1. Computer-Mediated Communication
Media Richness

2. Experimentation vs. Observation
What’s the key difference?
Assignment of treatment (or condition)
Consider the effect of smoking:
How would you study it experimentally?
How would you study it observationally?
Assignment: maybe random, maybe deliberate, but controlled by the experimenter.
What is a “manipulation check”?
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

3. Validity in Experiments
Internal Validity
External Validity
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

4. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Media Richness
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

5. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Rich
— Immediacy of feedback
— Multiplicity of cues
— Use of natural language
— Personal focus (ability to adapt message to circumstances or nature of the receiver)
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

6. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Lean
— Immediacy of feedback
— Multiplicity of cues
— Use of natural language
— Personal focus (ability to adapt message to circumstances or nature of the receiver)
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

7. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Some types of cues
Non-verbal
Verbal
Beyond FTF?
Social presence — the sense that one is communicating with a real person. Tends to be reduced without verbal (aural) and non-verbal cues.
What kinds of cues are available in common forms of CMC?
Media with fewer cues are less friendly, more impersonal, more task-focused. But as we saw in the Walther et al. paper, even with fewer cues, social affinity can develop. And what is best for tasks is entirely unclear.
Textual
Production cost to encode meaning equivalent to FTF in text
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

8. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Feedback
Type
Acknowledgment — understanding (+/–)
Repair — correction or clarification
Proxy — completion
Immediacy — more immediate = richer
Concurrent:  synchronous nods, mm-hmms
a.k.a. backchannel
Sequential:  brief interjection
What kinds of feedback are available in common forms of CMC?
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

9. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
A plausible ranking?
Richer
Face-to-face
Synchronous video
Synchronous audio / asynch. video
Synchronous text / asynch. audio
Richer media have greater “capacity to facilitate the formation of shared meaning within a given time interval.” (Dennis and Kinney)
Asynchronous text
Leaner
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

10. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Copresence: A and B share the same physical environment; Visibility: A and B are visible to each other; Audibility: A and B communicate by speaking; Cotemporality: B receives at roughly the same time as A produces (synchronous); Simultaneity: A and B can send and receive at once and simultaneously (e.g., Unix talk, as opposed to IM where you have to hit return); Sequentiality: A’s and B’s turns cannot get out of sequence; Reviewability: B can review A’s messages (like persistence); Revisability: A can revise messages for B (i.e., time to compose).
— Clark & Brennan (1991)
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

11. Media choice vs. media use
Types of tasks
“Uncertain” — missing information
“Equivocal” — ambiguous interpretations
“Best” medium for an (un)equivocal task
What do managers choose?
What yields the best performance?
P.S.: What is “best performance”?
Original theory was about media USE/PERFORMANCE, but most of the early empirical investigations were about media CHOICE.
Dennis & Kinney operationalize “performance” as decision quality, consensus, time, and satisfaction. Walther uses interpersonal affinity and affection.
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

12. Dennis & Kinney hypotheses
H1a: Performance improves as multiplicity of cues increases …
H1b: … more for more equivocal tasks.
H2a: Performance improves as immediacy of feedback increases …
H2b: … more for more equivocal tasks.
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

13. Mean decision time (D&K)
High cues (AV)
Low cues (Text)
Task
Immed.
Delayed
Low equiv.
12.21
17.00
26.29
31.53
High equiv.
13.14
14.35
18.71
23.71
* High-equivocality task: rank-order five students seeking admission to undergrad business program. (Admissions officers agree: only top two are in clear order.)
* Low-equivocality task: SAT-type problems. Incomplete information requires sharing.
* These tasks were intended to be similar in complexity but different in equivocality.
* Decision quality, consensus change, satisfaction did not vary with medium. Consensus change was higher in the high equivocality task.
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

14. Dennis & Kinney’s findings
Decision time
Decreased with greater multiplicity of cues
Decreased with greater immediacy of feedback
Increased with CMC (vs. AV) more for low equivocality task than for high equivocality task
Consensus change
More change with high equivocality task than low
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

15. Social presence, SIDE, and SIP
Social presence: Sense of communicating with a real person
Social Identity Deindividuation Effects
Also: Social Information Processing
Adaptation to the medium
Salience of small cues
What about time?
SIDE: visual anonymity yields “deindividuation,” gives greater salience to group identity, if available. This could lead to greater social attraction (ingroup, stereotyping).
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

16. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
The role of time
Affiliation: a slower process in leaner media?
Expected future interactions —  commitment over time
Connection to repeater PD games — Axelrod’s “shadow of the future”
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

17. Hyperpersonal communication
Receivers overattribute from limited cues
Assume similarity based on group affiliation
Senders maintain tight control over cues
Selective self-presentation — Little “given off” in text CMC
Bottom line: Exceptionally favorable perception in the face of limited information
Filling in the blanks optimistically.
“How senders select, receivers magnify, channels promote, and feedback increases enhanced and selective communication behaviors in CMC. Online communicators may exploit the capabilities of text-based, nonvisual interaction to form levels of affinity that would be unexpected in parallel offline interactions.”
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

18. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore“
The sensorial parsimony of plain text tends to entice users into engaging their imaginations to fill in missing details while, comparatively speaking, the richness of stimuli in fancy [systems] has an opposite tendency, pushing users’ imaginations into a more passive role.
— Curtis (1992) ”
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

19. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

20. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore
Long-term, no photos
Social affinity
Long-term, photos
Short-term, photos
Supported for intimacy/affection and social attractiveness, but not physical attractiveness.
Short-term, no photos
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

21. Farnham & Riegelsberger 2004
Text profiles
Photo profiles
Count
People preferred profiles LESS when photos were present.
Wanted to play less, expected the conversation to be less enjoyable, and expected a less satisfying game.
All significant p < 0.01.
What’s the deal here? Photos allow us to be more selective, but at the same time they narrow the pool of possibilities.
Gaming partner preference
(1 = Do not want to play)
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Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore

22. Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore“
The study of CMC effects is not best served by blanket statements about technology main effects on social, psychological, and interpersonal processes, nor by proclamations that online relationships are less rewarding than FTF ones. Rather, qualities of CMC are … more often the product of interesting and predictable interactions of several mutual influences than main effects of media.
— Walther et al. (2001) ”
4/17/2019
Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore