droberts@ai.mit.edu (David Robertson) (03/29/91)
I'd like to take a stab at responding to this thread about "better" media. I think that it's not a useful way to think about communication media. I'm familiar with two streams of research related to the relationship of different types of media to the communications they carry: - The "Information processing" perspective on organizations (Authors in this area: Galbraith, Daft, some of Herb Simon's work, ...) - An english group working on the social psychology of telecommunications. The book by the last group "The Social Psychology of Telecommunications" (Short, Williams, and Christie, Wiley: 1984) I found to be reasonably good. They evaluate the "social presence" of various means of communicating- face-to-face, video (with audio), audio only (e.g. telephone), and electronic mail. Their research method was reasonably careful and their constructs were carefully defined. The former group ranks media by its "richness"- its ability to resolve uncertainty and ambiguity (uncertainty is the lack of information- collecting more information will resolve uncertainty; ambiguity is the presence of confusion- it is unclear what questions should be asked). It is interesting that the two groups, using completely different constructs arrive at identical rankings of media (in terms of richness or social presence). Yet I find the whole idea of a ranking of media unappealing. I agree that face-to-face meetings are better for resolving problems (especially those that may have some emotional content), for brainstorming, and some social interactions. Yet I have found that some of my most personal intimate conversations were on the phone. With face-to-face interactions, the social cues can sometimes distract; with the phone, it is sometimes easier to focus on the topic. There are other probems with media ranking: let me digress a bit to illustrate what I mean. Schon's great book "The Reflective Practitioner" examines the interactions between a teacher of architecture and his student. Schon shows that the interaction between the two occurs through both conversation and changes to the design together. The conversation in itself is meaningless, as much of it refers to changes in the drawings: "if we put this there, then that improves the movement through here" is accompanied by changes to the drawing. Is this a new medium of communication? It certainly is not conversation- the words alone have no meaning. Examining the changes to the drawing alone would also have little meaning. Yet together, the words and actions are a very rich means of communicating. I argue that this is a different medium of communication. Yet this "words and pictures" medium is useless for other types of communication. For example, what if the teacher and the student were romantically involved and having difficulties? Would an interaction using the drafting board be the best medium for resolving those difficulties? Media cannot be ranked. Media have various effectivess for different messages. Mechanical engineers have little use for electronic mail, for example (or for any media that does not allow graphical data). What is needed is a discussion of the dimensions that determine the correct choice of media. I think there is more to this than uncertainty, ambiguity, or social presence. That's my $0.02. Comments? -David Robertson