4-2 Facebooking 101

First of all, I don't know about anyone else, but I think it's pretty cool that Prof. Hancock has a theory "named" after him(indirectly), and that his paper is read in his class. I'm sure a lot of Professors have theories, but he is the first one to apply it appropriately in class for me.

I chose to do the second option, the anatomy of a facebook profile. I talked to one of my dormmates and asked them to help me out and let me use their facebook.


I should preface this post by saying that I don't have a facebook, nor have a used it more than sparsely. I know the features, but I am not obsessed with whom "friended" whom or the like.


The basic info was all 100% (5) factual: A/S/L, graduation, school, phone and DOB. I would venture to say that only the most pedophilic of creepers lies about this information. There may be other reasons to lie about this but why, I am not sure.


Now into the juicy stuff. I found out that this kid is basically a "facebook whore". (I am trademarking this if no one has used it before). He friends EVERYONE. I asked him about this and he said that it makes him feel more liked if he has more friends, kind of. He has friends that he's never met before. God is his friend, so are about 3 people named Pam Anderson, and one named Brit Spears. Iasked him if he was really friends with God and he informed me that "Jesus was his homie". People that he has told me he hates or cannot stand are still his facebook friends.

This leads into deceptions about feelings in CMC or FtF. Although not a theory, it does say something towards the secondary results of the study about deceptions of feelings. Clearly my friend is either decieving these "friends" in facebook or in FtF, (or he could be lying to me, which is an interesting alternative and would make the subject of a great comment).

I feel like this friend lied about feelings more online and a little FtF, but was completely honest about accomplishments. Quantifying friending people as deceptive was hard because I also had to consider his honesty with me in the past. I gave him a 2 because I was not sure, but I was sure to ask him about it.

He said that people who knew him saw his facebook. Most of them knew where he was from or what he had done. Lying here would only lead to thr digging of his own grave while trying to get out from being buried under a cycle of deception.

Social Distance theory would predict that the lying occured in facebook, which it didn't if you look at it one way; however, people who follow this theory could argue that he was lying in facebook when he friended them. People on the other side of the fence would say that he was lying FtF when he pretended to like them. This is an interesting concept that is very ambiguous and unclear.

As I said before, only very "special" (and I mean that in the weirdest creepiest possible way) people lie about this and they usually have a "special" motive, be it sexual, financial, or furry (LOL) in nature.

3 Quest for Spinach

The O'Sullivan model predicts that people choose their communication medium based on the valence and locus of their message. For example, if I'm delivering bad news about myself (negative valence, self locus) then I'm more likely to choose an impersonal and ambiguous medium than if I'm delivering good news about others (positive valence, other locus).

The problem with using this communication strategy is that although it's statically efficient, it's dynamically inefficient. That is, even though it may be helpful for your reputation in the short term, it may ultimately be damaging in the long term. Seth Godin, the famous marketing guru, provides some excellent insight into this on his blog:

I bought some spinach at the farmer's market yesterday. The fact that the woman who grew it is the same person as the woman who sold it to me made the transaction fundamentally different than buying the same spinach in a bag at the A&P. It's not really surprising that factory farming keeps serving us poisons and side effects. It's fundamentally anonymous. [...]

This is the giant advantage of the small. Small organizations have the privilege of looking their customers in the eye. Small doesn't necessarily mean small in numbers. It's an attitude. Does your organization require a form to get something done, or does one human choose to interact with another? Does bad news come in the form of memos that obfuscate the truth, or is it delivered face to face?

Seth's point is that you should "Try to do as much as you can in person. Or by phone. Especially the hard stuff." Why? It makes you a better person. If you have to deliver bad news face to face, you work harder to make the situation right in the first place. So even if delivering bad news face to face involves taking a short term hit to your reputation, in the long run the extra integrity and effort you put forth should leave you in a much better place.

Musical Interlude:

Its the early 1990s,
space travel is frequent;
Everybody's wearing
silver hair with sequins
They're going to the moon
to party their butts off,
But I'm down here,
looking for the green stuff.

Quest for spinach!
I need my greens.
Quest for spinach!
I need my greens.
Quest for spinach!
I need my greeeeeeens...

Godin wrote this anecdote almost a year ago to the day, and I've been using his system ever since. I've even partially succeeded in getting a few other people hooked. In addition to the "media selection" of the spinach vendor, I'd like to offer up an example from my person life. A few weeks ago I drove down to Boston to deliver bad news to a friend. Seven hours of driving (each way) for three minutes of socially awkward conversation. But hey, I'm pretty socially awkward anyway, so whatever. As it turned out, talking "f2f" didn't do much to ameliorate the situation. But something else happened that weekend too. Before going back to Ithaca I dropped in on another friend who was living in the area. And as it turned out, we had a great time together. What had started out as a depressing weekend ended up being pretty awesome. So what does this have to do with the O'Sullivan model? Let me explain.

While O'Sullivan's model might describe the most common strategy for choosing a medium of communications, the most common strategy is by no means the best. The good news is that by learning about these tendencies we can teach ourselves to override them, trading a small decrease in short term static efficiency for a huge boost in dynamic efficiency over time. This is leadership. Communication is more than good spelling and grammar. It's about making other people feel comfortable. And the marketplace reflects this. Emotional intelligence is by far and away the number one mediating variable of future earnings potential. So what's the takeaway here? To quote Seth once again

Try to do as much as you can in person. Or by phone. Especially the hard stuff.

At the very least it'll force you to get dressed and leave the house. And you never know, something serendipitous just might happen along the way.

3: Sargent Julia answers the Call of Duty.

In high school, I played some World War II computer games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, and I found they were far more interesting as multiplayer games against other real people than in single-player beat-the-mission mode. My opponents were more competitive, more intelligent, and better at the game itself than a computer could hope to be. Recently I picked up my copy of Call of Duty 2 and played just for nostalgia's sake (read: I got frustrated with Microsoft Pinball), but this time, I changed my handle. Usually, my online gaming persona is "a defenseless baby seal" (because when you kill your enemy online, a message pops up that says "You killed ________" and I like them to feel extra guilty about it). But this time, I thought I'd try a nice newbie girl name like "Sargent Julia".

The reason it's so easy for guys to impersonate girls in a male-dominated online environment is that we know what we think they sound like. To clarify, not what girls think girls sound like, but what guys think girls sound like. I have to say, Milan's post really resonated with me--everything about first-person shooters screams MALE, and if a girl shows up, i.e. one of the players expresses that she is a girl, it throws a wrench into the works. It's not that online gamers don't like girls, it's that they're not used to them. So my mission as Sargent Julia's impression manager was to find as many ways as possible to express that I was indeed a teenage girl playing on her brother's computer, and see if I thought my co-players believed me. Here are the two main avenues of expression I chose:

* I chatted incessantly. Usually the chat function is used to tell people "nice shot" or "thanks" because otherwise it takes time away from the game. But socially-oriented Julia kept up a constant stream of text about how she was new at the game, bad at the game, "you scared me! :) lol", etc.

* I played like a newbie: running around in open fields for no reason, firing my pistol into the air for fun, conspicuously falling out of windows occasionally, and (especially) bunny-hopping: using the "jump" button to hop-hop-hop and never stop. This made me very easy to identify as Sargent Julia.

Also worth noting: I played mostly in a Deathmatch game, which means that any time someone had the chance to shoot me, they were supposed to.

I played for an hour, on three different servers, and by the end I was pretty pleased with how I had managed my impression, because I had been treated very differently than "a defenseless baby seal" is usually treated. Each time, after everyone had killed me once or twice and connected Sargent Julia's name and chat to her bunny-hopping, I found that I actually got shot much less often, and more tellingly, only by the same people. Often the worst players would keep firing at me (I suppose they needed the points), but the winning players would let me obliviously bunny-hop past them off a cliff. Also, I've played with Call of Duty as a psychological space before, and when gender-ambiguous ADBSeal types in haikus or comments on life in general in the chat section, he gets an overwhelmingly negative reaction; Sargent Julia might have been at a Christmas tea party between the Russians and Germans for the way her comments were treated. A barrage of advice ("try to take cover more often", "don't jump so much!") and encouragement mostly drowned out the occasional "you... really suck." And although I was at one point put up for a vote to be kicked off the server (honestly, acting like that kind of ruins the game), I immediately got ten "NO" voters on my side. Apparently having a girl around wasn't the worst thing in the world for the Nazis with machine guns who were trying to secure downtown Carentan.

I think this is a tricky situation for applying the multiple-selves model, since I was being deeply disingenuous. But I can easily classify my actions as self-presentational tactics: I routinely used the text chat to let the other players know who Sargent Julia was and how she felt about the game, which covers self-descriptions and attitude expressions. I also nonverbally told everyone I was a walking (jumping) bullseye by my horrible strategy. Of course, social association didn't present too many opportunities. But the one time I switched to Team Deathmatch and my team won, I basked in the reflected glory of my team--"hey! we won!! good job team ;)" and they nobly ignored my failure to contribute. (1 kill, 13 deaths. RIP, Sarge.)

Assignment 3: Landlord Beatdown

When I moved out of my first living arrangement this semester my landlord assured me that my security deposit would be returned to me. She informed me that the best way to reach her during the school year is via e-mail. So, after verbally confirming with her the method and the time frame in which she would send me the security deposit check, I sent a follow-up e-mail with the necessary information for our transaction. I let her know that I will be moving out of the residence by “X” time and I gave her the new address, so that she could send the check.

Naturally, when I moved into my new apartment the September rent was due and I was tight for money from multiple relocations. My previous landlord told me that I would have the security deposit in time to pay for my September rent, so when I did not hear from her or receive a check I was concerned. I felt that it was necessary to have a more personal mode of communication. I called her cell phone but it went straight to voicemail, so I left her a message, reiterating my e-mail, stating that I had moved out of the room and she could send my security deposit to “X” address.

Today, I still have not received the security deposit. Since other mediums have failed, my next step is to attempt a face-to-face interaction. Although it is out of my way to go down to where she lives because it is far and I never know when she is going to be home, it seems the time spent to track her down is necessary to retrieve me money.

My actions are explained best by the Media Richness Theory. As the equivocality of the communication task changed, so did the richness of the medium. At first, the task was not vague (or at least it appeared not to be vague); therefore, I just sent an e-mail which is a lean channel. There was no need to language variety, message personalization, or even availability of feedback because we had discussed the terms of the refund before hand. All the e-mail was supposed to be was a confirmation. Yet, as the communication task got more ambiguous and complicated I felt that it was necessary for a richer medium, telephone. I thought this would allow me to understand the situation better and faster than trying to communicate through e-mail because I would have more cues to determine the situation from and language variety. Also, I needed a fast response since I was trying to use my refund as a means to pay for my September rent, which was quickly approaching. After my attempts to call failed, since she did not answer the phone (a voice message is not as effective because it is only one way), I felt that it was necessary to attempt the richest medium, face to face communication. Face to face will be the most effective because she will understand the severity of the situation. She will be able to tell my overall attitude from my facial expression, posture, tone of voice. The feedback will be immediate: either I will leave with the check in my hand or I most likely will not be getting the refund. The message is highly personalized because I am meeting with her in person.

Another reason my actions follow the Media Richness Theory is because I was trying to be as efficient as possible. I started off using the medium that she said was the most convenient to her and which cost me the least amount of energy. I gave her a call only because I was trying to get things done efficiently because of the time constraints. Now that all the other options have been exercised and failed I am using the least efficient method now, but probably the most effective at this point.

Assignment 3 - In which I have way too much fun with homework

The default assumption is basically this: if you're on the Internet, you are male until otherwise noted.

There are specific psychological spaces where this simply doesn't apply (e.g. Livejournal; the overwhelming majority of users are female), but I've noticed over the years that I can enter virtually any space and as long as my username can be construed as "gender-neutral," I will invariably be referred to as 'he' within a short span of time.

I've found it easier to allow people this assumption, especially considering the subject matter of the online communities I participate in. Video game forums are typically and perhaps unsurprisingly sexist; you may form your own hypotheses/jokes as to why. I avoid a lot of negative stereotypes associated with women in general or 'girl gamers, as well as the hormone-and anonymity-driven battle-cry of "NUDE PIX PLZ" (in more extreme cases) in this manner.

In turn, this makes it easier for me to manage others' impressions of whatever online persona I'm using at the time, but it also means I have to work that much harder to elicit any sort of response at all from the other users. A guy can fade into the crowd, so to speak, whereas this is near-impossible in a lot of instances once one has identified as female. In the latter case, I can work within a framework (however unfavorable that may be). In the former: I have to create it.

For the purposes of this assignment I registered two accounts - 'Confederate' (male) and 'coNfIdAnt' (female) - on a gaming forum I had neither heard of nor participated in previously. I set my goal as to get one-hundred posts within a week on both accounts, or however close I could manage before I was warned for posting excessively.

I didn't bother to set up proxies or take any other measures to avoid detection, because I didn't think this audience had any hope of catching on. I immediately noticed that coNfIdAnt got more views and replies to her introductory post that was originally placed in the wrong section, (a moderator moved it) and said very little of note except "hi im a gurl and i like games." Confederate was more detailed, but his welcome was not as genial by comparison.

coNfIdAnt chose to share in a general "Who are you" type thread that she was 17-years-old, loved anime and 'games like Final Fantasy,' and cosplayed regularly. Confederate was 20 years old, greatly preferred RTSs (Real-Time Strategy) to RPGs (Role-Playing Games), and had very "mainstream" musical tastes. I purposely played into a lot of stereotypes for the female account (complete with random and nonsensical capitalization), but left a very vague and general picture for the male persona.

Naturally, I mainly engaged them in discussions that conformed to what I specified as "defining" aspects of their personality, but for the sake of experimentation I made two notable deviations. coNfIdAnt posted in an ongoing discussion about a specific RTS that she had no idea what that kind of game was but thought it was kind of stupid to "jus shoot stuff" and hoped someone could explain. Rather than berate her for derailing the thread and expressing a completely uninformed opinion, the active participants calmly answered her questions, recommended titles, and ended with the standard courtesy note of "come to me if you need any more help."

Confederate wasn't so fortunate. He entered a thread concerning what the users thought was the best RPG of all time, and expressed the same opinion though in an intentionally less-confrontational way. "What do you guys even get from these?" The posters were immediately defensive; one launched into a diatribe on how people don't consider RPGs "real games" and how this is partially the fault of the Xbox console. It wasn't pertinent to the assignment so I stopped reading after the 10th line. Confederate actually apologized for being offensive, and asked if the other members could recommend any decent titles. The responses ranged from dismissive, "That's really something you have to figure out for yourself," to 'casually inconsiderate':

" 1. Go to store.

2. Buy game.

3. Play.

4. ????

5. PROFIT!!!!"

I then began to post solely to drive up my post count; most of the posts were one-liners that contributed little or nothing to the subject at hand that hadn't already been expressed. coNfIdAnt often got responses to her one-liners, which were frequently non-sequiturs, whereas Confederate remained on topic but received occasional offhanded reprimands from the older members for "spamming." Eventually, the target number grew near, and I decided that it was time for coNfIdAnt to reply to her slew of private messages. I singled out one poster that seemed particularly interested and traded PMs for two days, during which she received all manner of e-hugs and a "candid" picture of the guy holding his dog. I suppose he wished her to perceive him as “sensitive,” which is a trait magazines like to say women look for in a potential partner.

I figured my point was proven in her case, and continued to strive towards the goal with Confederate. The only private message he received was somewhere around the 85 post mark, and it was a vaguely intimidating message from the administrator that "people are complaining about you" and to "stop spamming or you're out of here." I inquired as to what exactly I'd done wrong besides being overly talkative, and he (gender was indicated in the "who are you" thread mentioned previously) became very authoritarian and pulled the "don't contradict the forum gods" card on me. It was just as well, because I had all the data I needed.

I deliberately chose this forum after browsing for about an hour because I noticed it seemed a bit hostile towards new members. This observation proved consistent in the case of Confederate and failed for coNfIdAnt because of what I chose to convey about the latter, and perhaps what I didn't regarding the former. I find it interesting that I never required the use of props, though I would have incorporated pictures and fleshed out complete and believable identities for the two of them if I'd had more time to work with. I would also like to note that I didn't consider the impression of Confederate's name; the term has a definite connotative meaning pertaining the Civil War, but I was thinking of the "individual who assists in a plan/plot" definition, which makes "confidant" a logical choice for the other persona. There is a chance that a certain percentage of members believed him to be a sympathizer of the failed confederacy and at least subconsciously assumed a tacit approval of slavery on his part.

Either way, this experiment clearly demonstrates the significance of what you choose to present vs. what you don't in an online psychological space if you wish other users to perceive you in a certain way. To re-state my earlier point; a lot of this is indeed dependent on gender. I never gave coNfIdAnt any semblance of a personality beyond a vague stereotype, whereas Confederate was a lot more "solid," so to speak, and the member-base reacted more strongly and positively to her average-ness than his, even though there was far less information to work with.

3 My Media Selection

Medium Selection # 1:

During a break between my classes, I decided to check Facebook to kill some time before I having to enter lecture. As I was checking my messages, I noticed that a new message lay unattended. Generally, I am very good with responding to messages promptly, so this new message came as a surprise, considering that it was about 1 week old. The message was from one of my co-workers, who wanted to give me information about when the next staff meeting would be, as well as what would be discussed. In the message, he explained that he resorted to Facebook in light of the fact that I had not replied to my Cornell email. I knew that I was in the wrong, but I also knew that once I did respond I needed to make sure I had some sort of explanation. In short, I had to lie, which is something I am horrible at doing over the phone, and especially in person. Thus, I decided to respond via the medium that offered most room for an invention of the truth- good old Facebook.

Medium Selection # 2:

One night, before shutting off my computer, I did one final round of email checking. As a student, particularly an involved student, one gets a swarm of emails daily regarding everything under the sun. In a mere 15 minutes one can accumulate as many as 20 emails in the blink of an eye. Thus, just as I suspected, when I opened my email there were a ton of unread messages screaming for attention. I began the process of deleting the undesirable ones, and then I noticed a couple that were a little outlandish. The senders were not college students, but in fact the individuals who I had worked with this summer during my internship. I felt really bad because upon my departure I assured everyone that I would routinely keep in touch, however once classes got going this was not the case. Anyway, when I clicked on the messages, a prompt came up informing me that the send wanted to be notified when I read the email. In my mind I knew that I did not have adequate time to construct a suitable response, but I knew that if I opened it and did not respond they might think that I just brushed them off. Thus I closed my email and decided to call their offices in the morning to check in. It was perfect because I could sound interested an engaged, but also multi-task.

Reflection/Analysis:

The aforementioned situations speak to O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model. According to O'Sullivan's model, people are aware of the fact that mediated communication channels allow for the management of a certain degree of ambiguity and clarity, implementing such characteristics as a means of managing information that is deemed self-relevant. According to the Impression Management Model, the two influencing factors include the valence, which means whether or not the self-presentation is perceived as being threatened as opposed to supported and the locus, which is whether or not an individual's personal or another individual's self-presentation is at stake.

With respect to the first situation where I had to communicate with my coworker about my inability to respond in a timely fashion, I perceived the valence to be "negative" and the locus to be "self". As a result, I chose to use Facebook, a form of mediated communication, in lieu of another richer medium such as meeting up in person in the library or calling her during one of my breaks from class. the reason why I chose to use Facebook was because I knew that I would show signs that I was lying about the reason why I did not respond. Clearly, I did not want this information to be known so I needed to find a way to mask it. Facebook allowed me to now have to worry about me "leaking" any cues that would indicate my deception as I blatantly presented untrue information.

With respect to the second aforementioned situation I decided to use an unmediated channel that was more rich. I realize that I had such a good experience this summer working with the women in my department, and I genuinely wanted to speak to them, but was just cautious of how I would be perceived. There was no need to hide or cower away from such communication because I was actually looking forward to speaking with them, and I wanted to convey that in the best possible way.

3 - Media Selection Woes

“You haven't seen Star Wars?!?” Two weeks ago, during the few minutes leading up to lecture, this exclamation among a group of friends set the path to a movie night.

In order to invite people, one can individually call, text, speak to, or send out facebook invites, among other possibilities. O'Sullivan's model suggests the use of a more mediated interaction through text, instant messaging, or email. This is due to the possibility of the valence being negative when an invitee has to decline. In order to avoid the discomfort associated with failed plans, mediated interactions would be better in that they hide non verbal cues that indicate said discomfort. The invitee is saved from seeing the disappointment of the inviter and the inviter is saved from dealing with having to assure the invitee that it was okay to decline.

I settled on face to face communication to invite people, seeing as how many of my friends are in my classes. My choice of FtF seems to apply Media Richness Theory. While some may argue that simple asynchronous text messaging is efficient enough to pass on invitation information, it's important to take into consideration the goal of the exchange. To clarify, while inviting people, my goal was to have a very early estimate as to how many people would actually come, not just to throw out invitations. Text messages can be easily ignored and responses may be weaker commitments. FtF, on the other hand, is a richer medium and the extra cues, such as hesitation, vagueness, mindlessness, can provide a stronger sense of when people really intend to go, or are simply trying to be polite. The efficient choice was clear; FtF.

As for the second media selection, I chose to examine a morphing or changing media selection. At least for myself, I often send out a text message to a friend asking if they've eaten lunch yet and depending on their response I may change my media selection. The initial text message follows the O'Sullivan Theory in that the possibility of negative valence due to negative responses (“Yes I've already eaten” or “no, but I'm not hungry”) led me to use the mediated, buffered media. If they respond negatively it is easy to text back, “ok, catch you later”. Imagine, the same taking place over a phone conversation:

1: “Hey, just wondering, have you eaten yet?”

2: “Not really hungry.”

1: “Oh, uh, ok. Um, bye.”

However, if they respond positively, I usually change my media selection and call the person in order to exchange details on where to eat, and when to meet. This change to a richer medium for more efficient exchange follows the Media Richness Theory.

It is interesting to see how I, “test the waters,” with a text, in line with O'Sullivan Theory, but can easily change media selection to fit MRT due to the evolving situation.

Comment 1

Comment 2

3 - It's Never That Simple

Medium Selection 1

As I was procrastinating on Facebook, I was reminded that it was a close friend’s birthday. The only problem was that I was not reminded by a Facebook notice but rather by the close friend herself. She messaged me asking why I didn’t call her to wish her a happy birthday two weeks ago and that she was disappointed. I felt horrible and decided to call her to explain how busy I was but instead I ended up sending her a two page essay through email.

Medium Selection 2

On a Saturday night I spent the whole night watching a friend study for his quiz on Monday. I was watching TV for most of the time but the main point is that I was with him while he was struggling and complaining about how Econ is ruining his life. He managed to get some studying done and ended up passing his first Econ quiz on Monday. Right after I found I wanted to show him how excited I was so I invited him out to dinner to congratulate him in person.

Analysis

The two situations described confirm O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model. His model suggests that individuals recognize the capacity of mediated communication channels to manage ambiguity and clarity and use those to manage self-relevant information. Two influencing factors are the locus (whether one’s own or one’s partner’s self-presentation is at issue) and the valence (whether the self-presentation is perceived to be threatened or supported).

In the first situation in which I had to confess that I had forgotten her birthday, I perceived the valence to be “negative” and the locus to be “self” and therefore, chose to use email (mediated channel) instead of a richer one such as telephone or face-to-face. Although if I had explained to her face-to-face I would have been able to read her nonverbal reactions immediately, I needed a “buffer” to reduce the embarrassment and distress of disclosing the negative information.

In the second situation I chose a rich and unmediated channel to express my genuine praise for my friend because the expected valence was positive and the locus was his self-presentation. There was no need for a buffer to play the news down and there were great benefits to congratulating him through a high clarity channel such as being able to share experience with him with hugs.

My experiences confirm O’Sullivan’s model while they disprove the Media Richness theory, which says that individuals simply seek high and low efficiency in making channel choices. Perhaps it may be most efficient to pursue simply efficiency but the difficulty I had in making my choices reveal that it’s never that simple.



Comment 1: Comm 245 Blue: 3 Quest for Spinach
Comment 2: Comm 245 Blue: 3 Where dem beautiful grlz at??

3 Where dem beautiful grlz at??

I've always thought that if I were a man, I'd get any girl that I wanted because I would be 'sensitive', 'considerate', 'talk about my feelings', and do all the things that a woman would want a man to do. So when I saw Assignment #3 posted on Blackboard, I thought, here is the very chance to prove myself. It's unfortunate that I'm a straight, 21-year-old woman with a wasted talent, but the challenge remained interesting nonetheless.

My quest for affirmation began in a Yahoo Messenger Chatroom, where I took on the identity of Chris Canlas, a 20-something-year-old male from NYC. It took me several tries with different chatrooms before I could find an audience that was willing to discuss more with me than their webcams. After changing from room after room of "Local NYC singles", I ventured into an R&B and Hip-Hop music room where I found real people. I was prematurely confident of my skills to "win over a woman" that I didn't realize how much impression management would play a role in my newfound persona. For my self-presentation tactics, I suddenly took on the attitude expressions of a black male, using online abbreviations and colloquialisms typical of black males. My best friend, who is West Indian, explained to me that black males tend to be hypermasculine, which in my mind gave me the perfect persona for this task. My sets, props, and lighting consisted of the screenname "Stevie768" and a simple black Arial font - men aren't too fussy about their font and font color. I had to somehow maintain my credibility as a man with "ghettospeak" and a straightforward demeanor (ought self) without indulging too much in my sensitive and inqusitive side (true self), lest someone discovers I am acutally a woman. Also, as a guy, I had to hit on girls.

I entered the "Hip-Hop and R&B Room" and had interesting conversations with two women named toya20087 and myhrtblngs2u (these conversations were in instant message form). toya20087 was a 23-year-old female who asked me what race I was upon first meeting me. Judging from her screenname, I thought she was black, and that I would have a difficult time maintaining my new persona since she could probably see right through it. I told her I was "1/2 chicano, 1/2 filipino," which was closer to the truth (I am full Filipina), and which I would have an easier time maintaining. The "actual self" that I portrayed to toya20087 strayed a bit from the "ought self" I attempted to maintain, but I wasn't daunted. My goal was to maintain a fusion between what I thought a man should have been, and what a woman's curious and concerned personality can be. I had a good conversation with myhrtblngs2u, an 18-year-old girl who plans on attending Virginia Tech. She was doing her AP Biology homework when she was talking to me, so I related to her by saying that I was a Biology major at Cornell (which is true). I also mentioned that I aspired to attend medical school, increasing my credibility. We continued to talk about her aspirations for going to VT, and as I asked her questions about how she thought the tragic events of last year were going to affect her attendance to the school, she began to open up to me. With myhrtblngs2u, I thought I struck a better balance between my ought self and my true self, as described in the last paragraph, because I was able to get myhrtblngs2u to talk comfortably to me. She did, however, show me a picture of herself in a bikini, and was possibly enticed by the idea of talking to a “college man”. Yikes! Of course, this has several other implications for what kind of impression myhrtblngs2u is trying to make with people she meets online. Impression management can be a delicate and frightening thing if one is not careful with it.

Stevie768: aite peace

Stevie768: u best get an A on ur bio hw

Stevie768: cuz u was talkin 2 me

Stevie768: haha

myhrtblngs2u: lol ill try you my good luck charm

myhrtblngs2u: ight i ttyl

Stevie768: lata shawty

3 Me as a younger person

For my previous blog post, I searched Google for student chat rooms. One of the rooms I found was a student chat for teens. Although I skipped over it for the previous assignment, I went back this week for this post.

I took on the identity of a 13 year old male. When I entered the chat, some of the users asked me about my age, sex and location. I explained that I was from the east coast, but was careful not too divulge too much information about myself. I wanted to feel out the situation, and see how other people chatted with each other before jumping in and risking revealing my true identity (a 21 year old). The other users, on the other hand, were freely talking about school cliques, what they did for fun, and what their towns were like. Some of them found common ground with each other, and some could not relate. I finally joined in, saying that I play lots of sports. Some users said that they also played sports for their school teams, and some identified themselves as star athletes.

I was careful about the things I said; I had to go back to the mindset of a middle school student, and remember the things that were important to me back then. Because of CMC, the users were not able to actual see that I am actually a 21 year old female. Due to the lack of cues, such as my facial expressions and voice, I was able to pretend to be this younger person.

It's frightening how easy it was to deceive people. Before this class, I have never gone into a chat room with members other than people I actually know (e.g. AIM chats for group projects). I wonder how many people pretend to be completely different people, age and gender wise, online? Are individuals entertained by pretending to be people they are not?

COMMENTS:

http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/media-selection-mrt-trumps-osullivan-in.html

http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/occupations-cause-stereotypes.html

3 -- Media selection --

For this week’s assignment I’ve decided to examine media selection and how it applies to my everyday experiences. The two instances I have decided to consider are: discussing schoolwork and inviting a friend out for a movie.

Wednesday night, my friend Shay sent me an IM me asking if we could talk. I didn’t know what was bothering her but she seemed very upset. As our conversation went on, she mentioned having a hard time with one of her classes. I immediately realized that instant messaging would not be the best medium of communication and ventured across Collegetown to her house. This proved to be a good decision as the type of interaction we had would not have been possible online. When I walked in her room, I gave her a hug. This, for instance, would not have possible online. Also, during our discussion (synchronous) I was able to understand the situation and her emotions by paying attention to facial expressions, body movements and gestures (another advantage to ftf). Shay and I discussed why she was having trouble in the class, what her options were and how to improve on her grades. These are all topics that could be ambiguous, vague and should not be discussed online (lack of “…multiple cue systems, immediate feedback, natural language and message personalization…”) and it would have been very easy to misinterpret each other’s comments. This follows the Media Richness Theory. The theory states that people match technology to the social context they find themselves in. Here I chose a rich media for more equivocal and complex communication activities.

Two nights later, on Friday, I decided to invite my friend Svetlana out to the movies. We both have extremely busy schedules and have been having a hard time meeting up. I decided to send her a text message. I chose this type of media for two main reasons: first because of its convenience. As alternatives I could have called Svetlana or I walked over to her house. Both these types of communications are synchronous, meaning that both her and I must to available at the same time to exchange messages in real time. Second, the information I conveyed was not in any way ambiguous, vague or deceptive. On the contrary, it was a simple and clear: “Superbad at 9:45?”. My media selection follows the Media Richness Theory as well. Here I chose a lean media (text message) because of the nature of my task (very unequivocal).

Finally, both my experiences supported the Media Richness Theory. The theory assumes that in the first case, a rich media is appropriate for a more equivocal task (comforting a friend.) In the second case, a lean media is appropriate for a less equivocal task (setting up a meeting time.)



COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-media-selection_2428.html

http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-its-never-that-simple.html

3 - Media selection

One media selection I have made was for an on line meeting with a website project team. We were having some friction amongst users and the administrators concerning some rules about using our project. We had a lengthy asynchronous discussion on our forum about some topics that contributed to this tension, but in the end we decided it was necessary to have a voice conference using VoIP (voice over IP). Users and administrators were able to clear up ambiguity created by the text discussion on the website, and in the end we resolved many issues, and gained a better understanding of ones that we did not get a chance to fix.

In this case, I leaned towards moving the discussion to a more rich medium (voice chat) over continuing in a leaner medium (asynchronous discussion forum.) The lessened cues in the discussion forum lead to misunderstandings and feelings of frustration in many participants, and in many cases were not intended. Most of the discussion was negative and directed at the project team. O'Sullivan's model predicts that I would prefer to keep the discussion in a leaner channel because of the valence (negative) and locus (self) of the communication. In this case however, Media Richness Theory was correct in predicting that I chose a richer medium because of the importance of the meeting. We needed to be extremely articulate and clear with ideas and arguments.

Another media selection I continually make is concerning cellphones. I use text messaging quite often, most of the time more often than voice calls. If I want to know what someone is up to, I prefer to send a text message over calling. When I need help understanding a complicated idea from class, voice calls work better for me than text messaging.

This sorting of communications into text messages and voice calls follows the Media Richness Theory. Knowing the plans of a friend for the approaching night are not high priority items during the day when I am working, so I choose to use a quick medium that is sufficient to get my message across. A voice call would be unnecessary in the sense it contained more cues than I needed to get the information I requested. When trying to understand complex ideas, text communication would be insufficient. As the Media Richness Theory predicts, I choose a more socially salient medium in order to avoid ambiguity.

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Assignment 3 Communicating Dues

For this assignment I decided to identify and describe two instances of media selection. The first instance involves a communication with my father. In this communication I was telling my dad about the dues that needed to be paid to my fraternity this semester. I was told at the end of last semester that the dues would go down when new brothers were added to the fraternity in the spring, information I passed on to my father. This semester, however, I learned that instead of lowering dues, the budgets for the different boards in the chapter were increased. In effect, my dad now has to pay the same price when I told him he would pay less. I decided that the best way to break the news to him would be over email so I wouldn’t have to face the reaction of giving him misinformation. I emailed him telling him what the dues would be and why they had not decreased.
O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model would support my choice of a lean channel to communicate this information to my father. The valence of the episode was most definitely negative, as I was telling my dad that he was going to have to pay the same amount this semester after previously telling him it would be less. The locus of the issue was on the self, as my mistake was what the episode focuses on. According to O’Sullivan, when the valence is expected to be negative and the locus self, one would choose a mediated interaction more than in any other circumstance. I certainly reacted the way O’Sullivan predicts in this circumstance, trying to buffer the reaction to my mistake.
To continue on with the general theme of the first event, the second instance of media selection I will use is when I went home this past weekend. I had yet to receive the check from my father for the dues, so I decided that I would speak to him when I got home instead of emailing him again. When I saw him I sat down and explained to him, in detail, why the dues had not gone down and what was going to be done with the money this semester. Although he was still not happy, he was know clear on what was occurring.
The Media Richness Theory would explain my choice for face-to-face communication over this subject with my father. The theory states that more rich media would be chosen for communications that are equivocally high and that lean media would be used on less equivocal ones. The communication over my dues was going to be a little ambiguous and deceptive, not straight to the point, making it relatively equivocal. I needed to make everything sound legitimate, even if it meant glorifying the situation a little. It is for this reason that I chose the richer medium of face-to-face communication to speak to my father. Although O’Sullivan’s theory would again support me using a leaner channel due to the negative valence and self locus, it was the efficiency necessary in my face-to-face communication with my father, along with its equivocal nature, that caused me to choose the rich channel of face-to-face communication.

http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-chatroom-convo.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/occupations-cause-stereotypes.html

Occupations Cause Stereotypes

I decided to enter a chat room as a young man (28) with an established career as a lawyer in Las Angeles. I entered a singles chat room and posted a photo from the web as my display picture. Immediately I noticed that women who were in their late thirty’s to early forty’s were the first to talk to me and they were quite forward if I might add. Women of my age seemed much more genuine and seemed to make reasonable conversation. The older women seemed very talkative and as if they were continually trying to impress me with stories, they never really let me say much back to them in order to create a better conversation; they seemed more interested in talking about themselves.
When comparing the women who were in their mid to late twenties to the older women they seemed much more interested in what I had to say and responded with more genuine comments. I got the impression that they were not in a rush to find somebody to date or “be with” where the older women seemed desperate and as if I was their last chance. I felt that I may have been acting a bit biased so I tried changing my occupation from a lawyer to a school teacher.
After making the change I found that I did not receive the same kind of attention from females who were my age. They would chat with me but did not seem interested like they did when I was a lawyer. When chatting with older women I found that less women talked to me but the ones that did showed the same kind of urgency as the women who chatted with me when I was a lawyer. The conclusion I came to is that I began acting exactly how these women saw me. I was expressing an attitude that was attributed with the prestige of being a lawyer. This is an example of sets, props and lighting. The more I played the part of being a lawyer, the more I felt that I had to act the part. So perhaps it was my fault and caused the women to talk to me that way that I persuaded them to.

3 They want to get IMM my pants

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3 They want to get IMM my pants!

3 An Apology and A Thank-You

Media Selection 1:

O’Sullivan’s model predicted my media decision in this first scenario. This morning, a friend of mine who attends Syracuse University purchased 4 tickets for a Bruce Springsteen concert in October. Another friend already committed to attending the concert with us, leaving the 4th ticket available. So, in person I invited a common friend of from Cornell, only to hear my friend from Syracuse invited a common friend of ours from Syracuse about an hour early. So, now I was faced with the task of telling the person I invited that we do not actually have a ticket for him to go to the sold-out concert with us. O’Sullivan’s model predicts that when the valence is expected to be negative, we prefer to use mediated communication because it detaches us a little bit from the situation, creating a buffer. I decided to briefly explain myself and apologize in a text message so I would not have to deal with the initial disappointment and possible anger of my friend who I will have to speak with face-to-face soon enough.

Media Selection 2:

On Friday, I received a gift in the mail from my Dad, a Joba Chamberlain t-shirt (Yankee fans will understand how excited I was). Since this shirt is not obtainable outside of the Bronx for the time being, I was unbelievably happy to have it. I therefore wanted to choose the media that would that would help me express my elation. I’m sure my Dad knew I would be excited, but I did not think a text message or email would be satisfactory for a thank-you, so I decided to call even though I knew my Dad was at work. This somewhat agrees and somewhat disagrees with Media Richness Theory. My communication was not ambiguous, so MRT would predict I used a lean media. However I wanted to use a richer media so that my Dad would be able to pick up on my excitement through cues such as my tone of voice. Still, I picked a form of communication that in my opinion most efficiently expressed the message I wanted to get across, which is why I say my media selection is still somewhat consistent with the theory.

Links to my comments:
Comm 245 Blue: 3- Message selection
Comm 245 Blue: Assignment 3: Roommate Love

3 Me as Mr. Smoothtalker

I thought that option one would be fun to try, and I thought of it as a game—how long could I keep up my identity switch of being a 48 year old man from New York City. As one can see, I decided to name my persona “Smoothtalker” to try and fit in with the other males in the chatroom who had names such as, “hungdaddy,” “daddy4goodgirls,” and “georgeofthejungle.” I first entered the general chat-room saying my age/gender/location, and then I tried to hold true to my name, “Smoothtalker.” This entailed brainstorming different phrases my “ought-self” would say, including the following: “hello there ladies,” and “how are all of you fine ladies doing tonight?” I wasn’t receiving any responses, thus realizing that Smoothtalker’s persona was one of an obnoxious, aggressive man. This was the “actual-self,” which differed from my “ought-self.” My actual-self was obnoxious, but I didn’t realize it; I wanted my ought-self to be a nice man, who wasn’t aggressively sexual, and someone who just wanted some deep conversation—at least this is what I later conveyed to the ladies I started personal chats with. I attempted to start conversations with a couple of people, “NaughtyWife,” “Sleekbabe47,” and “Dana.” Surprisingly, the conversation that flowed the most was the one with “NaughtyWife” (judging by her name, I figured she would stop talking to me after I told her that “all I want is some conversation”).

I managed to keep up my “Smoothtalker” persona much better in the individual chat with NaughtyWife. Using selective self-presentation to keep up my persona, I made sure to keep repeating certain aspects of my “life” that I wanted NaughtyWife to comment on. I told her that I was new to New York City, and asked if she new of any good sights or had any advice for me; she seemed pretty responsive. I also repeated that I was unmarried, but didn’t want the crazy party life anymore, and I think that drew her in because I came off as an older man, looking to settle down (at least that was the ought-self I aimed to portray). By selectively sharing only some of my “Smoothtalker” self, I was able to choose and pick what I wanted to tell NaughtyWife, as I am sure she did the same with me. She kept mentioning the fact that she was married, and had children, and that she was just “looking for something on the side.” She came off as someone unhappy, un-loyal and just looking for some fun, from what she chose to tell me.

The chatroom, or synchronous space, definitely affected my presentation of “Smoothtalker.” For starters, it was obviously easier to disguise my age, gender, and location because it wasn’t a face to face interaction. Because it was CMC, NaughtyWife couldn’t see my physical traits (that I am really a 19 year old female). It was also easier to disguise my true characteristics because there are very few cues online—there are no facial expressions, movements, tone of voice, etc. therefore allowing me to hide my actual character and to act as “Smoothtalker.”

3 - media choices to interact with my best friends in Spain and the Army

My first instance of media selection would define my relationship with my best friend who studied abroad in Spain last semester. We spent almost all of our time together freshman and sophomore year and we were devastated when we realized that we would not see each other for months. For the first month of our separation, we tried emailing each other, but things just weren’t the same. Luckily, we discovered Skype in time to satisfy our need to chat and catch up on current gossip. The first time I used Skype, it blew my mind to think that we were actually speaking to each other from across the globe.

In this case, Media richness theory would apply because we refused to exchange important information over lean media. We needed more cues in order to actually interact in a way that even remotely resembled our strong friendship. We eventually made Skype dates every Wednesday at five to stay in each other’s lives. Skype basically saved our friendship. When my friend returned from Spain, our friendship was the same as it had been before she left, if not stronger.

My second instance of media selection involves choosing Myspace as a main form of communication with a special friend of mine who just joined the Army. After my best friend of three years (who was also my housemate) left Cornell and joined the Army, I was extremely angry at him for abandoning us but felt bad about my selfish feelings because I knew he was being very honorable in serving our country. It had been three months until he finally reached out to me through a Myspace message. One thing I should note about my friend is that he was never really a fan of Facebook and Myspace and that he always found Myspace to be the worst stalker network ever. Of course, I did not let him hear the end of it when he made an account and friended me. It turns out that he only made the account to keep in touch with his new Army buddies and knowing that I would be upset if he didn’t friend me I was naturally the first person he ‘stalked’.

My friend had just completed basic training and was on his way to military intelligence school. He was not allowed to make phone calls, and if he was given the rare privilege, naturally I would expect him to call his family. At first, he was only allowed to communicate with me through email or Myspace, but once he was given more privileges he emailed me his new phone number. In this case, I chose to stick with the Myspace messages because I needed more time to monitor what I would say and control my emotions. In this case, media richness theory does not come into play because I had a lot of important things to say that probably would have been more appropriate to vocalize with a richer medium (such as the phone). However, I chose lean media to account for the expected negative valence. Also, as I was the locus in most cases, I preferred mediated interaction above any other because then I felt like I was controlling our relationship. In other words, I had to have the “upper hand”.

In conclusion, I would definitely expect media richness theory to apply to my last instance, but for some reason it just didn’t. Six months passed before we interacted through synchronous means. I still wonder why it took me three months to finally face my best friend of three years. Maybe I was just scared of being offensive or harsh? I really will never know, but O’Sullivan’s theory definitely sheds some insight in terms of my concerns regarding the situation.

Assignment 3: Roommate Love

My roommate this year recently decided upon taking a semester leave of absence to work through some personal/family issues. Provided the circumstances, she made her decision to leave in a hurry and didn’t have much time to talk things through with me face-to-face. Therefore, a few days after she left, I received a Facebook message from her fully explaining her reasons for taking a semester off and apologizing for leaving me so unexpectedly.

My roommate’s media selection is fully supported by O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model. The goal of her Facebook message was to elucidate some aspects of her life that could’ve been interpreted as potentially humiliating. She was making a confession, so she decided upon a leaner, asynchronous, more mediated channel. Since the valence of the situation was negative, through the media selection of a Facebook message, she was able to create an emotional buffer protecting herself much more than if she had called me or confronted me face-to-face before she left. Additionally, since the locus of the situation was of self, her media choice of a Facebook message provided maximum control so that she could present this possibly disheartening news about her life in a regulated manner.

After receiving her Facebook message, I was left with the dilemma of deciding upon which media to respond through. After much thought, I decided upon calling her to tell her how much respect I have for her and how much I support her decision. I chose this richer media because I wanted to give my roommate the opportunity to actually hear my approval, compliments and encouragement. Once again, my selection of media was supported by O’Sullivan’s model. Essentially, since the valence of this episode was positive and the locus was of other, my phone call was full of “praise” for my roommate. Furthermore, I believe that she benefited from hearing my praise through a richer media more than she would have if I had decided to respond to her with a Facebook message. Since our phone call involved more cues than a Facebook message, not only was the credibility of my respect for her increased, but she had extended access to my positive response. My choice of media doesn’t support the Media Richness Theory. Even though my motive for calling her was unambiguous and my message for her wasn’t equivocal, I still decided upon a richer media for her benefit.

comments
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-media-selection_6928.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-my-media-selection.html

Assignment 3: Identity Change

During this assignment I had switched my identity to an older woman, in her late 20s. I had joined a psychological space, a chat room, and tried to portray myself as this fake older woman named “Margaret”. I managed my impressions in such a manner that I not use any slang or abbreviations and I claimed to have a steady job, have my own apartment, and other relevant things.
Within the chat room I said hello to everyone and had introduced “myself”. Not too long after, I had two people private message me: one whom seemed to have his mind on other things than chatting, so I blocked him and focused my assignment on the other man, Bill332. While corresponding to Bill332 he made comments on how I seemed sure about “myself” and praised what this fake self had done with my life. This in turn made both of us articulate ourselves in a different manner so that our speeches were compatible (I could tell when he would add in punctuations more than he had originally). It was interesting to see that after a little while of talking he started to really emphasize how he was intelligent and had a sense of humor.
Since the space was online and was limited to CMCs I portrayed “myself” in a manner that I thought would best portray a woman in her late 20s; I did not use any emotion icons, or over did the punctuation, my tone was much more serious. Needless to say while using online chat rooms that are solely CMC based will lead to much ambiguity but will also emphasize the aspects one wants to show (clarity).
Overall, we appeared to get what we had both wanted to portray about ourselves across to each other. But if this scenario had occurred face-to-face the outcome and the whole encounter would have had so much more simulation because there would be so many more cues shown (even unintentional ones). Looking at O’Sullivan’s model, online chatting has something pretty substantial going for it. With so much ambiguity someone can feel accepted in that space; even if they are pretending to be someone they are not. On the flip side, if someone ends up getting negative feedback it is actually, according to O’Sullivan, the more desired way to receive this feedback: mediated. Therefore, if this situation did play out in person and things did not work it would hurt the other person much more.

3 Statistics Meeting

My statistics grade is based solely on a group project that we work on for almost the entire semester. My group of four consists of one of my friends and two other people in my class that I am unfamiliar with. I found out who was in my group when I received an email the other day from the other girl in my group. She is a freshman who decided to take the initiative to introduce herself and ask if the rest of us had any ideas for our project topic. Then, each of the remaining members of the group responded to her email. My response suggested that maybe we should meet up as a group soon since not all of us know each other. To this I received an invitation to meet up after class on Tuesday for a few minutes to meet and discuss possible topic choices.

There are two different ways to think of Media Richness Theory in relation to the situation that I have just outlined. The first option is to look at the email conversations that took place in the past few days. I only know one other person in my group, so this email conversation was the first time I have ever spoken to either of the other two members of my group. After receiving the original email, I immediately logged onto Facebook and scoped out my other two partners. While an email can definitely be impersonal, there are still ways to form impressions of others by this medium. Upon the reception of the first email, I believed this freshman girl to be a leader who likes to take the initiative. This was my initial perception; however, she may have been told by our TA to email the remaining members of the group. I have no idea. Anyway, the Media Richness Theory says that we should choose a leaner medium for unequivocal tasks, tasks that are unambiguous. In terms of the email communication that went on with my group, we set up a meeting through a lean channel. It would have been completely unnecessary to write a paragraph describing ourselves to each other through email when we can simply set a meeting time through this medium and meet face to face at a later time. The Media Richness Theory is definitely supported in this situation because using a lean medium such as email works perfectly for setting up an unequivocal task like a meeting time.

The other way to look at this situation is to view it from the opposite side of the Media Richness Theory. While the email serves to set up the meeting place and time, the meeting itself serves as a richer medium for equivocal and more ambiguous conversation. Like previously stated, it is hard to have an actual conversation with someone over an email, especially when it comes to a first introduction. Similar to our first blog assignments, we introduced ourselves, but we have no pictures to names and no real concept of what people are like in real life. When emailing in a situation like mine or writing our first blogs, it is hard to tell if someone is nervous when they first meet you. Are they shaking? Do they now know what to say? In a richer medium such as a face to face encounter, my partners and I will be able to introduce ourselves quickly before we start to plan out our project. It is so much easier to introduce ourselves in a face to face encounter because it is a richer medium since we have more multiplicity and availabilty of cues along with a more personalized message and language variety since we will be communicating face to face.

Because we were only originally setting up a meeting time, it was easiest to use a leaner medium such as email rather than a richer medium. The Medium Richness Theory confirms this by saying that it may be better for use a leaner medium sometimes. My encounter with the members of my statistics group only proves this theory further. It was easiest to plan a meeting using a leaner medium as a way to avoid awkward moments and hellos that would happen in a richer medium, then a richer medium for the more equivocal introductions that are much better done in a richer medium situation than a leaner one.

http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-they-want-to-get-imm-my-pants_10.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-landlord-beatdown.html

3 media selections

My first media selection was done so in order to contact a friend from high school. In doing so, I chose to use a medium that most of us use everyday, the are of Instant Messaging (IM). The two of us talked about how school was going thus far (she goes to Albany College of Pharmacy), our different responsiblities, and the good old days (the days that didn't involve prelims). I believe I chose to use the medium of Instant Messaging for a few reasons. First, Instant Messaging is something that most of us use everyday, it has simply become a normal mean of communication. Second, the conversation between my friend and I was quite informal, as we simply just did some catching up with one another. Also, I believe I chose this medium because it simply fit the situation or task at hand. What I mean by this is that email would have been to slow and inconvenient, while face to face would have been a hassle considering the two of us were three hours apart, and although a cell phone could have served the purpose as well, it was just unnecessary, and plus that wastes minutes. Instant Messaging served the purpose well; it was synchronous and the two of us understand one another well enough to know what one another is saying without the need for nonverbal cues.

My second media selection came when dealing with a job of mine. I currently am employed by the Cornell Fitness Centers (CFC) and our permanent schedule has just been posted. While viewing my permanent schedule I noticed that one of my shifts conflicted with an off-campus job that I also hold. Unfortunately, CFC usually will only let an individual drop a shift if it directly conflicts with a class, and this isn't the case in my situation. Immediately, I sent the head of scheduling an email explaining my situation, but for some reason this just didn't do it for me. I felt that the email would be to slow, and that I wouldn't fully be able to defend myself, so even after I sent the email I chose to go up and speak with him in person as well. I felt that this would not only be much quicker, but more professional as well. In doing so, I was able to convince him to allow me to drop the shift, but I still had to help him find someone to pick it up. Honestly, I don't believe this situation would have worked out in my favor if I had simply sent the email and attempted to communicate that way. Face-to-face communication seemed to fit the situation better, so that is what I chose.

I believe my selection of Instant Messaging to contact my friend relates to the Media Richness Theory. At the time Instant Messaging seemed to be the perfect choice because catching up with a friend isn't a very equivocal task, therefore, a leaner media like IM could be used to do it sufficiently. Although, IM isn't nearly as lean as email, it is much leaner than that of face-to-face communication or the telephone, and I thought it was perfect for the task at hand.

As for my selection of Face-to-Face communication, I believe this related to the Media Richness Theory as well. I believe it relates to the Media Richness Theory because convincing my employer to allow me to drop a shift was a rather equivocal task and a richer media was needed to deal with the situation. Using face-to-face communication allowed me to be there to pick up on the nonverbal cues, as well as, defend myself properly and quickly.

3 Media selections

My first instance of media selection involved my AI project group. We were required to submit a project proposal to one of the course TA’s earlier in the course. He later responded to our proposal via e-mail. He stated that our project goals might be too ambitious for the scope of the course, and that we should try to flesh out more detailed checkpoints to indicate progress. We wanted clarification as to the feasibility of our project and how we should proceed, so we chose to meet him in person rather than do further communication through e-mail.

In this case, we actively chose to use a rich medium (FtF). This supports the media richness theory. Specifically, we thought his initial comments were ambiguous over e-mail, so we needed to see immediate feedback from him to understand in detail what he was looking for. This situation totally contradicts O’Sullivan’s impression management model: the valence is negative (our proposal is being critiqued), and the locus is self. Impression management predicts that we are most likely to want a mediated interaction in this case, but instead we chose an unmediated interaction.

The second instance of media selection involved a friend asking for computer assistance. After a short exchange in which I made a few suggestions after diagnosing his problem, he complemented me for being so good at figuring out what went wrong.

Once again, this media selection instance supports the media richness theory. The communication task was simple and clear – a praise. Therefore, media richness theory predicts a plain medium is preferred for communication; this is exactly what happened. Moreover, the impression management model predicts the total opposite result again. From my friend’s perspective, he is the one giving the praise. Consequently, the valence is positive and the locus is other. According to O’Sullivan’s experimental data, this category implies the highest preference for an unmediated interaction.

An interesting thing to note is that while media richness theory happened to accurately reflect the interactions I’ve seen, it can also be argued that it was simply more conventional. For the first case, our paramount goal was to resolve the issue as quickly as possible; e-mail is simply too asynchronous to be a good choice. Video conferencing may have worked just as well as FtF, but the latter is more common in academia, so that is what we used. For the second case, my friend was already asking me for help through instant messenger; it would be unusual for him to make a call to give me a complement when the IM window was sitting right in front of him.

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3- Message selection

I called my mom the other night in response to a frantic message left on IM: "arrrgh.. where are you when I have news?!" Obviously, I was sad to have missed the news and called her as soon as I got the message. She answered and, upon my asking her what the news was, told me that my brother was going to be home any minute and she didn't know if she had time to tell me. Of course, I couldn't just wait until the next day to find out news potentially involving my brother (it's a sibling rivalry thing), so I pressed her. The news, as I suspected, had to do with my brother and his relationship status. So, she hurriedly told me the gossip and we said goodnight before my brother arrived home.

Since my mom first wanted to tell me the news over a mediated or lean channel and not over the phone (rich channel), her decision seems to support the Media Richness Theory in that she originally chose to deliver the news (which I consider less equivocal) over a lean medium. Her decision does not support O'Sullivan's model because the valence was positive and the locus was other which suggests that she would have preferred to use a less mediated way to give me the news (and her original decision was to use mediated communication).

The second selected message also involved my brother, but not in regards to his social life. As most of us probably know, football season just started up. My brother and I are big fans, and often enjoy watching the games together. However, the current situation doesn't allow for that. So, instead, we call each other periodically during the game. I noticed yesterday that the only times we end up calling each other is if the opposing team has done something really stupid resulting in something good for our team, or if our team has just made an exceptional play.

I can't say that this message selection really supports the Media Richness Theory because while the message was less equivocal, we both decided to use a rich channel to communicate with each other. In this situation, O'Sullivan's model is better supported because we are mostly demonstrating a negative valence with an other locus. However, I think the main reason we both choose to use a richer channel is more due to each other's availability during the game rather than focusing on the message we're about the send. For instance, I know my brother will be watching the game in a bar with friends and won't be near something like IM or e-mail, so it'll be easier to contact him on his phone. I'm curious to know where that kind of reasoning falls into these theories.

Late Introduction (Assignment 1)

Hi everybody! My name is Vivian Quan, and I am a sophomore in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations. Typical of an ILRie, I am from Long Island, NY (Manhasset Hills to be more specific!). As a sophomore in ILR, I am not sure what field I want to concentrate on, but like most ILRies you will meet, law school is a definite possibility. I think I would like to go into labor law, but I would want to fight for the labor side. I am definitely better suited fighting for unions and workers—not against them. I have always been drawn to helping others, and I think that this is an important issue that many people often forget about. By the way, I just joined this class, and I hope that I’m not too far behind, so if anybody has any good tips or suggestions (or even really good notes from the first two weeks of class), please let me know!

An internet-related phenomenon that I am interested in is AIM and how it affects people’s daily lives in general. I have friends who are always on AIM, and they are always having at least three simultaneous conversations with friends who could be sitting down the hall from them. I guess it bothers me why people sit at their computers talking to people, when they could be spending their time physically sitting with those people, and hanging out with them. Can’t they just tell them everything in person, everything they would have said over AIM, could be said in person, could it not? I do realize that AIM makes it convenient for people to multi-task—I could be talking with my friend in China, and be doing my homework at the same time, all from the comfort of my own room. I don’t know if this really constitutes “multi-tasking,” though. I find that AIM distracts me from completing what I have to complete, and then it takes me twice as long to finish my homework. All in all, AIM cannot be good for society—especially if it keeps us from being as productive as possible. I am afraid that the more people use AIM, the less they will be interacting with each other in spaces where more cues are given.


AIM would fall under the “synchronous chats” category, which allows real-time (or as close to “real-time” one can using the computer) conversation. AIM allows for people to, as Wallace puts it, “type out their brief messages and read the contributions of the others as they scroll up the screen” (Wallace 6).

Media Selection: MRT Trumps O'Sullivan in Non-valence Situations

In a world where “communication” can take on such a variety of meanings, media selection is an area of study I find both relevant and interesting. This past weekend, I made phone calls, wrote text messages and instant messages, sent Facebook notes and shares, left voicemails and Skyped, only for the first time considering my reasons for choosing a particular mode of communication.

My history professor left for the weekend this past Thursday, assuring the class via e-mail that Olin Library was to post our reading assignment on Blackboard for Monday’s class. Of course, no such reading assignment was ever posted on the course homepage. In a panic that I might be doing something wrong, I felt it necessary to contact someone in the class. The problem with finding a classmate to contact in this course is that it is a mere 15-person seminar; although I’ve made small talk with my classmates, I don’t know anyone personally just yet. Here is where the Media Richness Theory becomes relevant: rather than attempting to develop a deep relationship with someone when all I wanted was some homework information, lean media seemed to be the most efficient mode of contact. I was not worried about the ambiguity or clarity of my message – I was simply in search of information. As opposed to O’Sullivan’s theory, I had no need for a goal or interactional strategy. Valence and locus were irrelevant in the neutral task at hand. Because I had no negative impressions to buffer, O’Sullivan’s theory does not apply nearly so much as the fact that, in search of clear-cut facts, lean media was the most appropriate fit.

The second instance of media selection I will discuss was Skyping with my 23-year old brother from Sydney, Australia, where he was recently sent for a six-month job rotation. As I was used to seeing him regularly all summer (after moving home between the end of his lease and his September 1st departure), I was sad for us to part, only to be unable to even speak on the telephone. Contrary to O’Sullivan’s theory, there was no ambiguity-clarity dialectic at hand when I wanted to talk to my brother. Wanting to know as much about what was going on in his life as possible, the Media Richness Theory explains why I chose Skype over e-mail – I wanted cues! Skype is richer than any other form of long-distance communication as it allows for multiple cues, instant feedback and visible emotional expression. It is unequivocal and there are no restrictive limits to expression when you can both see and hear your partner.

Thus, in both scenarios, the Media Richness Theory proved to be the dominant factor. Without anything particularly emotional, provoking or potentially risky to say, O’Sullivan’s theory does not explain my motives and actions nearly as well.

3 Chatroom Convo

As soon as I logged into the chat room I became “Robby”, a twenty-four year old guy from New York City. At first I was receiving a lot of messages from people asking me my age, sex, location. When I told them my “information”, I would ask them to share their asl with me as well. Many were thirteen or fourteen year olds. Some of these young kids wanted to talk to me, but others told me I was too old and cut off any and all contact with me. A couple interesting things happened to me while I was in this chat room. First, another man messaged me and asked me my asl. I responded with “24, male, nyc. You?” he laughed and wrote that he was also a man. He said good luck, clearly talking about finding a girl, and then our conversation ended. It seems as if people are only in chat rooms to find someone to flirt with and or form a relationship with. This one kid I was talking to told me he was one hundred years old. I responded by saying I was one hundred and one. We continued joking about this for a while, and then conversation dulled down to nothing. Right before I was about to exit off the room, this girl messages me and said “hey, asl?” I told her my fake information and she said she was eighteen years old from Australia and modeled bikinis. She started calling me a hottie and begged me not to leave when I told her I had to go. She said that she is talking to so many men right now she didn’t really know which one I was, but she was persistent that I not leave yet. I told her goodbye and exited off quickly. I thought it was interesting that she had never laid eyes on me before and she was calling me a hottie.
I could never have lied about my gender, age and location had I been in a video chat or even more, in a face to face interaction. Through text (CMC) is the only way that I (and anyone) can lie about myself and get away with it. My self-presentational tactics were put into place in my conversations with people in the chat room. When I was talking to people, I would not tell them everything about me, but just certain aspects that I thought they should know. Most of the information I told them was a lie, but that was just to protect myself from creepers online. For example, when I am talking online to a stranger and trying to get to know them, I am not going to go through the list of all my negative qualities. Instead I am going to focus on my strengths and interests. I could have easily added a smiley face to my words if I had wanted to, adding to my personality, however I chose to leave those out. I did not get into deep conversation with anyone, but I would have told them my associations if they had asked. I would have told them my political stance, and other information that allows them to know me better, all while remaining anonymous.

3 "Me"dia selection

Media Selection Number 1:
An old work friend sent me a nice postcard asking how I was enjoying New York. I guess I should begin by saying that I worked in the same chain restaraunt since I was 15. (I don't want to give any free advertising, but Applebee's was always great to me, so I guess I will slip their name into my post). I had asked my sister before I left to come up to Cornell if she would go and pick up my paychecks from my two jobs. I guess she gave this friend of mine my new address when she went because I don't remember giving it to her.
Well, I got this note which was a lovely surprise that really made me feel good. I still have not forgotten my past job and it felt good to get something from an "old" friend. (I guess three weeks is "old"?). Nevertheless, we haven't talked since I left and it made me feel equally unforgotten.
To respond to this postcard, I phoned this person directly. Our discussions in class interfered somewhat with my decision, but I wanted to be as personable as possible with my friend to show my appreciation.
This somewhat supports media richness theory, as I wanted to be as especially rich and perosnable as possible, and therefore used the most rich mode, though others (i.e. email or text messaging) may have been more efficient. This also supports O'Sullivan's theory in that this was an onstance of "praise", wherein I wanted to use the least mediated option physically available. Had FtF been an option, I probably would have done that, but Delaware (and PA) is a five hour drive away.
Media Selection 2 (Dos, deux):
I had promised to keep in touch with an old therapist of mine when I went off to college. I sent him an email to touch base. I admitted to not following all of his advice in my own life, but I did use some of it. He said that was fine, but I was a little nervous to begin with about whether I should have even sent anything and should just have tried to ignore it if he had tried to call me. I felt better after the fact, after I had gotten the task off of my shoulders, though. (Which would have been in line with his advice).
This supports heavily O'Sullivan's theory, as the reason I chose such a mediated form of communication (asynchronous, textual email) was because of the "confession" nature of my communication. Even though there was a lot of positive, I focused on the negative, which is specifically part of my personality and more broadly a facet of human nature, which I will leave for those of you in Psych 101. This is mostly all stuff I learned from him anyway, and like I said, I feel better now that I got it over with and he was delighted that I even bothered to check in.