Assignment #3: Different Approaches to Ambiguity

We are constantly making decisions about what medium to use to express ourselves. As technology rises, that range of choices has become increasingly overwhelming. It was not at all difficult to find instances of media selection this weekend. I chose two ambiguous interactions with contrasting valence, to see how they compared.

In my first interaction, I had to confront a student employee (we'll call him Jack) whom I supervise for neglecting follow through on an important project. I chose to use e-mail. I specifically wanted to avoid non-verbal cues, so that I could benefit from spelling out my concerns without being stymied by my own nerves in a face-to-face encounter. I don't like to have these sorts of accusatory discussions, but when they are called for they are crucial. The buffer eased tensions by avoiding a confrontational situation, which would have been unavoidable face-to-face. Not only did the asynchronous nature of e-mail give my message time to sink in, it also provided Jack an opportunity to respond on his own terms. Should he choose to call me because he prefers the richer medium, he has that option.

My choice in this case clearly supports O'Sullivan's assertions that we sometimes choose a leaner medium to manage self-presentation, even when the communication is equivocal in nature. Given the negative valence of accusation in this situation, combined with the locus of self, I easily preferred the mediated communication. Here I embraced the ambiguity not only to diffuse the situation for my own comfort, but also to permit Jack an opportunity to manage his own impressions by giving him space and allowing him to choose his own channel to respond. As we see in O'Sullivan's Impression Management Model, this back and forth does not exactly exhibit efficiency. Whatever the outcome, the focus here is on regulating self-presentation with ambiguity. This strays from the Media Richness Theory, which holds that we will explicitly choose a richer media for ambiguous tasks such as this.

My next interaction supports MRT. My brother recently graduated and started his new job. He landed a great position, though he works for Hospice (providing counseling for families with loved ones on the verge of passing away,) so it is very difficult, emotional work. I know that it is taking a toll on him and I wanted to let him know how proud I was. I chose the richest media that I could, considering that he lives far away in Colorado: the telephone was the channel. We had a great talk. By the time we hung up, I had an even greater respect for him and I believe that he felt better to have been able to talk about his crazy new life with his older brother.

MRT focuses on the multiplicity of cues in a richer medium, as well as the availability of feedback. A text message, an email, or even IM would have been a poor substitute for being able to hear my brother's voice and vice versa. We know each other so well that there are also plenty of non-verbal cues which are implied in a tone of voice. I was very happy with my decision to use richer media in this successful interaction. My goal was met.

And what of Jack, the wayward student whom I targeted via email? He emailed me back immediately, requesting a face-to-face meeting to talk about the situation. It was obviously in his best interest to choose the richest medium possible to plead his case. Hopefully, his choice wasn't an effort to optimize his efforts at deception! Perhaps after this week's lectures I'll be better equipped to assess that possibility.