When I asked my friend to be my Facebook subject for this assignment he was a bit puzzled, he didn't seem to think that there was anything that could be false on his profile. Either way, I had him fill out a survey rating his "truthfulness" on the 1-5 scale that Catalina had utilized for her experiment. After my friend finished his part I also assessed how truthful he was. Some immediate things I noticed that evolved from the use of Facebook is that many usual assessment signals such as age, gender, and physical features were clearly harder to fake than they would be in say, a chat room. This of course is attributed to both the fact that the network allows for a place to put your own picture, and that the friends network is usually all people a person knows, therefore making it more difficult to lie about these characteristics. There were also some conventional signals that were hard to lie about due to the same reasons as mentioned before, these included education and hometown.
Overall, I was unsure how Catalina actually calculated her frequency, so I did an arbitrary calculation by taking an average. In my calculations, my subject lied 50% of the time, but the magnitude of his lies did not vary greatly from the actual truth and were therefore quite subtle. My discovery of where he lied the most and in greatest magnitude were his about me, activities, friends wheel and groups. His about me was very sparse and contained things that did not pertain to his personality at all. One of his activities which I highly disagreed with and he also admitted to being a complete lie was his participation in the "Moral Fiber Club." Though he is moral in many ways, he does not fulfill the standards of the club and therefore is not a member so to speak. Also, he did not choose to add many of the academic activities he was involved with, even though it may not always be viewed as an actual lie, there was definitely a withholding of information. In addition, his friends wheel included many people that he only knew by acquaintance and some he had never even held a conversation with. Lastly, many of the groups he was a member in did not represent a lot of who he was.
I would have to say that my friend's Facebook profile, like so many others out there (including mine) work along the selective self-presentation theory. My friend chose to show the good side of him through the activities he was a part of and the profile picture he chose, as well as the low emphasis on other parts of himself in self-description. I felt that he also wanted to be viewed as popular by having the friends wheel, certain groups he was a part of, and other applications that are deemed as "cooler." This aspect could be supported by the idea of social association, there was a lot of BIRGing and CORFing because he did not show his affiliations with some of his "geekier" activities. In accordance with the deception strategies that are expected in digital deception, I would say that deception is definitely frequent but subtle. The frequency of my friend's lies were pretty high, but he kept them subtle. This is due to the honesty factor because he is likely to see many of the people who view his profile on a regular basis.
Overall, I do not think that when many of the theories were created that they accounted for CMC spaces such as Facebook. This social network makes it much more difficult to lie because many of the people one stays connected with are friends or colleagues. Also,
Facebook is a possible venue for your future employers to access and thus further supports the self-presentational theory. Therefore, although digital deception is easier accomplished via leaner media, it's ease varies among the various online spaces.
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Friday, September 14, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
3: Media Selection
In applying for a campus job, I was required to provide at least one campus or local reference, but as a new transfer student I have not yet built a strong enough rapport with any of my professors or TAs to offer their names. I felt like the best true reference I could offer of someone who could attest to my personality and work ethic was one from a girl in a class with whom I am working on a group project. To ask her permission for her reference, I gave her a call and left a voicemail figuring calling was most appropriate. I wanted her to understand the sincerity of my request and given our recent acquaintance I thought she would best understand if I used a “rich channel.” In response, she text me back and sent me a follow up e-mail to ensure I received her text. In her text, she apologized for not calling, explaining that she was in the library but that she was flattered by my consideration and to go ahead and use her name. I chose to respond to her text message in the interest of time (for her and my sake), saying, “Ur so great! Thank u! I’ll see u wed.” I knew that if I called my classmate back it would negatively affect her impression of me because I would be demonstrating a lack of consideration of her not wanting to talk while in the library which supports O’Sullivan’s model.
The second instance of media selection came this weekend in reinitiating contact with a recent ex-boyfriend. My goal in the communication was to apologize for the way things ended, to let him know that I was no longer upset over the whole ordeal, and to ask him to mail me some of my things. Knowing that he would want to talk and that I was not ready, I sent him an email figuring that a text message would be more likely to lead to a phone call because of its limited ability to convey the emotional consideration I knew I needed to express.
Both of these choices of media support O’Sullivan’s model and the Media Richness Theory. In both cases I wanted to manage my impression with each person as well as use channel that offered the appropriate dialectic. In the case of my ex-boyfriend, I wanted to create a “buffer” between the two of us to convey my comfort level, but I also wanted to make sure that I said what I needed to say without any interference or confusion. As for my classmate, I followed her lead on using the lean medium to express my understanding of her needs (time and environment) and convey my goals. I also wanted to ensure that I continued to present myself to her in a positive light.
The second instance of media selection came this weekend in reinitiating contact with a recent ex-boyfriend. My goal in the communication was to apologize for the way things ended, to let him know that I was no longer upset over the whole ordeal, and to ask him to mail me some of my things. Knowing that he would want to talk and that I was not ready, I sent him an email figuring that a text message would be more likely to lead to a phone call because of its limited ability to convey the emotional consideration I knew I needed to express.
Both of these choices of media support O’Sullivan’s model and the Media Richness Theory. In both cases I wanted to manage my impression with each person as well as use channel that offered the appropriate dialectic. In the case of my ex-boyfriend, I wanted to create a “buffer” between the two of us to convey my comfort level, but I also wanted to make sure that I said what I needed to say without any interference or confusion. As for my classmate, I followed her lead on using the lean medium to express my understanding of her needs (time and environment) and convey my goals. I also wanted to ensure that I continued to present myself to her in a positive light.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
3-- media selection: roommate situations
Resolving conflicts with roommates often can be challenging whether you live with close friends or random people. Over the summer, I took a class back in California. I ended up subletting with local students. Although they were nice people, we never became closer than strangers living together. In my 3 bedroom apartment, one resident failed to clean up after herself. She had odd hours working at a lab and I rarely ran into her. Avoiding conflict, I ended up doing dishes and cleaning up after her mess. One day, I decided I've had it enough. I left a note on the refrigerator asking would whoever left the dishes in the sink clean it up as it was starting to get gross? This built up tension. My apartmentmate called and left an angry voicemail asking if there's a problem, would I talk to her in person without leaving notes?
According to O'Sullivan model, communication method is determined by two factors: locus and valence. In this case, since my locus was on the other roommate and valence was negative, I chose a lean medium, leaving a note. My roommate also a negative locus and valence, but chose to call. The difference in my roommate and my actions reflect Lean Media Theory. I thought the situation was clear: asking to do dishes. However, my roommate chose a richer medium. She viewed the situation with more ambiguity, changing the focus from simple house chore responsibility to communication within the house.
In addition to valence and locus, I believe the degree of intimacy between two people also plays a role. At my current house, we have a white board on the refrigerator. However, we mainly use it for paying bills and updating each other on maintenance requests. I would choose to talk in person if I wanted to bring up doing dishes.
Su Cho
According to O'Sullivan model, communication method is determined by two factors: locus and valence. In this case, since my locus was on the other roommate and valence was negative, I chose a lean medium, leaving a note. My roommate also a negative locus and valence, but chose to call. The difference in my roommate and my actions reflect Lean Media Theory. I thought the situation was clear: asking to do dishes. However, my roommate chose a richer medium. She viewed the situation with more ambiguity, changing the focus from simple house chore responsibility to communication within the house.
In addition to valence and locus, I believe the degree of intimacy between two people also plays a role. At my current house, we have a white board on the refrigerator. However, we mainly use it for paying bills and updating each other on maintenance requests. I would choose to talk in person if I wanted to bring up doing dishes.
Su Cho
3--media selection
Media selection 1
Friday afternoon, when I realized that I hadn’t made any weekend plans except for writing a blog post for info 245, I decided to go to a movie. So I called my friend Heidi, and asked her if she wanted to go to a movie with me later. “Yeah, sure. Call me after you finish classes.” she said. So after all my classes, I called her again, and she was at home and ready to go. We met up at the bus station and went to the theater together. We chatted about our classes and complained about boys…having a very good time.
Media selection 2
After I got out of the theater, I found that I had two missed calls and a voice mail. They are all from another friend of mine. I am not really familiar with this guy. We met last semester in a house party and facebook message each other for several times. He called me on Monday asking if I wanted to hang out with him sometime, I missed his call and totally forgot to call back. This time he also left me a voice mail asking if I kept ignoring him for some reason, sounds kinda angry…
Frankly I was not really interested, but I felt badly acting rude. So I decided to facebook message him, apologize for not calling back and B.S about how busy I have been lately…
Media Richness Theory & O’Sullivan’s model
I sense my choices about media can be better explained under a mix of Media Richness Theory and O’Sullivan’s model.
In the first case, I chose rich media as telephone and FtF to catch up with my friends, because it is an ambiguous task and not in bad need of efficiency. This matches the Media Richness Theory, which suggests that people will choose media with different richness according to the equivocality of a communication task. People choose rich media for more equivocal tasks and lean media for less equivocal tasks.In the second case, I chose the media because I felt bad about not calling back. O’Sullivan’s model suggested that people’s media selections are influenced by two factors: locus (whether it’s about us or others) and the valence (whether the behavior is negative or positive). My locus is”me” and the valence is “negative”, and therefore I chose mediated media as Facebook message even though he used telephone and voicemail to communicate with me.
Friday afternoon, when I realized that I hadn’t made any weekend plans except for writing a blog post for info 245, I decided to go to a movie. So I called my friend Heidi, and asked her if she wanted to go to a movie with me later. “Yeah, sure. Call me after you finish classes.” she said. So after all my classes, I called her again, and she was at home and ready to go. We met up at the bus station and went to the theater together. We chatted about our classes and complained about boys…having a very good time.
Media selection 2
After I got out of the theater, I found that I had two missed calls and a voice mail. They are all from another friend of mine. I am not really familiar with this guy. We met last semester in a house party and facebook message each other for several times. He called me on Monday asking if I wanted to hang out with him sometime, I missed his call and totally forgot to call back. This time he also left me a voice mail asking if I kept ignoring him for some reason, sounds kinda angry…
Frankly I was not really interested, but I felt badly acting rude. So I decided to facebook message him, apologize for not calling back and B.S about how busy I have been lately…
Media Richness Theory & O’Sullivan’s model
I sense my choices about media can be better explained under a mix of Media Richness Theory and O’Sullivan’s model.
In the first case, I chose rich media as telephone and FtF to catch up with my friends, because it is an ambiguous task and not in bad need of efficiency. This matches the Media Richness Theory, which suggests that people will choose media with different richness according to the equivocality of a communication task. People choose rich media for more equivocal tasks and lean media for less equivocal tasks.In the second case, I chose the media because I felt bad about not calling back. O’Sullivan’s model suggested that people’s media selections are influenced by two factors: locus (whether it’s about us or others) and the valence (whether the behavior is negative or positive). My locus is”me” and the valence is “negative”, and therefore I chose mediated media as Facebook message even though he used telephone and voicemail to communicate with me.
Assignment #3
Last semester, I lived in a house with 6 of my close friends. At the beginning of the year we had a house meeting to discuss living logistics. We talked about buying groceries, paying cable/internet bills, chores, etc. When it came to discussing how to keep our house clean, we all had slightly different opinions. Some of my friends were neat-freaks while others were more content with a ‘laissez-faire’ attitude when it came to things like vacuuming, cleaning dishes, and garbage. As for me, I fell into the neat-freak category. As you may suspect, this led to rising tensions within the house.
By the time the semester was in full swing, there were weeks where I would not see one of my roommates (I will call him RD) leading to piled up dirty dishes. RD is an extremely bright, over achieving engineer who holds a job and a research position on top of a cumbersome engineering curriculum. At first, I felt it necessary to talk to him face to face because this would show that I valued our friendship and I was approaching him directly. In line with Media Richness Theory, I chose rich communication with my friend because I wanted to read his feedback and get nonverbal cues. I wanted to make sure that he understood my intentions were of a friendly nature. On the other hand, O’Sullivan would have predicted a lean media because there is an expected negative valence by me sharing my complaints to my roommate.
However, it is difficult to decide which theory categorizes my behavior. Since the conversation was just a few words, (ie. “do your dishes please”), Media Richness would say a lean media would be sufficient because my communication was very direct and unambiguous. However, if I left a note taped to his door or left instant messages on his AIM, my intentions of giving him a friendly reminder might be misconstrued as me being antagonistic. In a face to face interaction, I was able to talk to him in a friendly manner through nonverbal cues.
Switching gears, I spent the past summer in
#3 Looks (and texts) can be deceiving...
An author once wrote, "A conventional liar needs a good memory." When you take on an identity that is not your own, you need to remember every little detail you consciously or even subconsciously pass on to the other party in the conversation. This is a lot harder than telling the simple truths about yourself. Thus, impression management becomes a lot more difficult when you take on some identity other than your own.
I chose to go into a chatroom and pose as a male college student of 20 years of age because I figured this persona is different enough from my real person to be a challenge yet close enough that it wouldn't be as hard to manage as, say, a 50-year old neurosurgeon. I picked a conspicuously masculine name (Jaggernaut), more for my own sake so I could fit in more snuggly with this persona. I was surprised to discover that now I minded a lot more to whom I was actually talking. If it was a female, I had to make sure I don't let any feminine tone get across while not sounding like egoistic. If it was a male, I had to be careful not to overdo the "masculinity" of the persona so I could avoid detection. It was a very fine line to walk: between sounding too "sissy" and too "tough." Either would invite easy detection.
With the name "Jaggernaut," a lot fewer guys talked to me (contrary to previous chatroom visits). I'm used to letting others take the initiative and private message me, so this time I had to first go out of my comfort zone by PMing others, mostly girls. Maybe it was the nature of the chatroom I was in, but I always got the feeling that same-sex PMing doesn't happen a lot, so I didn't want to alert any guys by PMing them as a guy. That is perhaps one of the first crucial steps of my impression management.
As I started talking to various "girls" (for all I know, they could be "fakes" like me), I noticed that I had to initiate a lot of conversations by actively seeking them. Instead of being asked "ASL?", I was now the one to ask it, to be the pursuer instead of the pursued. I had to be a lot more willing to describe myself to get the other party to open up about themselves. Even with this "aggression," I tried to be as gentle as I could and not press my "masculinity" on anyone. I tried to make smart conversation instead of going after the sexual aspects, as so many guys in this chatroom are sometimes prone to do. I'm definitely more comfortable with smart conversation, but I also realize that it can be much more revealing and devastating to my deception as the other party digs deeper into my persona and I'm forced to uncover facets that may very well expose my ignorance in things my persona should have great knowledge in.
As I was describing my online deception adventure just now, I was quite surprised by how much this persona is my ought self, or at least the qualities I think a great conversationalist should possess. I basically created a persona that I would want to talk to. I think that subconsciously I felt that if I wanted to talk to this person, every other girl would. The persona represents some of my ideal self as well- the assertive person who takes initiative. And then, since I was hidden in the anonymity of the Internet and even buried deeper in this fake persona, inhibitions definitely dropped, and I felt some true self came through, since I didn't have to worry too much about impressing the other person. In fact, I didn't want to impress her so much that she fell in love with this guy I was creating. That would be quite cruel, something none of my selves want.
I chose to go into a chatroom and pose as a male college student of 20 years of age because I figured this persona is different enough from my real person to be a challenge yet close enough that it wouldn't be as hard to manage as, say, a 50-year old neurosurgeon. I picked a conspicuously masculine name (Jaggernaut), more for my own sake so I could fit in more snuggly with this persona. I was surprised to discover that now I minded a lot more to whom I was actually talking. If it was a female, I had to make sure I don't let any feminine tone get across while not sounding like egoistic. If it was a male, I had to be careful not to overdo the "masculinity" of the persona so I could avoid detection. It was a very fine line to walk: between sounding too "sissy" and too "tough." Either would invite easy detection.
With the name "Jaggernaut," a lot fewer guys talked to me (contrary to previous chatroom visits). I'm used to letting others take the initiative and private message me, so this time I had to first go out of my comfort zone by PMing others, mostly girls. Maybe it was the nature of the chatroom I was in, but I always got the feeling that same-sex PMing doesn't happen a lot, so I didn't want to alert any guys by PMing them as a guy. That is perhaps one of the first crucial steps of my impression management.
As I started talking to various "girls" (for all I know, they could be "fakes" like me), I noticed that I had to initiate a lot of conversations by actively seeking them. Instead of being asked "ASL?", I was now the one to ask it, to be the pursuer instead of the pursued. I had to be a lot more willing to describe myself to get the other party to open up about themselves. Even with this "aggression," I tried to be as gentle as I could and not press my "masculinity" on anyone. I tried to make smart conversation instead of going after the sexual aspects, as so many guys in this chatroom are sometimes prone to do. I'm definitely more comfortable with smart conversation, but I also realize that it can be much more revealing and devastating to my deception as the other party digs deeper into my persona and I'm forced to uncover facets that may very well expose my ignorance in things my persona should have great knowledge in.
As I was describing my online deception adventure just now, I was quite surprised by how much this persona is my ought self, or at least the qualities I think a great conversationalist should possess. I basically created a persona that I would want to talk to. I think that subconsciously I felt that if I wanted to talk to this person, every other girl would. The persona represents some of my ideal self as well- the assertive person who takes initiative. And then, since I was hidden in the anonymity of the Internet and even buried deeper in this fake persona, inhibitions definitely dropped, and I felt some true self came through, since I didn't have to worry too much about impressing the other person. In fact, I didn't want to impress her so much that she fell in love with this guy I was creating. That would be quite cruel, something none of my selves want.
#3 - Not so easy being a teenage girl!
Being a 20 year old male, I felt like exploring the option of taking on an alternative identity. I decided to take on the identity of a 17 year old girl and observe the type of reactions and interactions I received while in the chatroom.
Before entering the chatroom I thought to myself, “Hmm… this should be easy. After all, how hard can it be to act like a teenage girl?!” I quickly located a chatroom entitled, “Flirty Teens.” When I entered the chat I realized it was going to require more than conversing with general teenage online lingo if I wanted to be convincing. I utilized the “props” in the chatroom to make more of an appearance to my audience. I chose to use a hot pink font and used the room-name “Marissa” (the name of a childhood friend). When I entered the room I merely typed, “hello!!”. I felt that overusing exclamation marks would give the impression that I have bubbly and cheery disposition. Within seconds I had various members messaging me asking about my wellbeing and other questions. Every time I replied I made special effort to not use the same lingo or typing styles I myself would usually using while in a chatroom or while instant messaging. Personally I tend to be a spelling and grammar freak; I usually spell out words completely. This time I decided to use “u,” “u’re,” and phrases such as, “hehe!!” and “thx!!!” I felt that these phrases, along with the hot pink font, gave the impression that I was a bouncy, fun-loving, and carefree teen. And according to my audience of interested guys (and girls!) it was working! I stayed in the chat room for about 30 minutes, making small chat with the attendees and acting as Marissa, the 17 year old bubbly teenage girl.
After leaving the chatroom I sat at my desk and contemplated exactly what I had learned from my experiment. I realized that it was actually quite easy to take on a new identity and persona. It was even relatively fun to deceive others and make others believe I was somebody whom I really am not. But exactly why was it so easy? Was it because of the lack of cues? Was it because of the social environment of the chatroom? I think there were a variety of factors that made deception an easy task to accomplish. I think it was partly because of the audience influenced me which traits to present. Since I was in a room with teens, I used stereotypes of teens to determine how “Marissa” should interact. Also, because I was creating a completely fictional persona, I was able to choose which of the “multiple of selves” to include. I realized I focused more on presenting the “ought self” and “ideal self” because I felt as though there was a certain way a teenage girl would/should act. I was banned from presenting the “actual self” and “true self” because I did not want any of my real traits to be displayed. It was also easy to convince others because I was in control of how I wanted to describe my appearance and my personality. I decided which cues to present and which ones should be ignored.
Though this task was somewhat fun, I think I much rather portray myself and not a fictional identity. This was definitely an opportunity to be creative, but I find it much simpler to be myself and not worry about keeping track of the lies told to the audience. Being a guy, I naturally know how other guys tend to think and communicate; however, I had no idea how to respond as a girl! Even though deceiving was easy, being a teenage girl was a bit exhausting!
-Josh Navarro
My Comments:
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assgnmt-3-you-gotta-be-pretty-fly-guy.html
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-media-selection_11.html
Equivocally and Richness of Media in my daily interactions.
Earlier today, I had to communicate with the captain of the fencing team. I was going to be late to practice. This was a fairly straightforward message, and I did not want to have to go into my reasons for my lateness. As a result, I sent him a text message simply stating “I will be about fifteen minutes late to practice tonight- Andrew” This was an extremely unequivocal message. This is why I selected text messaging, which is not a very rich medium. There was no room for misinterpretation or distraction. As Media Richness Theory predicts, I selected a medium of communication with a richness proportional to the equivocally of my intended message.
Conversely, I had an argument with my girlfriend this morning. I had just found out that I was going to have to dedicate my entire weekend to a fraternity obligation, and would be unable to keep the careful plans we had laid down for Saturday. As we have been having trouble spending as much time as we would like together due to all of our new commitments this year, I knew she would not be thrilled with this news. Due to the give-and-take of the interaction I anticipated would follow my announcement, as well as the vague nature of my intended message I chose to speak to her in person. Media Richness Theory would also support this decision. I chose the richest possible medium to allow me to clarify the meaning of my extremely equivocal message.
My two interactions were opposite in equivocality, and thus I chose to utilize mediums of greatly different richness to convey my messages. This behavior strongly supports Media Richness Theory.
#3 - the parentals
College students find ways of staying in contact with their contacts whether with email, phone, or instant messaging. How these students choose what media to use is an example of the Media Richness Theory. Based on communication patterns between the parent and child, the nature of the conversation, and other various situations along with media capabilities decide the type of technology used to bridge the distance.
Instance #1:
My mom and I communicate through email. It's quick. It gets to the point. I can bullet my words. No arguments about who said what when and how, question-answer. In this sense, the media richness theory applies because the lines of communication between my mother and I are unequivocal. Email is a form of "Leaner channel" as O'Sullivan states. In this case, I have "greater control over when and how to respond." My mom is more of a frequent contacter, with questions and concerns. Instead of getting 10 missed calls on my cell phone and an onslaught of questions, I can take my time and answer calmly. I am able to present myself to my mother on a more organized, calmer tone. I can also avoid showing my short temper. My mom chooses to email as well because she feels it is more direct, as opposed to when she talks. She can control the exact words she uses.
Instance #2:
With my father, however, I always call him. My father's English is not great. It's easier to express myself to him over the phone. Plus, the topics we discuss are just momentary thoughts and feelings. Talking over the phone is more expressive. This form of channel selection allows me to reveal much more thought and feeling to my father than simply with email or instant messaging. Most of all, speaking to my father over the phone satisfies my interaction strategy and impression management goals: to let my Dad know I miss him and that I'm doing fine. This form of media is a "richer channel" that is more credible, more effective in damage control, and give more feedback in terms of reactions. In this way, my Dad gets a better idea of what I'm truly feeling in how I respond, laugh, sigh, or talk.
For two similar interactions, I choose different channels to communicate based on the nature of my parents and equivocality of the situation (answering questions/tasks vs checkup/status report). This form of "ambiguity-clarity" dialectic that O'Sullivan refers to is very apparent between my Mom and Dad. With my Mom, I am more ambiguous in terms of my own situation, but the situation is clear. With my Dad, I attempt to clarify my own self and create openness, whereas the topic discussed is more ambiguous.
Instance #1:
My mom and I communicate through email. It's quick. It gets to the point. I can bullet my words. No arguments about who said what when and how, question-answer. In this sense, the media richness theory applies because the lines of communication between my mother and I are unequivocal. Email is a form of "Leaner channel" as O'Sullivan states. In this case, I have "greater control over when and how to respond." My mom is more of a frequent contacter, with questions and concerns. Instead of getting 10 missed calls on my cell phone and an onslaught of questions, I can take my time and answer calmly. I am able to present myself to my mother on a more organized, calmer tone. I can also avoid showing my short temper. My mom chooses to email as well because she feels it is more direct, as opposed to when she talks. She can control the exact words she uses.
Instance #2:
With my father, however, I always call him. My father's English is not great. It's easier to express myself to him over the phone. Plus, the topics we discuss are just momentary thoughts and feelings. Talking over the phone is more expressive. This form of channel selection allows me to reveal much more thought and feeling to my father than simply with email or instant messaging. Most of all, speaking to my father over the phone satisfies my interaction strategy and impression management goals: to let my Dad know I miss him and that I'm doing fine. This form of media is a "richer channel" that is more credible, more effective in damage control, and give more feedback in terms of reactions. In this way, my Dad gets a better idea of what I'm truly feeling in how I respond, laugh, sigh, or talk.
For two similar interactions, I choose different channels to communicate based on the nature of my parents and equivocality of the situation (answering questions/tasks vs checkup/status report). This form of "ambiguity-clarity" dialectic that O'Sullivan refers to is very apparent between my Mom and Dad. With my Mom, I am more ambiguous in terms of my own situation, but the situation is clear. With my Dad, I attempt to clarify my own self and create openness, whereas the topic discussed is more ambiguous.
Assignment #3: tournament media choices
For this assignment I decided to analyze a few interactions I had with teammates at an away tournament for my club sports team. Despite the fact that all 30 or so girls who travelled with the team all get along, there are a few cliques that inevitably form among the group. When I heard the assignment would be to analyze some social interactions I thought a travelling weekend with my teammates would be the perfect opportunity to pick out some interesting examples, because on the field, the 30 of us are one conhesive unit, while off the field this union does not necessarily hold true.
As teammates on the field together, all preheld judgements of looks, personality, or social status are ignored. This social atmosphere allows for very different interactions to be considered appropriate. A specific example that I was able to pinpoint was a moment where one of my teammates who I don't get along with at all in a social atmosphere scored for our team to tie the game. Despite my negative sentiments towards her personality, I ran across the field and jumped on her in congratulation. Obviously, I chose face-to-face, even body-to-body interaction to praise her positive effect on the team. However, later in the night, after the game had finished, we had changed into our evening clothes, and were getting ready to go out in a social situation, my feelings and social interactions with the very same person were entirely different. Among the team, my few close friends and I made plans to go out to specific bars. As a group, none of us can get along in a social setting with the tie-scoring teammate who we had so graciously congratulated only hours before. The question of how to avoid bringing her along became a debate among us. "Who's going to tell her?" "How are we going to say it?" In the end, I took the responsibility for the job, and decided that the best way to break it to her would be to tell a little white lie through a very lean channel (aka text message) that would not allow her to see my expression, distaste, or true feeing on the matter. Although this may be seen as immature, we concluded that it was simply the best way to handle the situation without affecting the team atmosphere.
Upon further analysis of these two interactions with the same individual I believe that both interactions strongly supported O'Sullivan's Media Richness Theory. In the first situation, I chose a very rich medium to communicate with a teammate. The situation was extremely emotionally charged (high valence) and despite the locus being outside myself, it had a direct effect on me personally so I had a desire to express my sentiments in a strong and clear manner. Running half way across the field when I was exhausted was not necessarily the most efficient social interaction I could have chosen, but according to O'Sullivan's theory the efficiency isn't the only factor taken into account when choosing a medium of interaction. In this instance I chose excitement and clarity over efficiency. The latter of my two interactions, despite being exactly opposite to the on-the-field example, also clearly supports the Media Richness Theory. The valence of the situation was quite strong- my close friends and I had strong feelings of wanting avoid the individual in a social situation. However it was a stronly negative feeling, and the locus was outside myself. Following O'Sullivan's hypothesis 1, I greatly prefered a mediated method of communication as it created a buffer that allowed me to avoid any hurtful or awkward situations. The choice of debating the issue with my friends, and carefully crafting the perfect little white lie certainly wasn't the most efficient medium to express our thought. However, it did allow us to hind behind the ambiguity of the method of communication to avoid an uncomfortable situation.
As teammates on the field together, all preheld judgements of looks, personality, or social status are ignored. This social atmosphere allows for very different interactions to be considered appropriate. A specific example that I was able to pinpoint was a moment where one of my teammates who I don't get along with at all in a social atmosphere scored for our team to tie the game. Despite my negative sentiments towards her personality, I ran across the field and jumped on her in congratulation. Obviously, I chose face-to-face, even body-to-body interaction to praise her positive effect on the team. However, later in the night, after the game had finished, we had changed into our evening clothes, and were getting ready to go out in a social situation, my feelings and social interactions with the very same person were entirely different. Among the team, my few close friends and I made plans to go out to specific bars. As a group, none of us can get along in a social setting with the tie-scoring teammate who we had so graciously congratulated only hours before. The question of how to avoid bringing her along became a debate among us. "Who's going to tell her?" "How are we going to say it?" In the end, I took the responsibility for the job, and decided that the best way to break it to her would be to tell a little white lie through a very lean channel (aka text message) that would not allow her to see my expression, distaste, or true feeing on the matter. Although this may be seen as immature, we concluded that it was simply the best way to handle the situation without affecting the team atmosphere.
Upon further analysis of these two interactions with the same individual I believe that both interactions strongly supported O'Sullivan's Media Richness Theory. In the first situation, I chose a very rich medium to communicate with a teammate. The situation was extremely emotionally charged (high valence) and despite the locus being outside myself, it had a direct effect on me personally so I had a desire to express my sentiments in a strong and clear manner. Running half way across the field when I was exhausted was not necessarily the most efficient social interaction I could have chosen, but according to O'Sullivan's theory the efficiency isn't the only factor taken into account when choosing a medium of interaction. In this instance I chose excitement and clarity over efficiency. The latter of my two interactions, despite being exactly opposite to the on-the-field example, also clearly supports the Media Richness Theory. The valence of the situation was quite strong- my close friends and I had strong feelings of wanting avoid the individual in a social situation. However it was a stronly negative feeling, and the locus was outside myself. Following O'Sullivan's hypothesis 1, I greatly prefered a mediated method of communication as it created a buffer that allowed me to avoid any hurtful or awkward situations. The choice of debating the issue with my friends, and carefully crafting the perfect little white lie certainly wasn't the most efficient medium to express our thought. However, it did allow us to hind behind the ambiguity of the method of communication to avoid an uncomfortable situation.
Singles Chat - Welcoming all genders
Entering a chat room as a woman brought a whole new target audience. When I signed up for a singles chat as “missnicegurl,” attention was automatically received. In real life, I am a 20 year old male but in the chat room I was a 20 year old female. Having the ratio of guys to girls now in my favor, the amount of individual chat sessions was alarming. Within the first 2 minutes of sitting idle in the chat room, I had 7 invitations for private conversations. After I dropped a simple hello, another 5 conversations popped up on my browser. I chose to pursue a conversation with a presumably male named “Cool guy.” He was trying to play the nice guy role but I could have been wrong and he actually was a nice guy. As we proceeded to chat, I kept my identity as hidden as possible with vague answers. He seemed pretty interested in getting to know each other, even after this being our first conversation.
With this being my first time doing the gender switch, I was on edge about how well I was playing the female role. As a male, I am completely unaware of the context and responses that a real woman would give, so I thought I had the possibility of being caught. As the conversation grew longer, I became more comfortable with the way I was responding and began to believe he didn’t suspect my identity switch. At the beginning, I thought keeping my responses brief and simple would keep him from knowing the truth but I am assuming that he was under the impression of my gender because of my screen name.
With the ability of changing my gender, I also had to change information about myself. I chose to reside in Manhattan, NY. I had recently moved here from Dallas, Texas because of a crazy ex boyfriend. Since being in NYC for the past 3 weeks, I was working for a local diner. Since I was trying to become someone that was new to the city and lonely, using key self descriptors was necessary. I began to say that since my recent break-up, I became lonely and was interested in meeting someone in the area. The attitude that I began to give off was that of loneliness. I portrayed myself to be a single woman living in Manhattan looking for someone to share my time with. This lonely little girl was reaching out to the world through online single’s chat rooms.
Revealing part of my personal identity and situation, I began to tell “Cool Guy” that he was apart of a class study. After informing him that he was really talking to a male pretending to be female and not a person from NYC, he began to accept the fact that he had been involved with a study and handled the situation well. With the lack of ability of seeing his (or her) real face, I am certain that they probably began to be more aware of the situation they put themselves in within the online chatting community.
With this being my first time doing the gender switch, I was on edge about how well I was playing the female role. As a male, I am completely unaware of the context and responses that a real woman would give, so I thought I had the possibility of being caught. As the conversation grew longer, I became more comfortable with the way I was responding and began to believe he didn’t suspect my identity switch. At the beginning, I thought keeping my responses brief and simple would keep him from knowing the truth but I am assuming that he was under the impression of my gender because of my screen name.
With the ability of changing my gender, I also had to change information about myself. I chose to reside in Manhattan, NY. I had recently moved here from Dallas, Texas because of a crazy ex boyfriend. Since being in NYC for the past 3 weeks, I was working for a local diner. Since I was trying to become someone that was new to the city and lonely, using key self descriptors was necessary. I began to say that since my recent break-up, I became lonely and was interested in meeting someone in the area. The attitude that I began to give off was that of loneliness. I portrayed myself to be a single woman living in Manhattan looking for someone to share my time with. This lonely little girl was reaching out to the world through online single’s chat rooms.
Revealing part of my personal identity and situation, I began to tell “Cool Guy” that he was apart of a class study. After informing him that he was really talking to a male pretending to be female and not a person from NYC, he began to accept the fact that he had been involved with a study and handled the situation well. With the lack of ability of seeing his (or her) real face, I am certain that they probably began to be more aware of the situation they put themselves in within the online chatting community.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Assignment # 3
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.
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.
Assignment 3: Weirdos, Landlords and favors
Initially I opted for the first option, in which I would try to switch identities. I assumed the nickname 'vaulterchic' because I am a pole vaulter, and I am around pole vaulting girls and know a bunch very well, so I figured I would be the most believable that way. It worked just fine, people would ask for personal chats and the quick and dirty asl interaction would happen, then quite quickly, they would ask if I wanted to role play. I told the person that I was actually a guy and wasn't interested, they cussed me out, called me weird and just left. The second individual just signed off, and the third said 'weirdo' and signed off. I got fed up with it, and moved onto the second option.
For my second option, I had two great examples in the last 24 hours. I am in a very weird situation with my housing, which has led to an uncomfortable situation with our somewhat-former landlord. Essentially, we are no longer living in our leased house, someone else that our landlord found and signed in is, and we wanted to get back our last months rent and security deposits, because we do not trust him. In the past, we have done a mix of emails and some uncomfortable phone calls. This weekend, because it was not urgent, and because we do not like the message personalization of the phone medium, we chose email to address this. If like he has in the past, chooses to ignore this, we will be forced to call him and get an answer. This seems to follow both theories Media Richness and the Impression Management Model. As of now, it is moderately less equivocal of a task, and we don't need a personalized answer, so we choose a leaner medium, if however, he chooses not to answer, it will become more equivocal, and we will be forced to move to the medium with more availability of feedback, more personalization of the message, and more cues. It follows the Impression Management Model though because the valence of the interaction is going to be negative, and we want to avoid a rich medium because of it.
The other choice of medium that I had this weekend were for favors. I just booked a ticket to go home with my girlfriend (to Hawaii!) this winter. I was going to buy the ticket myself for over $800, a semester of groceries, but found out her father had a bunch of old northwest miles he does not want, because his company flies United now. I opted, while asking this favor of him to donate some miles to the surfing-on-xmas fund, to do a mix of a much richer and leaner medium. I used, because it was such an equivocal task, a very rich task, a phone call, because I wanted to be able to use all of the elements of richness to my favor. But at the same time, because it was about me, the self, I opted to have my girlfriend make the call, essentially choosing the lean medium for the locus because I preferred the mediated form when it was about me.
For my second option, I had two great examples in the last 24 hours. I am in a very weird situation with my housing, which has led to an uncomfortable situation with our somewhat-former landlord. Essentially, we are no longer living in our leased house, someone else that our landlord found and signed in is, and we wanted to get back our last months rent and security deposits, because we do not trust him. In the past, we have done a mix of emails and some uncomfortable phone calls. This weekend, because it was not urgent, and because we do not like the message personalization of the phone medium, we chose email to address this. If like he has in the past, chooses to ignore this, we will be forced to call him and get an answer. This seems to follow both theories Media Richness and the Impression Management Model. As of now, it is moderately less equivocal of a task, and we don't need a personalized answer, so we choose a leaner medium, if however, he chooses not to answer, it will become more equivocal, and we will be forced to move to the medium with more availability of feedback, more personalization of the message, and more cues. It follows the Impression Management Model though because the valence of the interaction is going to be negative, and we want to avoid a rich medium because of it.
The other choice of medium that I had this weekend were for favors. I just booked a ticket to go home with my girlfriend (to Hawaii!) this winter. I was going to buy the ticket myself for over $800, a semester of groceries, but found out her father had a bunch of old northwest miles he does not want, because his company flies United now. I opted, while asking this favor of him to donate some miles to the surfing-on-xmas fund, to do a mix of a much richer and leaner medium. I used, because it was such an equivocal task, a very rich task, a phone call, because I wanted to be able to use all of the elements of richness to my favor. But at the same time, because it was about me, the self, I opted to have my girlfriend make the call, essentially choosing the lean medium for the locus because I preferred the mediated form when it was about me.
Assignment 3: Channel Surfing - Choosing the Right Media
This past weekend, I paid more attention to how my friends and I were communicating with people to see what types of media channels we chose to use in different situations.
For instance, on Friday night, my mom asked me to call her after dinner. By the time my friends and I had finished dinner, we were already starting to get ready to go out. I didn’t want to have the 15-20 minute minimum phone conversation – I just wanted to get dressed and get ready with my friends. I saw my mom was online, so instead of calling her, I IMed her and was able to speak and get ready at the same time. I did not have to focus on the one conversation but was able to accomplish different things at once.
A second example of media selection was between my friend and her boyfriend. My friend got upset over text messages that her boyfriend sent her Sunday morning and didn’t understand the purpose or reasoning behind them. Later that day, he texted her and the message refuted what he had texted earlier that day. She texted him that she was upset and didn’t understand what he meant and wanted to actually speak to him. Over the phone, he heard how upset he was and offered to come over. They then spoke face-to-face and were able to talk about what happened and resolved the issue.
I think that my first example relates to The Media Richness Theory. Rather than calling my mom, I IMed her and I chose this media because of its efficiency. I didn’t want or need to have a lengthy conversation. It was fast and easy to IM her and saved me time because I was able to get ready to go out while talking to her. This example can also fit with Sullivan’s model - I was able to IM my mom rather than call her because I was just calling to talk – we did not have anything important to discuss. The locus was about me and it was positive so a mediated channel worked. I could get my message across just as easily through IM rather than the phone since there was no ambiguity or anything that needed clarification. Overall, with this example, efficiency was definitely my first priority, but I also see how I chose my media in terms of Sullivan’s model.
The second example definitely fits better with Sullivan’s model. My friend’s boyfriend used a lean channel (text) for a self locus and negative valence message. He used text messaging to buffer what he was saying. Then, my friend got upset because of the ambiguity of the message and chose a richer channel (the telephone) to try to understand what was going on. Hearing how upset my friend was on the phone, her boyfriend finally decided to make things clear and resolve the issue by choosing FTF communication. They were able to see each other, understand each other’s reactions, and have an open and honest discussion. In this case, in addition to efficiency, ambiguity and clarity played a major role in their choosing a media channel.
For instance, on Friday night, my mom asked me to call her after dinner. By the time my friends and I had finished dinner, we were already starting to get ready to go out. I didn’t want to have the 15-20 minute minimum phone conversation – I just wanted to get dressed and get ready with my friends. I saw my mom was online, so instead of calling her, I IMed her and was able to speak and get ready at the same time. I did not have to focus on the one conversation but was able to accomplish different things at once.
A second example of media selection was between my friend and her boyfriend. My friend got upset over text messages that her boyfriend sent her Sunday morning and didn’t understand the purpose or reasoning behind them. Later that day, he texted her and the message refuted what he had texted earlier that day. She texted him that she was upset and didn’t understand what he meant and wanted to actually speak to him. Over the phone, he heard how upset he was and offered to come over. They then spoke face-to-face and were able to talk about what happened and resolved the issue.
I think that my first example relates to The Media Richness Theory. Rather than calling my mom, I IMed her and I chose this media because of its efficiency. I didn’t want or need to have a lengthy conversation. It was fast and easy to IM her and saved me time because I was able to get ready to go out while talking to her. This example can also fit with Sullivan’s model - I was able to IM my mom rather than call her because I was just calling to talk – we did not have anything important to discuss. The locus was about me and it was positive so a mediated channel worked. I could get my message across just as easily through IM rather than the phone since there was no ambiguity or anything that needed clarification. Overall, with this example, efficiency was definitely my first priority, but I also see how I chose my media in terms of Sullivan’s model.
The second example definitely fits better with Sullivan’s model. My friend’s boyfriend used a lean channel (text) for a self locus and negative valence message. He used text messaging to buffer what he was saying. Then, my friend got upset because of the ambiguity of the message and chose a richer channel (the telephone) to try to understand what was going on. Hearing how upset my friend was on the phone, her boyfriend finally decided to make things clear and resolve the issue by choosing FTF communication. They were able to see each other, understand each other’s reactions, and have an open and honest discussion. In this case, in addition to efficiency, ambiguity and clarity played a major role in their choosing a media channel.
#3--My Attempt at Being Older, Wiser, Wittier etc.
I decided for this assignment that I wanted to be who I thought I would be at age 37 if my mom had her way: a high school teacher. My mom's whole side of the family is high school teachers: my mom, her sisters, her mom and dad, her cousins, her mom's sister, and her dad's brothers. It was a perfect answer for me to give, especially since I know what kind of work being a high school teacher entails, having graduated recently from high school.
I entered a synchronous chatroom at chat-avenue.com, under the chatroom category of "Adult Chat". I hoped my experience would contain grown-up, mature, and non-lewd discourse--a conversation in which I would be able to get to know my target well and hopefully see how well my impressions of a 37 year old would go by.
When I entered the chatroom, it was cluttered by the same sexually explicit comments, so I wrote "Is anyone 30 +?" so I wouldn't waste my time with people who would stop chatting with me once they knew my fake "a/s/l". (From previous experience earlier in the night, I found out the 30+ women category is largly discriminated against in internet chat.) Soon enough, JerseyGuy35 private messaged me and through conversing with him, I found what seemed to be a very polite and nice man. His name was Kevin. He was 35, from New Jersey, and self-proclaimed "shy" man.
In order to keep up the facade to Kevin, I asked him first about his job. This is what I assumed adults did. As students, we want to know what university and what major a person is in, and the older equivalent would be a job. When Kevin told me about his job as a UPS guy, I told him witty and completely fake teaching stories. I made up how I had one troublemaker named Joey who cheated during every test, and how I had dated the P.E teacher. Then, when he asked what I had done that afternoon, I said I went with some of the other teachers to a restaurant and ordered martinis, and then went home to grade papers. This is what I assumed people would think of teachers of doing on a stressful Monday night (although real-life experience with my family was completely different).
In general, I most clearly expressed my "ought self." I thought that being older would have qualities most closely related with my ought self--older people are more kind, compassionate, mature and moral. In turn, I was extra kind to Kevin. I also correlated being professional with being older, so I was sure to not put many exclamation points after sentences. I tried not to mispell many words, and made an effort to use correct grammer and punctuations. I even corrected Kevin's grammer when we used "your" incorrectly. I didn't use many emoticons, and made sure to sound a little distant and unsure of how how MSN messanger worked when asked if I had a MSN screenname. I also managed my impressions by telling Kevin actual truths about myself so I wouldn't slip up and get confused when he questioned me on a detail. For instance, I told Kevin that I was originally from Long Island (which I am) but I now live and teach in Western Upstate New York.
By the time our almost hour-long conversation had ended, I could not manage my impressions any longer. Poor Kevin was telling me sob stories about his loneliness at age 35, and how he wished he could talk to women, and how he felt so weak at his job at UPS delivering packages when he weighed only 130 pounds. I felt guilty at decieving him, and told him that I really was 20, and his allusions to a romantic relationship just weren't going to happen. He seemed genuinely hurt, saying "wow....wow...thats mean." Me, in my "actual self" tried to dispense to him words of wisdom that would give him the courage to talk to women. I truly did pity the man, and wished he would have more self confidence.
Since our chat conversation was one-on-one, it was easier to manage my impression. In a chatroom with many users, I might have been subjected to more scrutiny and more detailed questions that might have spiraled me deeper and deeper into more lies. The ideal self, the self that contains qualities we wish we had is easier to convey in this one-on-one settings for this reason. In this experience I also tried to use the "ought self" and I found it easier to act this way in this online space. Many people in chatrooms seemed pre-occupied with either fighting or exchanging pictures, so it was easy to act moral and posess values that many others weren't expressing at the time, especially since I already was "older" than almost everyone in the chatroom. The "ought self" I expressed contained many attributes of the "ideal self"--for instance I felt that since I was older, I should be more knowledgable, witty, and experienced. However, since the chat was pretty fast paced and near synchronous, many "actual self" qualities masked behind the fabrications I told. It was hard to keep up the facade of being 37 years old when a rapid response was demanded of me. However, Kevin didn't seem to notice or question the details I told him before revealing my actual self.
I entered a synchronous chatroom at chat-avenue.com, under the chatroom category of "Adult Chat". I hoped my experience would contain grown-up, mature, and non-lewd discourse--a conversation in which I would be able to get to know my target well and hopefully see how well my impressions of a 37 year old would go by.
When I entered the chatroom, it was cluttered by the same sexually explicit comments, so I wrote "Is anyone 30 +?" so I wouldn't waste my time with people who would stop chatting with me once they knew my fake "a/s/l". (From previous experience earlier in the night, I found out the 30+ women category is largly discriminated against in internet chat.) Soon enough, JerseyGuy35 private messaged me and through conversing with him, I found what seemed to be a very polite and nice man. His name was Kevin. He was 35, from New Jersey, and self-proclaimed "shy" man.
In order to keep up the facade to Kevin, I asked him first about his job. This is what I assumed adults did. As students, we want to know what university and what major a person is in, and the older equivalent would be a job. When Kevin told me about his job as a UPS guy, I told him witty and completely fake teaching stories. I made up how I had one troublemaker named Joey who cheated during every test, and how I had dated the P.E teacher. Then, when he asked what I had done that afternoon, I said I went with some of the other teachers to a restaurant and ordered martinis, and then went home to grade papers. This is what I assumed people would think of teachers of doing on a stressful Monday night (although real-life experience with my family was completely different).
In general, I most clearly expressed my "ought self." I thought that being older would have qualities most closely related with my ought self--older people are more kind, compassionate, mature and moral. In turn, I was extra kind to Kevin. I also correlated being professional with being older, so I was sure to not put many exclamation points after sentences. I tried not to mispell many words, and made an effort to use correct grammer and punctuations. I even corrected Kevin's grammer when we used "your" incorrectly. I didn't use many emoticons, and made sure to sound a little distant and unsure of how how MSN messanger worked when asked if I had a MSN screenname. I also managed my impressions by telling Kevin actual truths about myself so I wouldn't slip up and get confused when he questioned me on a detail. For instance, I told Kevin that I was originally from Long Island (which I am) but I now live and teach in Western Upstate New York.
By the time our almost hour-long conversation had ended, I could not manage my impressions any longer. Poor Kevin was telling me sob stories about his loneliness at age 35, and how he wished he could talk to women, and how he felt so weak at his job at UPS delivering packages when he weighed only 130 pounds. I felt guilty at decieving him, and told him that I really was 20, and his allusions to a romantic relationship just weren't going to happen. He seemed genuinely hurt, saying "wow....wow...thats mean." Me, in my "actual self" tried to dispense to him words of wisdom that would give him the courage to talk to women. I truly did pity the man, and wished he would have more self confidence.
Since our chat conversation was one-on-one, it was easier to manage my impression. In a chatroom with many users, I might have been subjected to more scrutiny and more detailed questions that might have spiraled me deeper and deeper into more lies. The ideal self, the self that contains qualities we wish we had is easier to convey in this one-on-one settings for this reason. In this experience I also tried to use the "ought self" and I found it easier to act this way in this online space. Many people in chatrooms seemed pre-occupied with either fighting or exchanging pictures, so it was easy to act moral and posess values that many others weren't expressing at the time, especially since I already was "older" than almost everyone in the chatroom. The "ought self" I expressed contained many attributes of the "ideal self"--for instance I felt that since I was older, I should be more knowledgable, witty, and experienced. However, since the chat was pretty fast paced and near synchronous, many "actual self" qualities masked behind the fabrications I told. It was hard to keep up the facade of being 37 years old when a rapid response was demanded of me. However, Kevin didn't seem to notice or question the details I told him before revealing my actual self.
Assignment 3 "I have something to tell you..."
This past weekend, a number of important social interactions occurred in my life. For these interactions, it was necessary for me to decide which media I would like for them to occur through. The reasons for which I chose the medias through which these two social interactions would occur had very little to do with the ideas of the impression management model, but closely lined up with the concepts of the Media Richness Theory.
The Media Richness Theory states that people will choose a rich media for more equivocal tasks, and a less rich media for less equivocal tasks. Characteristics of a richer media are multiplicity of cues, availability of feedback, message personalization, and language variety. An example of a rich media is face to face communication, while an example of a less rich media is text messaging. The second part of the Media Richness Theory talks about the equivocalness of tasks. Equivocal refers to the ambiguity, or vagueness of a particular task. An equivocal undertaking would include hiring an employee, while a less equivocal task would be asking someone to meet you for lunch.
The first social interaction that I examined was highly equivocal. As I result of this, I decided to carry the task out in a very rich media, which was face to face communication. This weekend I told my parents something very important about an aspect of my life, an aspect which they were unaware of. Due to the vagueness and ambiguity of the task, as well as its highly emotional and personal nature, I thought it completely unreasonable and selfish to communicate the message through any media other than face to face. Ultimately the success of the social interaction depended on a number of things characteristic to rich medias. The cues given by them were very useful to me in telling how they felt, and what they were thinking. The reverse also holds true, as they used my cues to control and modify their actions and words as appropriate. Without the feedback that both sides of the interaction received, it would have been nearly impossible to address the concerns of everyone involved. Message personalization and language variety were also crucial in allowing me to adequately relay my sentiments and emotions to my parents, as well as for them to relay theirs to me. A rich media was necessary in this highly equivocal task to allow the social task to go smoothly, and to allow everyone involved to walk away feeling good about the interactions that had just occurred.
The second task was much less equivocal than the first task, and as a result I chose to communicate through a less rich media, a text message. The text message allowed me to cut out unnecessary cues and social exchanges, and allowed me to be efficient in asking my rather unambiguous question: "Want to meet for lunch?"
The Media Richness Theory not only accurately predicted the medias that I would choose for two tasks to occur through, but also predicted the reasons for which I would choose these two medias.
The Media Richness Theory states that people will choose a rich media for more equivocal tasks, and a less rich media for less equivocal tasks. Characteristics of a richer media are multiplicity of cues, availability of feedback, message personalization, and language variety. An example of a rich media is face to face communication, while an example of a less rich media is text messaging. The second part of the Media Richness Theory talks about the equivocalness of tasks. Equivocal refers to the ambiguity, or vagueness of a particular task. An equivocal undertaking would include hiring an employee, while a less equivocal task would be asking someone to meet you for lunch.
The first social interaction that I examined was highly equivocal. As I result of this, I decided to carry the task out in a very rich media, which was face to face communication. This weekend I told my parents something very important about an aspect of my life, an aspect which they were unaware of. Due to the vagueness and ambiguity of the task, as well as its highly emotional and personal nature, I thought it completely unreasonable and selfish to communicate the message through any media other than face to face. Ultimately the success of the social interaction depended on a number of things characteristic to rich medias. The cues given by them were very useful to me in telling how they felt, and what they were thinking. The reverse also holds true, as they used my cues to control and modify their actions and words as appropriate. Without the feedback that both sides of the interaction received, it would have been nearly impossible to address the concerns of everyone involved. Message personalization and language variety were also crucial in allowing me to adequately relay my sentiments and emotions to my parents, as well as for them to relay theirs to me. A rich media was necessary in this highly equivocal task to allow the social task to go smoothly, and to allow everyone involved to walk away feeling good about the interactions that had just occurred.
The second task was much less equivocal than the first task, and as a result I chose to communicate through a less rich media, a text message. The text message allowed me to cut out unnecessary cues and social exchanges, and allowed me to be efficient in asking my rather unambiguous question: "Want to meet for lunch?"
The Media Richness Theory not only accurately predicted the medias that I would choose for two tasks to occur through, but also predicted the reasons for which I would choose these two medias.
Assignment #3 - Choosing the leaner option
As I’m really not creative or imaginative enough to take on another identity, I chose the second option to discuss this week. Forgive me if the first incident sounds a little cliché, but my friend’s experience over the weekend seems very applicable here. A friend and I were at a party this past Friday night where she met a guy and subsequently exchanged numbers with him at the end of the night. She was now faced with the dilemma that typically arises the day after meeting someone of whether to text, call or Facebook the person and how long to wait before doing so. After waiting what she deemed to be the “appropriate” time, she decided to text him a very subtle message because she didn’t want to seem over eager to speak to him. Instead of choosing a richer media, like a phone call, for this interaction, she purposely opted for a lean media in order to convey a certain air of nonchalance with an ambiguous text message.
Her experience was inconsistent with Media Richness Theory because she didn’t choose the richest medium to send the desired message. From experiences that my friends and I have had with text-based flirting, we repeatedly choose a much leaner media even though the information sent is of an extremely equivocal nature. I think it better aligns with the second hypothesis of O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model, which states that when the locus expected to be self, we prefer a mediated interaction. Because the results of the text messaging would directly affect how the guy would perceive her, she chose a medium based on the amount of control she could exert over the communication.
The second selection of a medium occurred when I had to inform one of my TA’s that I would have to miss section this week due to a religious holiday. Since it was only logistics and the message was extremely to the clear, I decided the best option was to email him. This interaction supports the Media Richness Theory because of the unequivocal nature of the information sent. The optimal media in this instance is a lean media, like email, because it’s the most efficient way to send the desired message.
In both instances, a lean media was used to rely a desired message. However, as the content of the message differed in both cases, they each supported a different theory of Impression Management.
Her experience was inconsistent with Media Richness Theory because she didn’t choose the richest medium to send the desired message. From experiences that my friends and I have had with text-based flirting, we repeatedly choose a much leaner media even though the information sent is of an extremely equivocal nature. I think it better aligns with the second hypothesis of O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model, which states that when the locus expected to be self, we prefer a mediated interaction. Because the results of the text messaging would directly affect how the guy would perceive her, she chose a medium based on the amount of control she could exert over the communication.
The second selection of a medium occurred when I had to inform one of my TA’s that I would have to miss section this week due to a religious holiday. Since it was only logistics and the message was extremely to the clear, I decided the best option was to email him. This interaction supports the Media Richness Theory because of the unequivocal nature of the information sent. The optimal media in this instance is a lean media, like email, because it’s the most efficient way to send the desired message.
In both instances, a lean media was used to rely a desired message. However, as the content of the message differed in both cases, they each supported a different theory of Impression Management.
3 'Caliguy' and 'Caligurl... guy'
For the third assignment, I decided to enter a chat room and change my identity. Switching to a female, I quickly realized how easy it would be to fool people. I entered as ‘Caligurl’, expecting the name to stir interest. I was correct. As soon as I said hi to everyone in the room, I received immediate requests for private conversations
I began my own private conversation with ‘Caliguy’. He first asked the usual, “asl?” After finding out my perfect 5’6”, 107lb body size, he began asking about my clothes. Unlike many people in chat rooms, he quickly switched topics and asked about my life. As our conversation continued, he started showing some affection. I told him I was attending Stanford as a sophomore communication major. He was very interested in journalism and asked a few questions about my studies. After searching the internet to answer some of his questions regarding my time at Stanford, ‘Caliguy’ told me he recently graduated from Berkeley as an electrical engineer. By this point, he had persuaded me that he was a nice person overall. He told me that he would be traveling to Palo Alto, CA within the next week and was interested in taking me out on a date. Oddly, by this point, I had fully assumed the role of ‘Caligurl’. I knew it was time to break the news.
I felt bad telling him that I had deceived him. He seemed like a nice guy hoping for a date. When I told him, he was a little shocked, but not as much as I would have expected. I told him I was a male conducting a communication study. He was very understanding, so I apologized and bid him good luck with his search for a girl.
Managing my impressions was not difficult. As I told ‘Caliguy’ about myself, I had a bit of trouble specifying details about Stanford and the area. To relieve this problem, I simply got information from Stanford’s website and wrote details down on a piece of paper. As we got to know each other better, I started answering as if I, myself, were speaking to a girl. I gradually assumed ‘Caligurl’s’ identity and grew more attracted (in the sense of personality) to ‘Caliguy’. Towards the end of our conversation, I was confident he would not detect my deception. I could tell he was very interested in me as a person. Since I was giving my own ideas and opinions, I knew I could not go wrong.
The psychological space on the internet that I chose certainly affected my presentation of ‘myself’. In the chat room, ‘Caliguy’ had no means of seeing me in person. Therefore, my self-description conveyed that I was a perfectly built college girl. In addition, my nonverbal behavior could not be seen, so ‘Caliguy’s’ lack of cues led him to believe I was telling the truth. Additionally, I used social associations (Stanford) to convey that I was intelligent on top of everything else. The combination of these self-presentational tactics worked to both deceive and genuinely interest ‘Caliguy’.
I began my own private conversation with ‘Caliguy’. He first asked the usual, “asl?” After finding out my perfect 5’6”, 107lb body size, he began asking about my clothes. Unlike many people in chat rooms, he quickly switched topics and asked about my life. As our conversation continued, he started showing some affection. I told him I was attending Stanford as a sophomore communication major. He was very interested in journalism and asked a few questions about my studies. After searching the internet to answer some of his questions regarding my time at Stanford, ‘Caliguy’ told me he recently graduated from Berkeley as an electrical engineer. By this point, he had persuaded me that he was a nice person overall. He told me that he would be traveling to Palo Alto, CA within the next week and was interested in taking me out on a date. Oddly, by this point, I had fully assumed the role of ‘Caligurl’. I knew it was time to break the news.
I felt bad telling him that I had deceived him. He seemed like a nice guy hoping for a date. When I told him, he was a little shocked, but not as much as I would have expected. I told him I was a male conducting a communication study. He was very understanding, so I apologized and bid him good luck with his search for a girl.
Managing my impressions was not difficult. As I told ‘Caliguy’ about myself, I had a bit of trouble specifying details about Stanford and the area. To relieve this problem, I simply got information from Stanford’s website and wrote details down on a piece of paper. As we got to know each other better, I started answering as if I, myself, were speaking to a girl. I gradually assumed ‘Caligurl’s’ identity and grew more attracted (in the sense of personality) to ‘Caliguy’. Towards the end of our conversation, I was confident he would not detect my deception. I could tell he was very interested in me as a person. Since I was giving my own ideas and opinions, I knew I could not go wrong.
The psychological space on the internet that I chose certainly affected my presentation of ‘myself’. In the chat room, ‘Caliguy’ had no means of seeing me in person. Therefore, my self-description conveyed that I was a perfectly built college girl. In addition, my nonverbal behavior could not be seen, so ‘Caliguy’s’ lack of cues led him to believe I was telling the truth. Additionally, I used social associations (Stanford) to convey that I was intelligent on top of everything else. The combination of these self-presentational tactics worked to both deceive and genuinely interest ‘Caliguy’.
Assignment 3: Is being ambiguous considered lying?
For assignment three, I chose option number two seeing as how I had some difficulty finding PG rated chat rooms for the second assignment. When doing this assignment, however, I wanted to select a lean channel and a rich channel so that I could determine how each media affected my self-presentational tactics. After going back and looking at the media I chose, I found myself following O’Sullivan’s model,
The first media I chose was face to face. One of my best friends asked me if I wanted to live with her and nine other girls next year in a house in collegetown because they were already looking for a house. Seeing as how I was in the process of making plans to live with a few other girls from my sorority, I was not sure what to say to her. I decided that face to face communication was the best way to go about saying no to living with her. It allowed for “more effective ‘damage control’” (O’Sullivan 408) and gave her the respect she deserved as one of my closest friends (a positive locus). In relation to the privacy boundary management theory, I was not seeking to control my privacy boundary, worrying about what information to disclose, or concerning myself over my self-presentation (as long as I remained positive) in this situation because she already knows my personality and almost everything else about me.
The second media I chose was a much leaner model. I needed to inform my sorority that I will not be able to attend one of the mandatory events next weekend so, although it was a little early to do so, I emailed the appropriate member about my upcoming absence and the reason I will not be able to attend. I did not give her all the details of why I would be absent because it is not one of the reasons we are allowed to miss the event; therefore, I was trying to be as equivocal as possible. As long as I presented a decent excuse, enough information, and appeared confident about the situation, then she wouldn’t ask me any questions and would just accept that I would not be there next weekend. This was highly efficient and an attempt to appear unambiguous by picking this media channel.
By maintaining a level of ambiguity in the email to my sorority, I protected my own self-presentation. It was more beneficial to me to use this mode of communication as opposed to face to face. However, when I was responding to my friend about next year’s living situation, it was more beneficial to use face to face communication to support both of our self-presentations.
The first media I chose was face to face. One of my best friends asked me if I wanted to live with her and nine other girls next year in a house in collegetown because they were already looking for a house. Seeing as how I was in the process of making plans to live with a few other girls from my sorority, I was not sure what to say to her. I decided that face to face communication was the best way to go about saying no to living with her. It allowed for “more effective ‘damage control’” (O’Sullivan 408) and gave her the respect she deserved as one of my closest friends (a positive locus). In relation to the privacy boundary management theory, I was not seeking to control my privacy boundary, worrying about what information to disclose, or concerning myself over my self-presentation (as long as I remained positive) in this situation because she already knows my personality and almost everything else about me.
The second media I chose was a much leaner model. I needed to inform my sorority that I will not be able to attend one of the mandatory events next weekend so, although it was a little early to do so, I emailed the appropriate member about my upcoming absence and the reason I will not be able to attend. I did not give her all the details of why I would be absent because it is not one of the reasons we are allowed to miss the event; therefore, I was trying to be as equivocal as possible. As long as I presented a decent excuse, enough information, and appeared confident about the situation, then she wouldn’t ask me any questions and would just accept that I would not be there next weekend. This was highly efficient and an attempt to appear unambiguous by picking this media channel.
By maintaining a level of ambiguity in the email to my sorority, I protected my own self-presentation. It was more beneficial to me to use this mode of communication as opposed to face to face. However, when I was responding to my friend about next year’s living situation, it was more beneficial to use face to face communication to support both of our self-presentations.
Assignment #3 (Being a sketchy dude)
I chose the first option and for the psychological space I entered a chatroom again – a different one this time. It was rather hard to find another chatroom that didn’t require making any accounts or personal information. For my “identity”, I decided to be an old(er) male, around the age of a grad school student (if anyone asked specifically). After “being” a girl in a chatroom last week, I was expecting a few differences in my chat experience this time around.
To appear not too desperate, suspicious or overtly creepy, I picked a random name for my username and hoped someone would see it amongst all the blatantly sexual names. However, it didn’t work. Not in the slightest. After a brief greeting in the main chat, which went mostly ignored, I just sat there for about five minutes while people “advertised” themselves and not a single person messaged me. Finally I picked someone with a “regular” name like mine, and went ahead with the usual “asl” asking that most males seem to do in chatrooms. What really surprised me was how quick she replied, and how immediately open she was towards me. Her age, location, along with her current mood spilled out easily. Trying not to sound too interested, I then asked her what was wrong. The next dozen lines that came out were either exaggerations, lies or the girl really did live in a soap opera. Dropping out of school, being pregnant, a cheating husband, horrible job, there was apparently nothing off limits. In fact, she rarely asked about me and just kept typing about her dreadful life.
I was pretty shocked at how open this person was, and felt rather sorry for her (if everything she said was true) but being a male, I couldn’t act really sympathetic without giving myself away. Instead, I resorted to swearing and bashing inappropriately at her cheating boyfriend, with an occasional “sorry to hear that” in between. It was hard to act all “macho” and tough – which was the type of persona I chose for my male character, since I couldn’t act like a sensitive guy without sounding like a girl – so I threw in a couple more bad words, improper grammar, spelling and little cues. To express myself nonverbally as a guy, I eradicated my usual heavy use of “lol”, expressions of laughing, and emoticons/faces, and kept my text plain. When she finally asked for little snippets about me, I gave the bare minimum details of myself, my appearance, my work – basically whatever she asked but nothing more.
For this experiment, I don’t feel like I extensively used any of the “possible selves” from Goffman and Jung. Most of the time I stifled my actual self, by the way I typed and the words I chose. There was no ideal self in the persona I created – which I regret but it was easier to act out a stereotype – although I was much bolder as a male, which wasn’t a bad quality. My true self was probably not present, unless it’s that I can pretend to be a different person online.
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To appear not too desperate, suspicious or overtly creepy, I picked a random name for my username and hoped someone would see it amongst all the blatantly sexual names. However, it didn’t work. Not in the slightest. After a brief greeting in the main chat, which went mostly ignored, I just sat there for about five minutes while people “advertised” themselves and not a single person messaged me. Finally I picked someone with a “regular” name like mine, and went ahead with the usual “asl” asking that most males seem to do in chatrooms. What really surprised me was how quick she replied, and how immediately open she was towards me. Her age, location, along with her current mood spilled out easily. Trying not to sound too interested, I then asked her what was wrong. The next dozen lines that came out were either exaggerations, lies or the girl really did live in a soap opera. Dropping out of school, being pregnant, a cheating husband, horrible job, there was apparently nothing off limits. In fact, she rarely asked about me and just kept typing about her dreadful life.
I was pretty shocked at how open this person was, and felt rather sorry for her (if everything she said was true) but being a male, I couldn’t act really sympathetic without giving myself away. Instead, I resorted to swearing and bashing inappropriately at her cheating boyfriend, with an occasional “sorry to hear that” in between. It was hard to act all “macho” and tough – which was the type of persona I chose for my male character, since I couldn’t act like a sensitive guy without sounding like a girl – so I threw in a couple more bad words, improper grammar, spelling and little cues. To express myself nonverbally as a guy, I eradicated my usual heavy use of “lol”, expressions of laughing, and emoticons/faces, and kept my text plain. When she finally asked for little snippets about me, I gave the bare minimum details of myself, my appearance, my work – basically whatever she asked but nothing more.
For this experiment, I don’t feel like I extensively used any of the “possible selves” from Goffman and Jung. Most of the time I stifled my actual self, by the way I typed and the words I chose. There was no ideal self in the persona I created – which I regret but it was easier to act out a stereotype – although I was much bolder as a male, which wasn’t a bad quality. My true self was probably not present, unless it’s that I can pretend to be a different person online.
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Assignment 3: Who uses the telephone anymore?
I believe that there is a wide gap in our preferred means of communication and the means that we actually choose to use. Though we may wish to use a certain means of communication because it is more-mediated, for example, we understand that it is more appropriate to use a less-mediated means. Although O’Sullivan’s theory absolutely captures the idea that we prefer a leaner medium when we need a buffer between ourselves and the other person because of the negative valence of the episode, sometimes we may forego our desire to use such means.
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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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Assignment 3: Masculine Figures Online
I chose to answer Option #1: I entered a psychological space on the Internet and identity switched (older/younger, male/female), described how I managed my impressions and examined how the space may have affected my presentation of a “self”. I considered the "self-presentational tactics".
Assignment 3: 15-year-old Brianne
Before I even said anything to the room, I got at least 5 invitations to chat privately. Of all of the invitations, I chose the one from Clark125, because he seemed the least interested in cyber sex. When he asked my a/s/l, I told him I am a fifteen-year-old female from Massachusetts. I gave him a peak into my actual identity when he revealed to me that he was “17/m/GA.” Because I’m originally from Georgia, I got excited and told him I “used to” live in Atlanta (even though I still do).
I used many self-presentational tactics when chatting with Clark125. As should be expected, one of the first things Clark asked me to do was describe myself. Of course he meant this in a physical way, so I stuck close to the truth though I remained vague. I told him I had light brown hair, brown eyes, and that I’m 5’3. Though I did not explicitly say so, I attempted to convey myself as somewhat naïve, as I was only supposed to be fifteen. I was more adventurous when it came time for attitude expressions. When we talked about music, I told him I really liked Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown. When the time came to talk about movies, I told him my favorites were High School Musical and Center Stage. Will the lies ever end? I was truthful when I said I love Harry Potter, but I also told him I was an avid reader of CosmoGirl. The last tactic that was put to good use was the description of my social associations. I told Clark that, as a high school sophomore, I was a newly appointed Varsity soccer player. I also “admitted” to having a crush on a senior football player, and that I was secretly praying that he would ask me to the homecoming dance. In my opinion, I had a pretty good shot of attracting his interest by then because we had study hall together. It is fair to say that I was Basking in Reflective Glory.
In a chat room, it is very easy to manage an impression when it comes to descriptions of myself and the things I like. However, it is much more difficult to manage non-verbal behavior as well as sets, props, and lighting. The only sets, props, and lighting I put into use involved descriptions of my fake neighborhood, which were very brief. I said it was small, quiet, and I only lived two blocks from my high school. I was able to achieve some non-verbal communication, such as the use of emoticons. I would follow smug comments with a :) and playful comments with a ;-). If Clark became smug or sarcastic, I would readily respond with a :P. I will choose to argue that my other non-verbal communication came from the abbreviations and other types of Internet “lingo” that I used. For instance, I was not shy when using “LOL” or “OMG.” Though these abbreviations do portray actual words, the fact that somebody would use them does suggest a youthful, technologically comfortable personality.
FOR THURSDAY:
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I used many self-presentational tactics when chatting with Clark125. As should be expected, one of the first things Clark asked me to do was describe myself. Of course he meant this in a physical way, so I stuck close to the truth though I remained vague. I told him I had light brown hair, brown eyes, and that I’m 5’3. Though I did not explicitly say so, I attempted to convey myself as somewhat naïve, as I was only supposed to be fifteen. I was more adventurous when it came time for attitude expressions. When we talked about music, I told him I really liked Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown. When the time came to talk about movies, I told him my favorites were High School Musical and Center Stage. Will the lies ever end? I was truthful when I said I love Harry Potter, but I also told him I was an avid reader of CosmoGirl. The last tactic that was put to good use was the description of my social associations. I told Clark that, as a high school sophomore, I was a newly appointed Varsity soccer player. I also “admitted” to having a crush on a senior football player, and that I was secretly praying that he would ask me to the homecoming dance. In my opinion, I had a pretty good shot of attracting his interest by then because we had study hall together. It is fair to say that I was Basking in Reflective Glory.
In a chat room, it is very easy to manage an impression when it comes to descriptions of myself and the things I like. However, it is much more difficult to manage non-verbal behavior as well as sets, props, and lighting. The only sets, props, and lighting I put into use involved descriptions of my fake neighborhood, which were very brief. I said it was small, quiet, and I only lived two blocks from my high school. I was able to achieve some non-verbal communication, such as the use of emoticons. I would follow smug comments with a :) and playful comments with a ;-). If Clark became smug or sarcastic, I would readily respond with a :P. I will choose to argue that my other non-verbal communication came from the abbreviations and other types of Internet “lingo” that I used. For instance, I was not shy when using “LOL” or “OMG.” Though these abbreviations do portray actual words, the fact that somebody would use them does suggest a youthful, technologically comfortable personality.
FOR THURSDAY:
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Assignment 3- Me in a Man's Head
For this assignment I chose the first option and I decided to pick a chat room as the psychological space, since I now knew how to use one. I used the same website that I used for the last assignment, http://www.chatfamily.com/, however went into the adult chat room this time around, for people 18 and older. Since I had the opportunity to change my identity I figured I'd play an older man, because when else am I going to do something like that. I decided that since I was pretending to be a man, I would chat with a woman and see what it felt like to be on the other side of the conversation.
I entered the chat room and found that there had already been a lot of sexual comments made in the conversation, as I had expected. I watched the conversation for a minute before I took part in the chat with simply "hey everyone". The username I picked was a stereotypical male username; hockeyguy76. I mostly got responses from what I thought to be females. After a couple minutes I entered a private chat with one of these potential targets, cutechick11. We covered the basics first; name, sex, age. Then we went into more details like what she enjoyed doing and what her hobbies were. She seemed like she was maybe trying to be the typical girl who enjoyed shopping, getting her nails done, and hanging out with friends. This made me think that maybe she was also taking on an alternate persona, which in itself made me form an impression that she may be dishonest.
Using the self presentation model to present myself was difficult in this situation because I was not actually presenting myself, but a fake person. However, I still presented some of myself because I was trying to act out the impressions I have of an older man. When talking to cutechick11 I mostly used my "ought self" becuase I was trying to act how I thought I should be acting. According to what I told my target, I was 25 years old, a hockey player, very tall, lived in brooklyn, and was looking for a relationship. I told her that I graduated from an Ivy league university, was really athletic and that I was really active in my community. This is a form of me expressing my "ideal self" as these are two qualities that I have always strived to possess.
I entered the chat room and found that there had already been a lot of sexual comments made in the conversation, as I had expected. I watched the conversation for a minute before I took part in the chat with simply "hey everyone". The username I picked was a stereotypical male username; hockeyguy76. I mostly got responses from what I thought to be females. After a couple minutes I entered a private chat with one of these potential targets, cutechick11. We covered the basics first; name, sex, age. Then we went into more details like what she enjoyed doing and what her hobbies were. She seemed like she was maybe trying to be the typical girl who enjoyed shopping, getting her nails done, and hanging out with friends. This made me think that maybe she was also taking on an alternate persona, which in itself made me form an impression that she may be dishonest.
Using the self presentation model to present myself was difficult in this situation because I was not actually presenting myself, but a fake person. However, I still presented some of myself because I was trying to act out the impressions I have of an older man. When talking to cutechick11 I mostly used my "ought self" becuase I was trying to act how I thought I should be acting. According to what I told my target, I was 25 years old, a hockey player, very tall, lived in brooklyn, and was looking for a relationship. I told her that I graduated from an Ivy league university, was really athletic and that I was really active in my community. This is a form of me expressing my "ideal self" as these are two qualities that I have always strived to possess.
Assignment 3: Adventures of My Mind
The psychological space on the Internet that I decided to go into was the chat room. I used the same website as last time which is called www.userplane.com. The website’s program was fairly simple to use and because I had some experience and therefore I knew I would be able to do an identity switch by pretending to be older. Out of all the options listed for the identity switch, I don’t think I would have been able to form an impression of someone of the opposite sex because I don’t know exactly how the female mind works. This is a synchronous space since people were talking at real time, so the room for error when talking as a female to a guy was very large and very risky.
Since I have used this program before and failed due to an uninteresting screen name, I decided to start this assignment off properly by using my NET ID as my screen name since its more professional looking. The only adjustment though was that I changed the numbers to 85, so if they asked I would say that the significance was the year I was born making me 21. For today my name is “jas 85” and I am a 21 year old from New York City. In reality, I live right out side New York City, but more people would be interested in a city image then in a place that no one really knows that much about.
Now with a new image in mind I am ready to start chatting, and within 5 minutes of entering the room and just saying hi, I had 2 private messages. The first message was a woman in her 40’s thinking that I was older because the first thing she asked was a/s/l. However, the next IM was from a different screen name, “Belly_Dancer.” My first thought was she is going to probably be a very cute girl who can dance, two qualities I like a girl to have. She started the conversation off by asking me how I was and what I had planned for today; now my mind had to shift to a 21 year old’s mind who lives in New York City. I told her I was probably going to run in Central Park, meet up with my friends for lunch and hopefully figure out what we were going to do tonight. After I said that she said that New York City was one of her favorite cities and that she wants to go back again sometime. After I found this out I showed off my city knowledge of the night clubs, restaurants, sporting events, shows, and anything else that went on in the city. It was very cool to show off to her since she said she was from a small town in North Carolina and was only able to see a couple of attractions in the Big Apple.
We continued to talk about other things besides NYC like our hobbies and activities we like to do. Suddenly I realized that during the last assignment I never asked for the woman’s name so this time I asked and she told me her name was Tina. Names can really create an image; I knew a Tina from High School who shared many of the same interests as this woman so I started to think of Tina from home and just by switching some characteristics around, I formed my new Southern Tina, an amazingly good looking girl who is very fun and athletic. After about 10-15 minutes of talking, I returned to reality because she told me that she would want to come visit me sometime since I was very sociable and cool. Now my image of Tina went from being a perfectly nice girl to being weird and too forward. I also felt a little nervous since I’m not 21 and I don’t live in the city but outside of it. Due to these uncomfortable feelings, I decided it was time to end the conversation and head off to “central park” or in realty go grab some lunch and finish my analysis of what different techniques I used in the conversation.
After reading over my discussion, I came to the conclusion that I had used both the "self-presentational tactics" and also the "multiple selves" theories that we had read and discussed in class. I used the ideal self, ought self, and actual self model while I was talking with her because I was trying to be someone else; however that person I was pretending to be was me just 3 years older and also doing things I wish I was able to do. I expressed at times qualities that I strived to have, qualities I felt I should have, as well as qualities that I had at the present time. Despite the multiple selves theories I also used the self-presentational tactics. During my conversation with Tina, I gave a hidden self-description (I didn’t tell her straight out but it came out through the questions she asked). I gave an attitude expression which described certain attributes that I possessed and listed some fake social associations, and used Sets, Props, and lighting to a certain degree as well. Throughout my conversation, I didn’t consciously plan to use any of these theories listed above, but after reviewing the conversation, I realized I used all of them pretty extensively.
Since I have used this program before and failed due to an uninteresting screen name, I decided to start this assignment off properly by using my NET ID as my screen name since its more professional looking. The only adjustment though was that I changed the numbers to 85, so if they asked I would say that the significance was the year I was born making me 21. For today my name is “jas 85” and I am a 21 year old from New York City. In reality, I live right out side New York City, but more people would be interested in a city image then in a place that no one really knows that much about.
Now with a new image in mind I am ready to start chatting, and within 5 minutes of entering the room and just saying hi, I had 2 private messages. The first message was a woman in her 40’s thinking that I was older because the first thing she asked was a/s/l. However, the next IM was from a different screen name, “Belly_Dancer.” My first thought was she is going to probably be a very cute girl who can dance, two qualities I like a girl to have. She started the conversation off by asking me how I was and what I had planned for today; now my mind had to shift to a 21 year old’s mind who lives in New York City. I told her I was probably going to run in Central Park, meet up with my friends for lunch and hopefully figure out what we were going to do tonight. After I said that she said that New York City was one of her favorite cities and that she wants to go back again sometime. After I found this out I showed off my city knowledge of the night clubs, restaurants, sporting events, shows, and anything else that went on in the city. It was very cool to show off to her since she said she was from a small town in North Carolina and was only able to see a couple of attractions in the Big Apple.
We continued to talk about other things besides NYC like our hobbies and activities we like to do. Suddenly I realized that during the last assignment I never asked for the woman’s name so this time I asked and she told me her name was Tina. Names can really create an image; I knew a Tina from High School who shared many of the same interests as this woman so I started to think of Tina from home and just by switching some characteristics around, I formed my new Southern Tina, an amazingly good looking girl who is very fun and athletic. After about 10-15 minutes of talking, I returned to reality because she told me that she would want to come visit me sometime since I was very sociable and cool. Now my image of Tina went from being a perfectly nice girl to being weird and too forward. I also felt a little nervous since I’m not 21 and I don’t live in the city but outside of it. Due to these uncomfortable feelings, I decided it was time to end the conversation and head off to “central park” or in realty go grab some lunch and finish my analysis of what different techniques I used in the conversation.
After reading over my discussion, I came to the conclusion that I had used both the "self-presentational tactics" and also the "multiple selves" theories that we had read and discussed in class. I used the ideal self, ought self, and actual self model while I was talking with her because I was trying to be someone else; however that person I was pretending to be was me just 3 years older and also doing things I wish I was able to do. I expressed at times qualities that I strived to have, qualities I felt I should have, as well as qualities that I had at the present time. Despite the multiple selves theories I also used the self-presentational tactics. During my conversation with Tina, I gave a hidden self-description (I didn’t tell her straight out but it came out through the questions she asked). I gave an attitude expression which described certain attributes that I possessed and listed some fake social associations, and used Sets, Props, and lighting to a certain degree as well. Throughout my conversation, I didn’t consciously plan to use any of these theories listed above, but after reviewing the conversation, I realized I used all of them pretty extensively.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Assgnmt 3: You gotta be a pretty fly guy to get attention from the ladies...
For Assignment 3 I chose option one, and tried to see what it would be like to be a male in the world of chat rooms. I never go into chat rooms, so it is hard to compare the experience to a ‘normal’ one, however I am pretty sure as a female I would have received a lot more attention. I went in as “Hot_Lax_Tiger” hoping that people would assume I was a male who plays lacrosse. Basically, I was ignored in the chat room, and was not much more successful with my attempts for private conversations. I tried IMing three different girls, trying to make my opening as manly as possibly. I tried “yo,” “how’s it goin” and “Hey (insert name),” only to be ignored by all three. Eventually I IMed ‘Sunshine” and with the suave opening line of “Hey there Sunshine” my conversation began.
Using as many self presentation tactics as possible, I tried doing my best male impression to convince Sunshine (or Kathy, as I later found out) that I was the coolest guy ever. I failed miserably at first, by trying to sound cool and use the word ‘yo’ often, which she completely called me out on and made fun of me for. I immediately dropped using this phrase and instead focused on using social associations and attitude expression to develop my male persona. I tried thinking of how a guy would present himself in a chat session when trying to present his “ought self.” I tried to think of how boys normally act and their social norms and values. I figured the type of guy ‘hot_LAX_tiger” would be would be self promoting, cocky, and flirty. I tried to present my attitude accordingly by asking lots of questions to get a more physical description. Practically after everything she said I commented on how that made her so ‘hot’. As the conversation went on she “lol”-ed and giggled a lot more; in fact, once she found out I was a lacrosse player the emoticons and the number of exclamation points she used increased. I do not know if I became a better conversationalist after I admitted this fact, or if she became more interested in me, but after this point it was much easier to play the role of a male. After I associated myself with a sports team, I began basing my self description off of that. I told her I was 6’1 and buff
Pretending to be male in this type of space made it easier to deceive the receiver, because I did not need to worry about nonverbal behaviors and looking like a guy. Instead I had my screen name as a prop to prove I was a male, and was able to take advantage of the space and focus on “my male attributes.” I tried to engage in BIRK (“basking in reflective glory”) by talking about how athletic I am and how I go to Cornell. Unfortunately she was from Canada and never heard of Cornell, but I still tried my best to brag and express my macho, self-proud personality. Ordinarily, I try to be modest, so the whole situation was very strange for me. I also am a fan of using lots of emoticons myself, so it was strange to have to restrict myself from using them and overanalyzing the right way to phrase my responses. Overall, this experience taught me that when it comes to chat rooms and interactive chat rooms…it is much more fun to be a girl!
I posted comments on:
1. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=581857555076450706
2. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-who-uses-telephone-anymore.html
Using as many self presentation tactics as possible, I tried doing my best male impression to convince Sunshine (or Kathy, as I later found out) that I was the coolest guy ever. I failed miserably at first, by trying to sound cool and use the word ‘yo’ often, which she completely called me out on and made fun of me for. I immediately dropped using this phrase and instead focused on using social associations and attitude expression to develop my male persona. I tried thinking of how a guy would present himself in a chat session when trying to present his “ought self.” I tried to think of how boys normally act and their social norms and values. I figured the type of guy ‘hot_LAX_tiger” would be would be self promoting, cocky, and flirty. I tried to present my attitude accordingly by asking lots of questions to get a more physical description. Practically after everything she said I commented on how that made her so ‘hot’. As the conversation went on she “lol”-ed and giggled a lot more; in fact, once she found out I was a lacrosse player the emoticons and the number of exclamation points she used increased. I do not know if I became a better conversationalist after I admitted this fact, or if she became more interested in me, but after this point it was much easier to play the role of a male. After I associated myself with a sports team, I began basing my self description off of that. I told her I was 6’1 and buff
Pretending to be male in this type of space made it easier to deceive the receiver, because I did not need to worry about nonverbal behaviors and looking like a guy. Instead I had my screen name as a prop to prove I was a male, and was able to take advantage of the space and focus on “my male attributes.” I tried to engage in BIRK (“basking in reflective glory”) by talking about how athletic I am and how I go to Cornell. Unfortunately she was from Canada and never heard of Cornell, but I still tried my best to brag and express my macho, self-proud personality. Ordinarily, I try to be modest, so the whole situation was very strange for me. I also am a fan of using lots of emoticons myself, so it was strange to have to restrict myself from using them and overanalyzing the right way to phrase my responses. Overall, this experience taught me that when it comes to chat rooms and interactive chat rooms…it is much more fun to be a girl!
I posted comments on:
1. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=581857555076450706
2. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-who-uses-telephone-anymore.html
#3 -- Media Selection
For this assignment, I chose option 2. Although I had to choose some form of media for all of my social interactions this weekend, two stood out as more unique then usual: I needed to confront my housemate about not doing her share of the weekly chores, and I chose to lie to an acquaintance about not going to her dinner party. For the first situation, I chose face-to-face and calmly asked my housemate why she wasn’t keeping up her end of our four-person agreement. For the second situation I chose a mediated channel – text messaging – and claimed to be misinformed about the time and date of a dinner party (after the fact) since I felt uncomfortable attending. After considering my choice of media for each interaction, I realized that my patterns and reasoning fell in place with O’Sullivan’s model.
I chose to confront my housemate face-to-face because I wanted to be very clear about the issue at hand in order to ensure its resolution. This goes quite well with O’Sullivan’s idea of the clarity – ambiguity dialectic. I needed to choose a media that would allow me to be clear in my intentions, without angering my housemate or leaving room for misconceptions. Since the locus was on my housemate, I didn’t feel as inclined to choose a mediated channel. However, my choice in this matter may also reflect how well I know my housemate, the fact that I’m comfortable confronting her in such matters, and my desire to be amiable too. I believed a face-to-face interaction would give me more control over the confrontation and prevent any unnecessary controversy since we could engage in a completely synchronous discussion.
On the other hand, when I decided to lie to an acquaintance I chose text messaging which was probably related to personal self-presentational issues. I preferred a mediated channel because I didn’t necessarily want to be clear, or allow for cues that would suggest I was lying. I wanted to keep my white lie as simple and ambiguous as possible so as not to damage our relationship, or my self-presentation. In accordance with O’Sullivan’s model, I chose a mediated interaction when the locus was myself and the valence was negative. This may not have been the most efficient method of explaining my absence, but for something so minor, it certainly felt safer and easier.
In general, both of these media selections reflected ideas in O'Sullivan's model.
comments:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=5257425541769748811
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=5687063778743527603Assignment #3: Acting like a man is harder than I thought
This weekend I entered a chat room and attempted to identity switch. Instead of being myself, a 20 year old female, I pretended to be a 20 year old male. I found it was very difficult to pretend to be someone else, it seemed unnatural and contrived. I entered a chat room full of other college students, men and women included. I had to focus on every comment I made to make sure I was "talking like a male". I was not sure exactly how to act like a male, but some things I did differently to manage my impression included not using smiley faces as often, saying words like "yo" and "dude", and making crude side comments. I felt I did pretty good job managing my impression. No one questioned whether or not I was really a 20 year old male. After I got the hang of things, I began to realize how easy it is for people to identity switch and take on a different persona. Once you start to get into it, it becomes second nature.
The fact that I was in a chat room definitely affected how I formed my persona. I was able to use the self-presentation tactics of impression management to decide how to act like a male in the specific psychological space I was in, which was a chat room. For instance, my self-descriptions were different than if I had been writing a profile or an "about me". I had to be very short and concise..."20 year old male". I did not have the opportunity to describe myself more in depth and present my complete self. However, I was able to use attitude expressions to convey to the other people in the chat room what my personality was like. I talked about how I loved hip hop music. From this simple statement, the other people in the chat room could already make some judgments on what my attitude was like. I had a hard time using nonverbal behaviors in the chat room while I was trying to act like a man. I did not want to use smiley faces or a lot of punctuation, because that seemed feminine to me. I thought if I used more blunt phrases I would seem more like a male. The social associations tactic was probably the easiest to portray through the chat room. I told people that I went to Cornell University, so immediately they think that I am an intelligent and middle or upper class. I also said I was pre-med, which also made them think that I was smart and focused. I talked about some of the groups I am involved in on campus, like the Haitian Student Association. From this statement they could assume that I was a black 20 year old male. The hardest tactic to use in the chat room while managing my impression was sets, props, and lighting. In the chat room I chose not to send anyone pictures, or use any outside props, which limited how much I could use this tactic. The one set, prop, or lighting aspect that I could use was the font color. I changed my normally pink font, to a black one so I would seem more masculine.
At first it seemed very difficult to act like a male in a chat room. I was not sure exactly how to portray myself as a man. I had to ask myself how do men and women interact differently online. All of the things I thought were feminine I had to remove from my interactions. After a while it was easy to act like a man. It was almost like a role-playing game. The assignment overall made me much more aware of how easy it is for people to pretend to be some one else on the internet as long as they are aware of their impression management and how the psychological space can affect it.
The fact that I was in a chat room definitely affected how I formed my persona. I was able to use the self-presentation tactics of impression management to decide how to act like a male in the specific psychological space I was in, which was a chat room. For instance, my self-descriptions were different than if I had been writing a profile or an "about me". I had to be very short and concise..."20 year old male". I did not have the opportunity to describe myself more in depth and present my complete self. However, I was able to use attitude expressions to convey to the other people in the chat room what my personality was like. I talked about how I loved hip hop music. From this simple statement, the other people in the chat room could already make some judgments on what my attitude was like. I had a hard time using nonverbal behaviors in the chat room while I was trying to act like a man. I did not want to use smiley faces or a lot of punctuation, because that seemed feminine to me. I thought if I used more blunt phrases I would seem more like a male. The social associations tactic was probably the easiest to portray through the chat room. I told people that I went to Cornell University, so immediately they think that I am an intelligent and middle or upper class. I also said I was pre-med, which also made them think that I was smart and focused. I talked about some of the groups I am involved in on campus, like the Haitian Student Association. From this statement they could assume that I was a black 20 year old male. The hardest tactic to use in the chat room while managing my impression was sets, props, and lighting. In the chat room I chose not to send anyone pictures, or use any outside props, which limited how much I could use this tactic. The one set, prop, or lighting aspect that I could use was the font color. I changed my normally pink font, to a black one so I would seem more masculine.
At first it seemed very difficult to act like a male in a chat room. I was not sure exactly how to portray myself as a man. I had to ask myself how do men and women interact differently online. All of the things I thought were feminine I had to remove from my interactions. After a while it was easy to act like a man. It was almost like a role-playing game. The assignment overall made me much more aware of how easy it is for people to pretend to be some one else on the internet as long as they are aware of their impression management and how the psychological space can affect it.
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