Media Richness Theory because a lean source of media was being used to communicate clear and unambiguous requests.
I think one interesting point in your blog was considering how other peoples’ preferred means of communication affect your choice of media channels. You preferred to talk over the phone with your landlord rather than through email, but he insisted on email, most likely because of the negative valence and self locus. This shows that sometimes our media channel decisions do not match up and just because we choose one way to communicate, does not mean that other people will be willing to communicate the way we want. Even in my own observations, I saw the disconnect between my friend and her boyfriend- her boyfriend wanted to resolve their conflict through text messaging, but she wanted to talk face-to-face. Therefore, perhaps at times our channel choice will not fit with O’Sullivan’s model because we may have to base our media channel on another person’s preference rather than if the valence is positive or negative and/or the locus is self or other.
Jesse, this was a very well written post, and I think that you connected your experiences to two different theories very effectively.
I really like your first experience, because it takes the two theories and applies a human aspect to them. The media richness theory talks about efficiency, and the O'Sullivan model states that decisions will be made based on where negative or positive reactions will be focused. In reality, however, it's not quite that simple. Our relationships with those that we are interacting play a huge role when deciding which media to use, as evidenced by your first example.
In the second example, although I can see why you would choose to associate it with the O'Sullivan Model, I could also see it relating to the media richness model. Perhaps, in order to be more efficient, your landlord would prefer to have your requests via e-mail, especially since they are probably, for the most part, quite straight forward.
Randi,
This was a very well written post. It hits all of the spots on both Media Richness Theory and on O'Sullivan's impression management model. Your choice on how to deal with the Camp issues is very representative of how Media Richness theory works to explain why people will pick certain mediums for some tasks.
On the other end of the spectrum, to prove both theories, you had the landlord example. You would have preferred to speak directly to the landlord for a more equivocal task, but he opted to decide himself that it was a less equivocal task and chose a leaner medium to answer you.
Hey Randy,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I think you had two personal experiences that you described really well and did a great job relating to the two theories we learned in class. I liked your insight with how your landlord changed the way you two communicated so that he could deal with you through a lean media. I thought it was funny how you pointed out that he ignored the way you wanted to contact him so instead he could focus on his personal criticism in a way that was best for him. Thus, this supports the theory that a leaner media will be used for bad/more negative news.
Your connection to the Media Richness Theory was very well written too and went into a lot of depth. I actually have heard of Camp Lakota so it made it fun to read, and I thought it was interesting how you chose the best and most rich media possible to break the news to your boss. Even though you wanted to use email, I agree that it was probably better that you did it over the phone.
I really thought that you brought up two very interesting examples in your post. I'm sure many of us can relate to the issue with breaking the contract. Any time we need to confess something its always easier and more comfortable to use email or something leaner. It was also very interesting that although you knew email would be easier you still chose to use the telephone. This shows that we do have a choice of channel to use and we have not completely succumbed to technology determinism. I also thought your experience with your land lord was also interesting. What I found myself asking was whether or not the land lord was trying to manage his impression and knowing the complaint was negative wanted to use email or was email use simply because we did not want to deal with Cornell students and he could have his assistant or secretary prompty check emails without himself having to deal with them. Was it an issue of impression or efficiency? This might be an interesting issue you could further look into next time.
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