Media Richness Theory

When I communicate with people, I prefer for there to be a form of communication that provides a high level of participation as well as effort shown to want to keep the conversation going. I think that communicating online depicts a less efficient way of communicating because I am not able to accurately see and know the opposing person is as involved in the conversation as I am. I feel more connected to a person on not only a personal level but on a more social level because I am face to face and not through a screen that seems more real as well as the feedback and cues that are in sync.

Most people prefer communication that does not get distorted from the sender to the receiver which is why media richness is a big part of communicating effectively. Media Richness provides us with an outline of communication and the more uncertain a task is, the more rich the format of that task can be. For example, if I call my friend and try to give her directions to my apartment instead of trying to text her. It will be much easier for me to face time her and talk her through where she exactly is and the path to take then texting her because the communication can cause error and be distorted. Calling my friend would demonstrate a media rich form of communication because I can then see and return cues and gestures that would not be conveyed through a text.

An article I found focuses primarily on email and media richness and how important richness is for communication. This article brings up how communication electronically can more easily create tension and disputes as compared to communication face to face or even by phone call. I think that this is extremely important because I personally notice that I get more frustrated trying to communicate to someone that I cannot see or even hear. Communicating through a screen does not provide the richness you need such as visual cues, body language, or even the most effective forms of feedback that is essential to good communication.

Lean communication falls under the category of communicating in ways that are less effective such as emailing, or anything expressed that typically has a delay in response. The further up the spectrum leads you to the most a middle region which would be communication that involves phone calls or texting, and then the furthest up the spectrum is the most richness which would be face to face communicating.

I personally think that the most effective way to get a message across to someone would be to talk face to face but if that is not an option then either face time or skype someone because you can see the person and fully get the best communication experience you can get. The next would be to simply make a phone call because even though you cannot see the person or the cues that are typically there when talking face to face or through a video chat.
With the types of technology we have today there should be no reason to not have effective media richness because with the touch of a button you can easily call or talk to someone through a screen that displays cues and personal contact.

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Media Richness Article