My first interaction took place among the girls living in my apartment. Being that living in an apartment was a first for everyone of us, there was a lot for us to learn about communicating with each other. True, we had all been friends before moving in, but people tend to learn a lot more about others when living in the same apartment. For example, I was shocked to hear singing coming from the bathroom one day, but have now come to accept that this is a normal habit for one of my roommates to sing rather loudly in the shower. In one specific instance, one of the girls was upset because she felt like the other girls in the apartment had been eating all of her food. Instead of confronting us about it, she chose an alternative method of communication: email. I believe this decision was made because she wanted to express her feelings without having to speak to us face to face in order to avoid immediate confrontation. My roommate’s media selection fits well with O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model. She was accusing others so the locus of control was directed towards others in a negative way. Therefore, her use of email showed her preference for more mediated interaction.
Another example involved me expressing my apology to a faculty member. Although the situation was a misunderstanding, I felt that it was necessary to apologize and explain myself because I would hate for others to have a bad impression of me as a person. Being that the circumstances were rather complex and ambiguous, I felt that a face to face interaction would be the best way in order to effectively communicate a true and heartfelt apology. In this instance, the Media Richness Theory applies to my choice of face to face interaction. Since the task of apologizing was not very clear cut and rather equivocal, I felt that it was important to utilize a rich media source. This type of interaction was rich because not only was I able to verbalize an apology, I was also able to convey it through facial expressions and through the tone of my voice, which are cues that cannot be conveyed in mediated interactions. In the end, I feel that my decision helped me to successfully communicate with the member of staff and change his negative view of me.
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2 comments:
I agree that your roommate chose to contact the rest of you through e-mail because she had concerns about speaking to everyone face to face. Since the locus was everyone else, her concern was probably that she did not want to risk upsetting her friends. It is difficult to make accusations toward people with whom we consider ourselves close. Though it might have been much more efficient for your roommate to have confronted everyone in the house face to face immediately upon the discovery that some food was missing, O'Sullivan states that efficieny is not always the concern of the initiator.
On the other hand, you went against O'Sullivan's theory since his third hypothesis said that when the valence is negative and the locus is expected to be self, a mediated interaction is highly preferred.
Jessica,
I thought it was interesting that your apartment-mate chose email to handle the issue you discussed in your first paragraph. I wrote about a similar experience, though in my case it was I who confronted my apartment-mate, and the issue involved chores. Nonetheless, both choices of media seem to fit O’Sullivan’s model quite well. Despite the locus being focused on the other, your friend turned to a mediated channel – probably because the expected negative valence of the interaction outweighed the locus not being on her. On the other hand, I chose face-to-face because the locus was on my apartment-mate, and although the valence was negative, I felt more comfortable confronting her in person.
I didn’t really consider the idea that choosing a mediated channel in this situation would have also fit O’Sullivan’s model until I read your blog post. This makes me wonder if perhaps Media Richness Theory applies here as well. To me, confronting someone is a highly equivocal task, thus calling for a richer media. Alternatively, asking others not to eat her food may have seemed rather unequivocal to your friend – and thus a leaner media was chosen.
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