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.
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2 comments:
When thinking about your friend and the choice of sending a post card over giving you a call it brings up an interesting thing to consider. Some people may think that sending a postcard was a fairly lean media for saying she was thinking of you. However, because of your relationship with the friend, the spontaneity of the post card, and the effort she put into writing a message and sending it to you it meant a lot more to you. So that brings up the question, what kinds of social aspects influence the way individuals perceive certain types of media communication. It seems like it is a delicate balance between receiver interpretation and real meaning that can sometimes get confused between people. There was a time when I messaged an individual on-line very in lieu of returning a calling on a cell phone and they got very angry interpreting it as me not wanting to be their friend which wasn’t the case. Needless to say, it was a mess and it’s a risk you take sometimes using certain types of media to communicate when you don’t know how the person will interpret it.
These were two interesting instances of media selection. In your first scenario, however, I might argue for your support of the Media Richness Theory. A “thank you” isn’t necessarily a task of efficiency in the same way that getting a street address is, for instance. Seeing that you wanted to show your appreciation, and also catch up after having felt “equally forgotten,” I think your phone call actually supports the MRT. While a thank you note to a teacher who wrote a recommendation might have been purely for cordial purposes, this action seems to have had an emotional component that required richer media.
As for e-mailing your therapist, I think it was really interesting how well this action supported O’Sullivan’s theory. The therapist appears to almost be a figure of an authority, someone from whom you anticipated scolding and consequently developed a bit of anxiety about. Because of this, you utilized lean media as a buffer from potential feelings of discomfort or disappointment. This was a great support for the theory.
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