Assignment No. 3: Media Selection

Individuals manage their impressions through the use of various self-presentational tactics. By managing self-descriptions; attitude expressions; nonverbal behavior; social associations; and, sets, props, and lighting, individuals can manage the information that they present to others. With the emergence of newer and easier communication technologies, however, social psychologists have recently questioned the role of technology in communication. In recent research, entitled “What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Me: Impression Management Functions of Communication Channels in Relationships,” O’Sulllivan repositions the study on communication technologies. In his “Impression Management Model,” O’Sullivan hypothesizes that individuals actively seek specific media channels to manage their self-presentations. In contrast with the dated “Media Richness Theory,” which states that individuals seek to reduce equivocality through the selection of richer media channels to match interactional needs, O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model, states that the selection of an interactional channel is an effective complementary strategy in self-presentation.
As stated in the Impression Management Model, three factors guide channel preferences: interactional control, symbolism, and social skill. The interactional control factor plays a significant role in media selection because it explains how the channel characteristics shape the conversational episode. Secondly, the symbolic meaning of a channel concerns the meaning of the use of the channel, outside of the content of the conversation; and, lastly, the social skills factor accounts for one’s ability to manage interactions competently through the technical skills of using the channel.
I have recently used two very different media channels to convey two very different messages. This past summer I took a corporate finance course that was instructed by a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. He and I have not spoken since our three-week-long course but he told me to contact him after a few weeks of school this fall semester. Knowing that it would be inappropriate to call or text him, remembering that I made that mistake this past summer, I specifically chose to contact him through the rather lean e-mail medium. Also, the symbolism of this medium complemented the rather-professional message I sought to convey. Though he knew who I was, I still felt the need to be formal in our conversational episode. Additionally, the asynchronicity of e-mail enabled me to take my time in presenting myself favorably. Given the few nonverbal cues on which he could form a continued impression of me, he most likely over-attributed the degree to which I am polite and intelligent, and re-allocated cognitive resources to remember our interactions over the summer in support of his over-attributions. As the Impression Management Model states, I specifically chose the e-mail medium to maximize benefits, and minimize costs to a preferred impression, through the use of a mediated channel in positively and negatively valenced episodes.
Secondly, I recently chose a richer video-chat medium to contact my sister who is currently living in Paris. In sharing good news, I specifically chose a videoconference because I wanted a richer medium through which I could share my good news. Though I definitely did not choose this medium to bask in glory at the sight of my sister praising me, as O’Sullivan states in his Impression Management Model, I did enjoy seeing my sister’s reaction in a nearly face-to-face medium. This is inconsistent with O’Sullivan’s model, which states that channel preferences for the initiator will lean towards mediated channels in both positively and negatively valenced episodes.