Assignment 4 Option 2: Facebook Friend

The online social networking website, Facebook, has become the most popular of its kind. Perhaps the reason for Facebook’s popularity is its ability to allow its users to employ several self-presentational tactics of impression management. Facebook profiles contain six main sections of information: basic, contact, personal, education, work, and pictures. A person can choose which of these categories to fill out and can select exactly what they want to say in the category.
In the personal information section they can use the self-presentational tactic of self-description and describe themselves in a way that conveys their desired impression by typing in their favorite movies, music, TV shows, and books. These categories give Donath’s conventional signals (displays of info. that are only conventionally associated with a person’s characteristics). The information in these categories is not necessarily true but can’t really be proven false based solely upon the profile. The photo application on Facebook can also give conventional signals. People can choose to only show pictures that display certain social association, publicly linking themselves to specific groups of people. Although Facebook allows for mostly conventional signals, there are a few assessment signals that are displayed on a person’s profile. For instance, in order to belong to a Facebook college network, you must have an email address from that college. The contact and education information sections allow for such assessment signals and are directly related to the person’s characteristics. They can be proven true.
While I was chatting online with my friend from high school I decided to ask her about her facebook profile. In the basic, contact, education, and work categories she gave herself all 5’s and said this information was completely accurate. In the personal information category she gave herself 4’s for favorite movies, books, TV shows, and music. She said that the information she put on her profile in this section was indeed accurate but was not a conclusive list. She had several other favorites that she didn’t choose to display and chose about three selections for each category.
I have been close friends with this girl for about six years and I know her very well. When I looked at her profile after speaking with her I found that her descriptions were indeed true. The favorites in her personal section were accurate and there only were about 3-4 selections made for each category. However, I found the selections she made to be very interesting. For example, in her favorite music category she chose 4 music artists/bands that portray her in an extremely laid-back and “chill” way (Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Coldplay, and Joshua Radin). I know for a fact that my friend also loves punk-rock music and pop but she chose to display four of her favorite alternative groups.
Overall, my friends lies were not frequent and were subtle. In fact, my friend wasn’t very deceptive but merely selectively self-presenting. This makes sense because she is a very honest and confident girl. Although my friend was accurate in her facebook profile, this assignment has made me see how easy it is to be deceptive in conventional signals and hard to be deceptive in assessment signals.

Assignment #2, the deadly debater.

Sorry for posting this late. I just added the class last week.

I decided to observe a person in an asynchronous forum. The psychological space I picked was an Avatar (anime) forum in which I previously posted so I could understand what everyone is talking about easily.
After looking around a bit, the user “Princess Azula” caught my attention. My impression of her is that she is a passionate speaker who defends her position with impeccable logic and supports her logic with analogies and examples. Well, I’m not entirely sure about the impeccable part, but her display of head-spinning philosophical knowledge after a few rounds of heated debate was really impressive. Her sentences are structured, clean and concise, and she doesn’t use any emonicons or words such as “I think” “like” to soften the blow. This is what they would probably call surgical strike.
And for those who don’t watch Avatar, Princess Azula is the princess of the Fire Nation. Fire Nation people are known for their passion and drive. Azula, while supremely ambitious, is really cold blooded. She is a deadly fighter who mastered the highest order of fire techniques, which includes lightning – the cold-blooded fire, befitting her image. So, in short, the name Princess Azula is roughly the equivalent of Cold-Blooded Killer.
Just by looking at the user name and the picture (she uses a picture with Azula holding blue flame ready to launch), I get the impression that she is formidable and deadly. And her abilities in debate confirmed this point. I think this observation coincides with the Hyperpersonal model as the mercilessness implied in her username is confirmed in her behavior.
Judging from her style of debate, I would say that she is a pro (by pro I mean she debates often, either in class or in team) at debate who is well versed in philosophy and possibly math since math requires good logic. And since Avatar is an anime, she is probably in high school or college. That’s about all I can figure out.
I would say that this also fits into the Hyperpersonal model: since she is a relatively few member and have relatively fewer posts, it would take a while for people to develop a full impression of her (SIP); since most of the posts she has so far are intense and debate oriented, I may be overly focused on her skillfulness as a debater instead of other things (over-attribution).

Assingment #3-An Old Man and a young girl

For this assignment I entered a chat room as an older male named Marcus. I was in my late 30s, recently divorced but still a very successful lawyer from New York City. Upon entering the chatroom, these were the qualities that I focused on. I apparently caught the attention of a young girl named Kira, but her screename was a little more promiscuous, "Wud-b-urs22". I automatically assumed that the conversation was going to go no where good, but I wanted to see how she was going to approach me. She started off talking about he college classes and how she was already stressed out in her first year/ first week of grad school. She then on to explain how she just needed someone to talk to about her career change of going to grad school for biomedical research instead of going to medical school to become the neurologist she always dreamed of becoming. Before she even allowed me to comment on her life she jumped into wanted to know about the significance of my screename: Glad2beFree. I explained my recent divorce as a 38year old man who is about the enter mid-life crisis. She immediately was reassuring and then played upon my success, which I wondered how she assumed that I was successful so quickly but then I realized me mentioning my New York pent house opened the door to that assumption. We began to focus on my life more, how I AKA "Marcus" ended up divorced and how I started my own law firm and what I was doing this weekend. Despite going to school in Boston, she more than willingly offered to come and visit me and then insisted how we should meet up and "have a drink". I immediately backed down and emphasized that age difference but she just kept pushing. I was pretty shocked because she knew nothing about me besides the fact that Marcus was well off financially. I then signed off because I did not want the conversation to go into a more awkward phase in which I would have to reveal my real identity.

In this chatroom I definitely utilized the self presentation tactics of utilizing diction that portrayed me in a noble, sophisticated charming older male. My developed vocabulary throughout the conversation suggested my education and my status but I was really thrown off how this young girl immediately took these qualities, assumed that is was true and was sucked in by them to really like me as "Marcus".

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3: Courses and Mischief

The first instance occurred early last week, when I asked my mom and my grandparents to help me narrow down a course to switch with my BIOBM 330 class (which my faculty advisor neglected to inform me of a prerequisite essential to the course, forcing me to drop the class). In case anyone’s wondering why I would ask my mom and grandparents for advise, it’s really just a tradition in the family – we discuss a lot of things together (even my cousin who is a graduate student, still ask my grandpa for advice). Anyways, I asked them the question by email and wrote down the courses I have tried to get in but failed.
The course selection is not an equivocal task, therefore, according to the Media Richness Theory, I should choose a leaner media—email, in this case.


The second instance occurred this Sunday (Monday considering it was 1:05 AM), when my townhouse mate Dan came to our room to show off his newly perfected card trick. My roommate was thrilled to see the trick, even though it was his second time seeing it (he was tricked sometime earlier on that day). He was shouting: “That’s awesome!” while my response was subtle in comparison. Dan left the room. I somehow felt that my response was rather insufficient, but I didn’t want to go to the next room and say: “That’s awesome, dude!” My computer was on at the time and I saw his screen name on the AIM list. After being tricked, I was up to some mischief. So, I sent him a message through AIM: “Yo. Nice trick btw.”
I can’t remember exactly how it went, but it was something like:Dan: “what trick?”Me: “Poker”Dan: “when?”
Me: “just now.”
……
Few seconds later, he appeared at our door again. “You are crazy.” According to him, he went from confused to slightly weird out (spooked I would say).
This situation deals with praise (both valence of Other and a positive locus), so according to O’Sullivan’s model, normal people are suppose to use the richest media available, which, in my case, would be walking 5 steps and knock on his door. I’m sure that’s what he would expect from a situation like this, but instead I used a more mediated interaction—AIM. Taken in account the fact that we never talked much on AIM before coming to Cornell, he isn’t very familiar with my screen name, so he didn’t realize it was I right away. So, when he saw the half familiar screen name commenting on his poker trick, he logically ruled me out (since I was just a few meters away). He must have thought that someone who is currently far away from him IM-ed him and commented on the poker trick he just did. This may have led him to the conclusion that someone has been spying on him or that he left something on accidentally.
Therefore, this instance of media selection supports the O’Sullivan’s model since deviation from the model results in people getting spooked.

Assignment 3: My Media Selection

Over the course of the summer, I was an intern at Advion BioSciences working for the Marketing & Communications Director. It was the nature of my employ that I was required to complete a varied series of tasks, often overlapping, provided to me at any manner of time. What resulted was a need for consistent contact between myself and my boss, so I could ask questions about specifics, report completed work, and be assigned new work.

What resulted was a consistent pattern of channel choice based on how immediate a response was needed from her to continue my work. If I had completed a task, I would send her an email explaining what I had done, or if I had finished a draft of a report or newsletter, I would attach it and send it to her email asking for review at her convenience. But, if there was a concern over which letter to send in a mass mailing or a need for a longer discussion on a big project like reformmating the CRM, I would pop into her office and ask her.

According to the Media Richness Theory, the choice of communication medium generally will reflect the equivocality of the medium to the task at hand and the richness required. With regards to my work situation, it would appear that I was indeed chosing the channel to most actively reflect "availability of feedback" and "language variety." If I needed an answer right away, I would seek her out FtF. If there was not an immediate need, I would send her an email. If there was a need for an at length discussion of an upcoming project, we would meet face to face. But, if I had a minor question, a simple email sufficed.

What about situations which required immediate feedback, but no additional cues or richness? If I had a short question requiring immediate response but no drawn out explanation requiring a FtF meeting, why did I not use the phone to call her? Familiarity. If I want more feedback, I much prefer a FtF conversation than the dirth of additional cues yielded by telephone communications. In fact, I loathe phones. So, although I was acting according the the Media Richness Theory at times, there was a sweeping disregard of an unfamiliar and unwelcome channel despite the effeciency it would have provided.

Assignment #3: The Life Choices of Media Selection

It’s interesting how different forms of media can be your excuses and justifications for being sneaky and conniving, and sometimes even kind of a jerk. Last Monday, I was looking for someone to eat lunch with at Trillium. The more friends I asked, the more likely one of them would have a break a the same time as me, so I proceeded to text message four different friends if they wanted to go to lunch. None of these four friends knew each other and text messaging allowed me to wait for their responses and basically pick and choose amongst them if I wanted to. By texting rather than calling all of them one by one, it was much easier for me to get out of going to lunch with one instead of the other because it was asynchronous so I had time to think and respond, or even not respond if I chose. With myself as the locus, I used the mediated channel of text messaging as a buffer. If any of them figured out that I had asked them to go to lunch and actually just invited anyone because I wanted someone to sit with, or worse, blown them off, I could better manage my impression through a mediated channel rather than face to face. This situation fell into the bottom right hand corner of the Impression Management chart labeled “Confess” for Self, Negative. It contradicted the Media Richness theory, because if I had really wanted to find someone to eat with as efficiently as possible, I would have just called someone and convinced them to come.

The second instance of media selection supports the Media Richness theory. I was on the phone with my mom and she wanted to know the street address of my house that I’m living in this year as well as the web address of my Cornell Daily Sun article that had just been published so she could read it. Even though I was on the phone with her at that time, I told her I would email her the information because it would be so much easier and less time consuming for the both of us. It took me about 10 seconds to send her the information through email, while over the phone I would have had to slowly repeat it as she copied it down and then read it back to me to make sure it was correct. I chose the more mediated channel, email, over the richer channel, the phone, not because I had to manage a negative self-impression, but because it was more efficient.

These examples seem to show that which model we live by depends on the situation and what we value in that particular situation: self-impression or time and efficiency.

3: Confession To An Old Friend and the Pride of Winning

Last year, a friend of mine was about to finish his study abroad experience in America and fly back to his home country, Turkey, to finish his undergraduate degree. That May, as we were saying goodbye, I had made the promise that I would contact him throughout the summer to talk about what he was up to and about returning to school in Turkey the next year. As the summer passed, we were both caught up in internships or activities that neither of us actually took the time to call the other, perhaps as a product of procrastination. As the new school year rolled around, I had this terrible feeling in my gut that he would be disappointed that I hadn’t kept my promise and taken the time to contact him, and that once we did talk, the psychological distance between us would be very uncomfortable. I didn’t have the nerve to phone him, but I rather waited a few hours for him to show up on IM. When he came online, I felt compelled to confess my inability to keep my promise, so I sent him an instant message in a somewhat nonchalant, friendly tone at first, modifying my behavior in order to hide my deep-seated guilt. I didn’t get a response for a few minutes, which made me feel that maybe he was ignoring me or didn’t want to talk to me. Just then, I heard my cell phone buzzing, and at that instant, I had this queasy feeling in my stomach. I did not want to talk on the phone with this guy who was undoubtedly going to question me on why I hadn’t I hadn’t tried to contact him all summer. I knew I couldn’t hide my guilt on a medium as rich as the telephone – I would rather prefer to use a mediated interaction, such as IM, to confess my situation so that I could keep my composure more easily and more carefully select my words in order to appease him. This attitude agrees with O’Sullivan’s Model given the negative valence and a self locus that describes the confession situation and the preference of mediated interaction that goes along with the desire to confess. In those few seconds while the phone was ringing, I had started to come up with various explanations, and I even began to formulate counter-attacks by questioning why he hadn’t taken the effort to contact me. As it turned out, we ended up talking like the old friends we were, and he was not at all as angry as I had worried he would be. Although my fear of confessing on a medium as rich as the telephone indicated an adherence to O’Sullivan’s Model, my friend’s preferences had seemed to follow the Media Richness Theory in that he insisted on choosing a rich medium for the equivocal task of getting caught up with an old friend.

Another instance of media selection involves a group project that I and three other classmates had undertaken last year. We were competing in a semester-long business simulation competition for a management class and had to meet up at least twice every week. We had started out meeting in group study lounges at the library, but we had eventually gotten to the point where our decisions became a lot more objective, at which point we found that using IM, Skype, or email for group communication was preferred. This choice agrees with the Media Richness Theory in that as we got more familiar and more mechanical with the tasks we needed to accomplish, they became less equivocal, and therefore we preferred to communicate over the leaner media types. However, at the end of the semester, we ended up winning the competition, so the four of us went out to a restaurant to celebrate, and began to hang out with each other more often – communicating through unmediated interaction more so than when we were trying to accomplish our goal. What we wanted was praise from each other, being acknowledged for our hard work and accomplishments during the competition. O’Sullivan hypothesized that the negative valence and “other” locus associated with praise would lead to a low preference for mediated interaction – rather, a greater desire for F2F communication, which is exactly what our group had experienced after we had successfully accomplished our goal.

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3. Hi Mom, Yes Mom, Okay Mom, No Mom *rolls eyes*

Over the weekend I received an email from my mom asking for a few updates and that I phone or email her when I get a chance. The updates that she requested had to do with my classes and my living arrangements among other things. Being that her questions could all be answered with short and simple answers, I thought of them as relatively trivial and I chose to respond in an email rather than a phone call. This closely supports the media richness theory: I chose to communicate in the leaner of the two mediums because I viewed the subject matter as trivial. This situation does not relate to O’Sullivan’s model because, although there is a locus (myself), there is no valence (I don’t view these particular updates as either positive or negative).

In another case of media selection, I recently persuaded a friend, “J,” to use a certain media to communicate with another mutual friend, “C,” for very specific and thought out reasons. The situation in question had to do with work going on in an organization we three are involved in, and the message would have created more work for “C” so I viewed it as having a negative valence for the ‘other’ locus. This is an obvious application of O’Sullivan’s theory. However, choosing the medium to communicate was more complicated because it was also “C’s” birthday and, using the Media Richness Theory, I viewed “J’s” message as trivial and unimportant while “C” was celebrating. I therefore suggested sending an email for “C” to read when he got the opportunity, rather than interrupting him with a phone call. While the message has a locus and valence, O’Sullivan’s theory wouldn’t necessarily predict that an other/negative situation would call for a mediated interaction; it was the combination of the other/negative situation and the relatively trivial nature that called for the mediated method of communication. I feel that this case supports the Media Richness Theory, as well as O’Sullivan’s theory.

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3: Courses and Mischief
Assignment 3, Option 2: How my mom became technologically savvy

3: I Want to Be a Psychology Major and Finish My Pride & Prejudice Essay

I swear; these past two assignments have made me more adventurous. Creating new screen names has really lets me explore the realms of chat rooms – a sphere that I had steered clear from. I had lacked what I felt was an anonymous identity. Needless to say, with new a new screen name, my inhibitions were lowered and I felt comfortable realizing the assignment: completing an identity switch in a psychological space (option 1).

With the copious amount of homework I had tonight, I didn’t get a chance to actually start this assignment until after midnight. When I went to check on some off-the-beaten-path chat rooms, such as NASCAR Chat, P. Diddy Chat, and Financial Safety Chat, I found not one person in any of them. So I went back to what I learned last time; people will go into Romance Chats at all hours of the night. I ventured into the Alone@Home Chat, which I was very apprehensive into going into, but it was the only chat room with people in it.

In this chat room, I decided to use my self-presentational tactics to portray myself as a 16 year old female, junior in high school. My story was as follows: I was up late trying to finish an essay on Pride and Prejudice, and I got stuck on how I should write the conclusion. I wrote a message in the chat room asking for help on writing my essay, and got a few responses.

I got into a conversation with Waterskier24. He was extremely helpful and offered a lot of help for my imaginary essay. I played up the fact that Sparknotes didn’t have enough information for me to complete my essay, and I didn’t have time to finish the book. I kept talking about the stress of the SATs and how hard my AP classes were. I made a point to focus on high school and searching for colleges. Eventually, we started talking about my fake AP Psychology class, and this helpful man happened to be an employee in a psych hospital studying sleep (hence, his late hours). I asked him what interesting classes he had taken in psychology. The conversation shifted to why I thought I wanted to be a psychology major, and how fascinating I thought his work was. The fact that he worked in a psych lab helped fuel the academic conversation.

waterskier24 (1:40:52 AM): i work in a psych hospital.... get paid to watch patients sleep most of the night

sweetipie38242 (1:40:59 AM): oo very cool

waterskier24 (1:42:56 AM): and u, what do u do?

sweetipie38242 (1:43:32 AM): im a junior in high school, so right now just college searching and AP classes

waterskier24 (1:43:49 AM): exciting

waterskier24 (1:44:01 AM): what u thinking bout majoring in, or do u not know?

waterskier24 (1:44:05 AM): where at as well?

sweetipie38242 (1:44:06 AM): well im actually think about psychology

sweetipie38242 (1:44:14 AM): and I think I’m going to apply early decision to SUNY buffalo

waterskier24 (1:44:34 AM): nice, the major for people that have no clue!

Throughout the conversation, I made a point to talk about things that I did in highschool. Even though this guy was significantly older than me, and seemingly creepy for talking to a high school girl when he was clearly beyond college age, there were no sexual undertones to our conversation, and the conversation was kept primarily to highschool academia. I made a point to make myself below the legal age when creating my identity, so that might’ve helped hinder sexual harassment, as that was a problem last week when I went into a chat room. With this barrier an my new identity, I felt comfortable “being myself”.

3: My Weekend Media Selection

Over the weekend I spend a good amount of time communicating with other people, whether it be face to face, on the phone, or on the internet. As I communicated with people, I tried to focus on whether the types of communication I chose to use went along with the Media Richness Theory, or with O’Sullivan’s model, or perhaps both.

The first communication I analyzed was when I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday. Naturally I wanted to use the richest media available for this task, so since I couldn’t go home, I had to call her. My choice of media in this situation supports both the Media Richness Theory and O’Sullivan’s model. According to the Media Richness Theory, I would try to pick a mode of communication that matched the complexity of my message. Considering that I was planning on saying more to my mom than “Happy Birthday” and then hanging up, it follows that I would choose the richest form of communication available to me: the telephone. Using a telephone, we would be able to experience a multiplicity of cues, message personalization and feedback, and language variety. All this made the communication between my mom and me both very rich and equivocal. My choice of using rich media to communicate with my mother also follows O’Sullivan’s model. In this situation the locus is somebody else (my mom), and the valence is positive (happy birthday). Of the four possible combinations of loci and valences, the “Other” and “Positive” combination is the one with the greatest likelihood of using a rich media format for communication.

The second communication I chose to analyze was when I used instant messaging to ask one of my roommates whether they had gotten tickets to see Stephen Colbert in October. I asked him to buy me a ticket when he bought his because I would be in class all day and wouldn’t be able to. I chose to use instant messaging because I was at work and had only a very simple question and response planned for the communication. A lot of the regular cues used when communicating in a rich media format would not be necessary for this simple message. My choice follows directly with the Media Richness Theory. I had a simple message, no need for cues or vague and ambiguous communication. As far as O’Sullivan’s model is concerned, this does not really confirm it at all. I wasn’t delivering any sort of positive or negative news to my friend; I was just asking a simple question.

And if you are curious, I did get the tickets.

3: Being AntieAnnie // Identity-Based Deception

Unsure of how to enter a chatroom or which chat to enter, I googled "web based chatting" and chose Yahoo's web based chat service. I was presented with a slue of different chat room topics. Since I planned to pose as a 44 year old mother (my inverse both age-wise and gender-wise), I thought it would be interesting to join the "College Chat."

Upon entering the room, I was disoriented by overwhelming amounts of text appearing and disappearing on the screen. Eventually someone asked a/s/l. I answered with an abnormal 44/f/ny. When I got some attention from a few people, this was my cue. I private messaged those that commented on my apparent age. All of the chatters seemed to believe me, but the only person who responded to my private message was “kev,” who claimed to be a 20 year old male (See the conversation excerpt above, where the green spaces indicate a lapse in the conversation.)

Trying to think about how my mother might type if she were barely computer-literate enough to enter a chat room, I assumed a well punctuated and capitalized format. This capitalization scheme, which would fall under the environmental self-presentation tactic (set/props/lighting), was furthered by the contrast of cases and content of our nicknames. His alias "kev" was all lowercase, and my alias "AntieAnnie" was properly capitalized and bolstered my a/s/l response, thus setting my tone as a middle-aged woman.

My chat would qualify as identity-based deception because I displayed a character other than my true self. kev’s curt responses support Wallace’s statement on p24 that age and gender are “so fundamental to the initial impression.” Before even conversing with me, kev clearly did not plan to have a meaningful conversation with who he called an “old bag.” I think that kev’s honesty about his virginity can be attributed to the age and gender I expressed. If my a/s/l were 17/f/ny, he may have hid this "confession" or even lied about his virginity. In the chat room I entered, I did not need to display ANY assessment signals (information such as a Cornell email address that might give clues to my real-world identity behind the nickname). kev’s impression of me was purely riding on conventional signals from my self-descriptive messages and nickname.

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How to create a buffer: email…no wait, even better, Facebook honesty box.

Yes, the Facebook honesty box application is the only form of communication that allows you to communicate with your friends without giving a single clue as to how you are.

I found myself in a situation where I had to confront a close-friend about the status of our friendship. I began to realize that I did not know him at all—I did not know his aspirations in life, his political views on society, his significant life-altering problems, his relations with his parents, and so on. Our relationship was on a very basic level: we would always joke around, go to parties, and hang out with the same people. Every time I would try to bring up a serious issue, he would change the conversation to a joking manner. I came to the conclusion that either he did not trust me with his serious issues, or he was simply not capable of thinking that way. I knew I had to confront him about this, and I was not sure which method of communication to use, as we try to keep in contact any way possible: email, AIM, Facebook, phone calls, text messages, and FtF conversations.

I resorted to using the honesty box application on Facebook because it would provide the optimal “buffer.” I decided to leave a very vague message and to not give any clue as to who I am because if I told him that he should be more trusting in general or that he was simple-minded, he would probably change. I wanted to maximize my benefits (having a deeper more meaningful relationship), while minimizing my costs (getting into a fight because I said something was wrong with him). Facebook allowed me to have complete control of my self-presentation; I was able to conceal my identity, as much as I wanted.

Another situation where it was difficult to choose a media of communication that I encountered was my friend breaking up with her boyfriend over an email. I know that this is not a situation where I had to make the decision, but I was very much involved with this relationship (No, not the way you are thinking. She constantly came to me for advice), plus I had to write about this when Professor Hancock used this as an example: “There is a symbolic meaning associated with the channel of communication—for example, image breaking up with someone through an email. This means that you don’t even care enough about the person to give them a phone call.”… or something to that extent. I also wanted to analyze this situation because like Hancock said, it is not a social norm to break up with someone over the email.

First of all, this relationship is complicated, and I am not going to get into the details. She had been trying to break up with this person for over 4 months, but every time she tried, she could not build up the courage to go through with it. Every weekend she would try to break up with him over the phone. However, he would respond by saying that the relationship would work out if they tried hard enough, and if she went any further than that, he would start crying. After trying numerous times to discontinue the relationship over the phone, she decided to take the weekend to go back home and confront him in a face-to-face conversation. This, however, was also poorly executed.

She ultimately ended the relationship with an email. Her control over the interaction was much greater in a leaner channel. She had an opportunity to present her side of the relationship, while avoiding negative feedback (in his case, consistent whining and crying). Although it was not a social norm to break up over an email, it was necessary because she needed the control over the interaction.

Both of these situations are examples the Impression Management Model, O’Sullivan’s theory. In both cases, we relied on the benefits of leaner channels or the lack of cues to obscure our message in order to manage our self-presentation. These examples also contradict the Media Richness Theory because both these tasks were highly equivocal, which would imply that we should use richer medias of communication, but it was more effective to do the opposite, whether if it was chosen or forced.

3: Media Richness Theory

Instant messaging has had a profound effect on how people connect. I use instant messaging to talk to many different people with whom I have different levels of familiarity. I find that instant messaging is often easier than talking to people face to face and in some cases it enables communication when face to face communication is not possible. For example, one of my best friends from back home is abroad in China for a year. Because of instant messaging, we are able to have synchronous communication which makes it so that except for the time difference, I can't tell any difference between communicating with him in China and if they were in Chicago. I could communicate in other ways, I could use a voice-over-IP service like Skype, but that is complicated and too formal. I want to be able to just chat with my friend while I am doing other things. I usually would not have a reason to call or type up an email, but if I can see he is online and not doing anything, there is no reason that I can't have a conversation about absolutely nothing. This follows the Media Richness Theory. There is no need for any more information from my friend than what I am getting. I do not need to see video of him, I do not need to really talk to him. If anything, I prefer talking to him online rather than on the phone. However, I do need my communication to be synchronous. I do not want to have a conversation over email because I don’t consider that a real conversation. Instant messaging is the richest medium necessary.

I actually really have trouble communicating with people that do not follow the Media Richness Theory. I hate when people text message me things that they should be asking me over the phone. I can understand when someone does not really want to have a conversation and might just want a quick yes or no, or if they can’t talk, but it is a completely different story when someone is asking me a question on how to do a homework problem over text messaging. Often in these cases if I want to talk to them, I will change the medium. I change the medium to one that I think has the richness that I find necessary to properly communicate. I find it interesting that a synchronous conversation can switch mediums without missing a beat and that different people can use the Media Richness Theory and end up trying to use different mediums. Although no media is best for all social interactions, people can usually settle on a particular media for a specific conversation.

3 - Creepiest Experience Ever

For this assignment I went into the same chat room as I did for assignment 2, but this time I was disguised as an 18 year old female under the name “Pigtails23”. I wanted a name that would suggest being a teenage female. When I joined the chat I greeted everyone and this time, I got a lot more responses. One person asked me “asl” and when I responded “18/f/boston” I immediately received 8 private messages, all from guys. I was expecting a lot of attention, but this was more than I had imagined.

Not surprisingly, most of the chats basically followed the same path. The guy would ask me what I looked like. I responded trying to describe a fairly attractive female – “blonde, blue eyes, 5 foot 2”. Shortly after that, the guy would ask me if I had msn, presumably for video chatting. I replied “no” and the conversation usually ended. Almost everyone was online interested in video chatting with an attractive female. There was one guy who seemed interested in chatting with me because he was also from Boston, but our chat never progressed very far.

While chatting online, I tried to talk in a way that would make me seem like an 18 year old girl who used chat rooms a lot. I used common slang such as “r” instead of “are” and “u” instead of “you” and I tried to use a lot of smileys. In the end, it seemed that I probably seemed more like a dits or a girl who was looking to video chat with a guy. Because this was an online chat, I didn’t have any nonverbal behaviors to use to help create an image of myself so I had to only use the messages I sent. If I was chatting face to face I would have been able to use other channels but it would have been impossible to pretend I was someone else. The anonymity that the Internet provides is so great that it almost encourages disguising oneself.

The whole experience was very disturbing because it bothers me to know that all these guys weren’t interested with meeting someone new to make a friend, they only wanted to video chat with an attractive girl. It took some effort to actually chat with these guys and make attempts at starting a conversation, even though they all failed.

Comment 1
Comment 2

3 Lean Wit It

When choosing a communication medium, the first things we think about are our audience and our message. These two aspects dictate which interactional channel would work best for self-presentation and impression management. Before we communicate, we decide which channel (phone, email, IM, etc.) is best suited to deliver our message to our target audience.

One instance where I had to choose a communication medium was about a month ago after I met with a Cornell alum, a V.P. at a financial services firm in New York City. As a courtesy, I wanted to thank him for making time in his busy schedule for a meeting. The message was intended to be brief and to the point because he is a busy executive. Keeping in mind that my audience was a businessman, I decided that the best way to communicate with him was via email – quick and simple, yet personal and professional. I did not want to interrupt his workday with a trivial phone call having nothing more to say than “thank you” and then an awkward silence or an abrupt “good-bye” on his part due to an urgent conference call or meeting. This media selection adheres to the Media Richness Theory. I chose a lean channel (email) because the task was less equivocal, and in the process, I was able to leave a positive impression (he responded to the email by suggesting another time to meet in the near future).

In a separate incidence, I also chose a lean channel (instant messaging) to communicate with an acquaintance. However, I did not choose this media because my task was less equivocal. My acquaintance was about my age and we began corresponding through IM as a means of getting to know each other, which is not a simple task that could be answered in one or two sentences (which is often associated with the use of lean media). Instead, this lean medium was chosen because of it is relatively synchronous and it allows for better impression management. This channel selection more closely follows O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model, where the choice of leaner media forms a buffer, in which one can selectively present certain qualities, characteristics, etc. It was not important how efficiently we corresponded; it was more about the buffer of clarity and ambiguity that lies in online impression formation.

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Comments:

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-i-want-to-be-psychology-major-and.html

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-ending-beginnings.html

3 Deception Down Under

For this assignment, I posed as a male in a television-themed chatroom. Though the female designation in my profile undermined my initial attempts to feign masculinity, I quickly stripped my profile of any information that might reveal my true gender. The next step was to embrace my temporary persona, “Jonathan.”


My first chat buddy was a fifteen-year-old male from Florida. When I told him I was from New York, he told me that his crazy ex-girlfriend lived there. As “one of the guys,” I thought it my duty to sympathize and deliver a healthy dose of women-weary sentiment. After affirming that “girls are ridiculous,” I began chatting with one from Australia who seemed flattered when I suggested she probably had a cool accent. I told her that my girlfriend had always wanted a small kangaroo for a pet (by girlfriend, I really meant me), which prompted her to tell me about the kangaroo that lived in her house while her veterinarian dad took care of him. The real me would have been hard-pressed not to spew several variants of “aww, that’s so cute!” after each of her anecdotes, but “Jonathan” suppressed this urge. Instead, I conveyed a mildly detached appreciation for her pet kangaroo’s antics. When I told her I hoped to travel to Australia someday, she offered to teach me some Aussie lingo (my favorite was “lolly water” for soda). I took advantage of the opportunity to approach proficiency in down under vernacular, while simultaneously trying to appear just a little bemused, rather than overtly curious. When she asked me what I liked to do with my “mates,” I provided a fairly unisex response (“hang out, watch movies”), which allowed me to retain some honesty - honesty I promptly discarded when she asked whether I played football (soccer). I told her I played once a week, which elicited a “bonza” (equivalent to “sweet”), though I added that she was probably much better at the sport. While my friend seemed to construe this comment as a flirtatiously self-deprecating compliment, I was actually just speaking candidly about my inadequate ball-kicking capacities. Our conversation ended when the girl left for school and commented that maybe we would talk later.


During my chatroom interactions, I employed self-presentational tactics. In order to convey the impression of a 19-year-old male, I pretended that I could relate to the 15-year-old’s gripes regarding girls and told the Aussie that I played a sport. I also tried to express attitudes I thought might be fitting for a prototypical male. In order to eliminate all linguistic tip-offs to my true gender, I found myself dampening responses which might normally have been enthusiastic. For some reason, I thought my male equivalent would be believable only if I maintained a certain degree of aloof nonchalance. Despite having switched identities, however, I never strayed very far from my actual personality. It seems as though online deception can be accomplished with little more than a convincingly gender-specific username.

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-creepiest-experience-ever.html#comment-5487910199481758786
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-hi-mom-yes-mom-okay-mom-no-mom-rolls.html

Congratulations - I want to talk to you on the phone! Assignment 3

This past weekend I used quite a few means of communication. On Friday, my athletic team at Cornell had a game against St. Bonaventure. I was particularly interested in visiting the school because one of my very good friends, Josh, has been in contact with their men’s soccer coach. He has been hoping to impress the coach for a while and wants to be a recruit for the team next year. He hadn’t heard from the St. Bonaventure’s coach for a while so was beginning to look at other schools. After our game, a friend of mine who is on the St. Bonaventure men’s soccer team was there and we started talking about Josh. He said that his coach was very impressed with Josh and really hoped he was still interested in being a member of his soccer team. Of course I opted to call Josh right away to tell him this news rather than send him a text message or email. This action agrees with O’Sullivan’s Theory, because I used a positive valence and the locus was my friend Josh. The number for the likelihood of using an equivocal means of communication is very low when praising others. I wanted to receive feedback and hear Josh’s excitement so I called him rather than text him.

A few minutes later, however, I wanted to send a text to a friend here at school to let her know what time we were going to be home tonight. No response was needed and the task was not an equivocal one at all. I therefore used a lean media source. This particular situation, therefore, involves the Media Richness Theory more so than O’Sullivan’s Theory. Although, the valence of the situation was positive, and the locus of the situation was my friend, I still opted to use an unequivocal means of communications.

It is very interesting to analyze and observe how we communicate in our every day life. I am also amazed at how often we communicate with each other and how we choose specific methods over others without even realizing it.

3: Media Selection: Phone or Email?

For the purpose of better analyzing the theories regarding media selection, I will focus on a specific example that a friend, “X”, recently encountered. For the past few months, X has had multiple disagreements with her friend, Y. Recently, she has felt aggravated by Y’s inability to empathize with her feelings, and therefore decided to confront Y about the status of their relationship. In order to do so, X chose to “accuse” her over email, a lean, mediated form of communication.

X’s choice to use a lean, mediated form of communication conforms to the Impression Management Theory. In this instance, the locus of the issue was focused away from the self towards Y, and the episode had a negative valence. X’s goal was to minimize the conversation’s benefits and avoid possible costs; therefore, she chose a the channel that would best help to regulate impression management. Because the valence of the episode was negative and directed away from X, X chose a mediated form of communication to create a “buffer” between her and Y, and to insulate her from Y’s immediate, and most likely negative, reaction. It is also possible, however, that the episode fits into the “confess” category, as X did make herself vulnerable by divulging to Y that her feelings were hurt by Y's actions. Here, there would be an even stronger incentive to use a mediated form of communication, as there is a greater need for control over the situation, which a mediated channel can provide. This situation does not support the Media Richness Theory, which would predict that because the situation was ambiguous rather than straightforward, X would rather chose a rich channel.

The second example regards a recent death within my family. After the death of a relative, I telephoned the decedent’s daughter in order to offer my condolences, rather than doing so over email. This experience is supported by both the Media Richness Theory and the Impression Management Model. In regards to the Media Richness Theory, the message was emotional and equivocal rather than straightforward. This played into my decision to telephone, which is a rich form of communication. The telephone offers a greater number of communication cues, allows for a more personal message, provides feedback, and offers the chance to use a wider variety of language and tone (all of which is important in an equivocal situation).

The experience is also supported by the Impression Management Model. Although I was not “praising” the family member per se, the message clearly had a positive valence, as I was trying to offer her positive support and empathy. In addition the locus of the issue was focused away from the self onto the party. Just as the model predicts, there was no need for a buffer in this situation, and a rich channel was optimal as it offers all the benefits of increased communication cues.

Comments:
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http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/congratulations-i-want-to-talk-to-you.html

Blog 3: Media Selection—Mom, Dad…I need more money. & It’s just a little crush…

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Bursar office with the intention of receiving a refund check. However, in typical Bursar fashion my request was denied for convoluted reasons. Now short a thousand dollars, and with the rent due soon, I was forced to not only tell my parents the bad news about the Bursar office but also to ask them for a check for this month’s rent. At the end of the day, the thought of calling home just as my parents were getting off work to give them bad news, that could reflect poorly on me in their eyes, was not appealing. Instead, I opted to send them an email explaining the details and a promise to call within the next few days. Since they usually check their email in the morning, they could at least have a relaxing evening after work and I could avoid any misdirected frustration. I think my choice of media fits in nicely with the O’Sullivan model. There is no question that the valence of the episode was negative, leading me to use a more mediated interaction as a buffer against my possibly angry parents. Also, I considered the locus to be on me, since I am the one attending Cornell and requiring additional money to continue with my education. Media Richness Theory would have probably predicted that since this wasn’t a completely straightforward message, I should have chosen a richer media, to explain all the details. However, in keeping with O’Sullivan’s Impression Management model, since my situation had a negative emotional charge and seemed focused on me, I was very likely to choose a leaner method of communication.

The second situation that came to mind, which also fits in with O’Sullivan’s Impression Management model, occurred last fall. I had been in a long distance relationship for about two years and my boyfriend and I seemed to be growing apart. I noticed that I was developing a crush on a guy in my hall and despite everyone I talked to who said it was normal, I felt very guilty. I didn’t really plan a specific time to tell him, but it was easier to let it slip out while we were doing homework and chatting on IM. Since the locus of this news was me, and it was certainly negative from my boyfriend’s perspective, I chose to use a mediated technology to hide behind while I confessed my crush. This supports O’Sullivan’s findings. However, my boyfriend was shocked and upset and demanded that we talk on the phone. His reaction seems to indicate that the media of IM was too lean, in his view, to convey such an emotionally charged confession, so we switched to talking on the phone and were able to work things out. Perhaps there is a bit of evidence in this exchange for Media Richness Theory. Because I certainly wasn’t giving a straightforward message, a richer method of communication was necessary.

Links to my comments: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5400576841210402935&postID=2261809314944506497

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3: Ending & Beginnings.

In my first instance of media selection, I am not the main actor; rather, the person who did choose the media explained to me her reasoning for doing so. Over the summer, five minutes after having parted with my friend “E”, I got a call from her, fully expecting her to say that I had forgotten something at her place. Instead, E tells me she wants to read our mutual friend L’s AIM away message over the phone and get my interpretation. E reads me a statement that basically lets us know that L’s 22 year old sister had died unexpectedly. Well, after a phone chain informing the rest of our friends, I called L, and among other things, discussed why she choose an away message to get across this news. She explained that she didn’t feel like calling everybody up and breaking the news to them- it would be too heartbreaking and hard to stay composed. Putting it on an away message informed some people who thereby told everyone else relevant. In more difficult messages, I suppose the leaner medium makes it easier to relay information. This goes against media richness theory, in which equivocal tasks like breaking up are best done using a richer medium. Since a negative situation was broadcasted through mediated interaction, this instance supports O’Sullivan’s theory. My decision to call her and later interact with her face to face indicates that although the situation was negative and uncomfortable, richer media are still more socially appropriate under such situations because any discomfort would have been on my part, and in this case my feelings were not the ones that mattered- support from L’s friends positively benefited her.

Secondly, in a less dramatic instance in which I was the main actor, upon finding that my cousin was engaged today, I called her as opposed to sending her a facebook message or congratulatory email. A richer and synchronous medium allowed for more efficient and fast exchange of details of the proposal, expected wedding dates, etc. A positive situation broadcasted on richer media also supports O’Sullivan’s model.

3 | My husband, my life, my choices, your opinions.

“My husband is a chauvinistic bastard.” With a straightforward one liner I stepped outside the shoes of a male sophomore college student and into that of a frustrated young lady. How simple it is to change your mindset, your image, your whole “self” just by creating a chat room account named “SarahJ” and starting a string of vitriolic verbal attacks on your “husband’s” laziness and incompetence! But of course that’s not what I did. It would be awfully silly. No, instead I started out slow in a chat room for just married couples (they have a chat room for every conceivable group nowadays) and carefully constructed “Sarah,” a nurse in Wyoming who recently married to someone whom she did not really love. (If you think this deception is slightly/very creepy, I completely agree. But keep in mind that this is for an academic purpose)

Sarah, my two hour temporary identity in a chat room, shows the true spirit of a modern feminist. She wanted to save lives, to change the world for the better, to find true love, etc. I did my absolute best to keep myself in character and craft the most believable details. I found it useful to use run on sentences to deliver deeply emotional statements, but spit out short and quick insults for criticism. I introduced myself as Sarah, who has recently become more and more disillusioned with her husband of two months. My “husband,” John, is unemployed and is exerting a less than ideal effort to find another job. I watched my words and tried to be convincingly ambivalent in my “thoughts” that I shared with the chat room – should I leave him? should I try to change him? or should I just accept him as who he is?

To elicit reactions from other chat room members, I described myself early on as a strong-minded woman who does not like to be relegated to the role of a supportive housewife. I want to be independent and successful. I am confident, proud, and opinionated. Additionally, being pro-choice shows my liberal attitude, and a penchant for “clubbing” demonstrates my ability to socialize well with others. Ayn Rand is Sarah’s favorite philosopher – in fact she is quite sophisticated and well-educated in many fields. Overall, it is clear that “Sarah” was projecting her “ideal self” to the chat room. However underneath she is insecure, frequently indecisive, and fairly neurotic. This “true self” is revealed when I told the other members that I had difficulties making up my mind about the marriage, I was afraid to change career, and I could not tolerate many minor issues in a relationship.

My experiment was quite successful. Many people replied sympathetically and offered a wide range of advice, ranging from “go cheat on him you’re better than he anyway” to “you should love him because love is strong enough to change anyone.” (Quotes not exact, I had to edit them so they could be comprehensible. Although the Internet has ushered us into a new Digital Era, it unfortunately skipped the Proper Grammar and Spelling Era)

I feel that my experience should be examined with both “multiple selves” and “self-presentation tactics.” The “multiple selves” aspect is the overarching influence over Sarah’s overall behavior, showing how she tries to be what she has read in books and seen in other media, but in truth she cannot fully realize those ideals. Self-presentation tactics dictated her specific actions and words. Sarah chose the most “positive” words to describe herself, exhibited liberal and strong attitudes that are stereotyped to be prevalent among young women, and pushed for a social association with the “clubbing crowd” that likes to live a fun and exciting life.

Toward the end I felt increasingly uncomfortable under the disguise. People started to ask about our sex life and my personal psyche, which I was not completely prepared to deal with. I discreetly exited the chat room, not with a bang but a whimper, claiming that dinner had to be made. I somewhat regret projecting such a complex and strong personality, as it proved to be quite difficult to sustain, and I was left with two minds about the ethical implications of deceiving all those people. However, the experience was exhilarating at least and provided unexpected entertainment. (One lady seriously suggested me to craft a Voodoo doll to force my husband into working, and quite a few suggested that I should try dating women instead.)

My comments:

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-creepiest-experience-ever.html#comment-6985014499579317205

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/3-deception-down-under.html#comment-8316022416550526601

Assignment #3 My Media Selection

Over the summer, I was in Maryland at my friend’s lake house. On the first day there I went to the fishing store to purchase a fishing permit to fish over the weekend. While I was there I realized I didn't have my license in my wallet where I thought it had been all summer. However, I didn't panic and thought maybe it was just in my pouch connected to my school keys that I rarely used over the summer. The rest of the summer went on and the thought of looking around for my license occurred to me a few times but I never actually did anything until about a week ago when I finally decided since I drive everyday I should make sure I have a license. As you could have guessed, I did not find my license and realized it had probably been lost all summer. So here was my dilemma, how do I tell my mom I lost my license? Do I call? Email? Text message? IM? I was pretty scared and of course intended on telling her that I only just lost it and need help getting a new one (yes I know very coward of me). Anyways, I decided that this conversation was going to need a rich media because this was an important discussion where I needed instant feedback and as many cues as I could get to try and interpret how angry my mom would be.
This instance of media selection supports the Media Richness Theory because I needed as rich of a media as I had available because a text message would not have been effective enough to explain the whole situation, get feedback from my mom, and interpret her reaction. I was matching my social task to my technology and realized a phone call was in order for this very equivocal task. This does not support O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model because I feel as though if I wanted to alter my buffer and that was the priority I would have chosen a media where my mother could not yell back at me directly, such as an email.
A different instance of media selection occurred this past weekend when I wanted to ask my Coach how she thought I did on my last erg test (test of physical strength on an indoor rowing machine). This time I was nervous about asking my coach about this and evaluated the situation as so. I wanted to hear what she had to say but I felt like I did not want to have the conversation face to face because then there was the option of her turning around the question on me and making me evaluate my performance (which is uncomfortable because you don't want to act like you didn't try your best but at the same time if she's not impressed with your score you don't want her to think that was as good as you can do) or she might actually say she was not happy with my performance and that would be hard to hear face to face. So with that in mind I decided an email would be best. This supports O'Sullivan's model because in this case I was concerned with the valence factor being negative so I preferred the mediated interaction where I felt the support of a buffer. This way I could ask my coach and get feedback without having to worry about any unexpected turns in conversation that could be negative or awkward.

3: Support for O'Sullivan

In my first instance of media selection, I am not the main actor; rather, the person who did choose the media explained to me her reasoning for doing so. Over the summer, five minutes after having parted with my friend “E”, I got a call from her, fully expecting her to say that I had forgotten something at her place. Instead, E tells me she wants to read our mutual friend L’s AIM away message over the phone and get my interpretation. E reads me a statement that basically lets us know that L’s 22 year old sister had died unexpectedly. Well, after a phone chain informing the rest of our friends, I called L, and among other things, discussed why she choose an away message to get across this news. She explained that she didn’t feel like calling everybody up and breaking the news to them- it would be too heartbreaking and hard to stay composed. Putting it on an away message informed some people who thereby told everyone else relevant. In more difficult messages, I suppose the leaner medium makes it easier to relay information. This goes against media richness theory, in which equivocal tasks like breaking up are best done using a richer medium. Since a negative situation was broadcasted through mediated interaction, this instance supports O’Sullivan’s theory. My decision to call her and later interact with her face to face indicates that although the situation was negative and uncomfortable, richer media are still more socially appropriate under such situations because any discomfort would have been on my part, and in this case my feelings were not the ones that mattered- support from L’s friends positively benefited her.
Secondly, in a less dramatic instance in which I was the main actor, upon finding that my cousin was engaged today, I called her as opposed to sending her a facebook message or congratulatory email. A richer and synchronous medium allowed for more efficient and fast exchange of details of the proposal, expected wedding dates, etc. A positive situation broadcasted on richer media also supports O’Sullivan’s model.

Assignment #3: Media Selection

It was my hidden intention to disprove O'Sullivan's model, but I really am as self-centered as he implies!

As O'Sullivan theorized, I chose the specific form of media based on the valence of the episode and locus of issue for both situations.

The first situation I will elaborate on that required the use of a form of media concerned a negative experience between an acquaintance and me. To make a long story short, I went out on a limb for this person but he basically embarrassed me in front of my friends by lying and acting in a way that made others feel uncomfortable. Since then, I had been very cold to this person, and the fact that we had mutual friends made it even more uncomfortable for him. However, I realized it was wrong of me to be cold to him, especially in front of mutual friends, so I decided to make amends and apologize to him. The valence and locus of the episode was negative and self (negative because I was admitting my fault, and self because it concerned my actions). My decision to use facebook to privately message him to apologize and explain my actions was almost automatic. Out of all the forms of media I could have used (email, phone, face to face, IM), I chose one of the more asynchronous forms because it allows me to be as detached from the situation as I want to be. The most important question to ask is WHY I want to be as detached as possible. The answer to this question supports O'Sullivan's Impression Management model. According to O'Sullivan, when valence is expected to be negative and locus is expected to be self, a mediated interaction is preferred more than in any other condition. My preference is influenced by the expected impact of the episode on me, therefore implying that factors other than mere efficiency and optimal pairing of equivocality of situation and richness of media (Media Richness Theory) affect an individual's choice of media.

The second situation prompted me to congratulate a friend of mine for accomplishing a goal that took a lot of patience and time: he had been cigarette-free for 3 months. This was such a great feat, because I've seen how difficult it is to quit from witnessing my close relatives' experience with addiction. However, I was at school and this person was at his school and the most personal way I could congratulate him was over the phone. I did so, and we were both so happy for him, but it felt almost incomplete because we had talked over the phone and not in person. The valence and locus of this episode was positive and other (positive because I was congratulating and other because the congratulations was toward another person). My desire for the encounter to be as personal as possible supports O'Sullivan's model; based on his model, when valence is expected to be positive and locus is expected to be other, a mediated form of interaction is least preferred than in any other situation. However, what I discovered to be interesting is what I realized what may have been my inner motive. Why did I want the media to be the most personal? Was it because I WANTED him to believe that I am a considerate and caring friend? If that is so, the ultimate influence of my choice to use the richest media is my desire to uplift myself and make myself the center of the situation. This brings me back to O'Sullivan's implication that people are selfish and preferences are highly influenced by the impact of episode on self.

3 Media Selection

I had two recent experiences where my selection of media influenced the content and style of the message contained within each medium.

First, I selected the telephone as a medium to contact my grandparents, as it was my grandfather’s birthday. I felt that the phone was the most convenient and personable medium I could have used for that situation, in which a warm “Happy Birthday” was in order. We enjoy hearing each other’s voice, even though we were hours away from each other. In addition, I know my grandparents very well and am accustomed to calling them. According to the Impression Management Model (O'sullivan), I probably chose an appropriate medium for “Praise” (“Positive” Valence and “Other” Focus). Although the IMM makes a good fit for describing my decisions in this case, it leaves out several other factors that influenced my selection of the phone medium. One major factor is selecting the appropriate medium for each group of people. While the IMM says I will choose a “richer” medium for Praise, it does not specify which “rich” medium will be best suited. Since I am quite savvy with computers and video production, I could have sent “The Birthday Boy” a video card or had a video chat on Skype with him. Instead, I believe I chose the phone medium because of the person involved, my grandfather, instead of making such a decision based on richness of the medium. Since my grandfather does not know how to use a computer, those other options would have been less convenient for him. The Media Richness Theory does not apply very well to this situation: equivocation or the lack of it was not a factor in my choice of the phone medium.

Second, I selected the email medium to send a thank-you letter and request more information from someone who works at a company where I am interested in working. I had just met him in person at an information session the day before. While he had given me his business card, containing his business mailing address, telephone number, and email address, I felt it was not as appropriate to call or “snail mail” him just yet, since we had just met and did not know each other too well. My decision to use email might also fit in with the Media Richness Theory, which would say that email is more fitted for more routine communication. I don’t think the positive and negative valence aspects of O’sullivan’s Impression Management Theory relate too closely to my decision to use a mediated environment: convenience and how well I knew the person were larger factors. I also used email because of its appropriateness for business communication.

Assignment 3: Media Selection

On Friday night, my suitemates and I decided to order in food, and we wanted to find out if our friend who lived off campus wanted to come over and order with us. I decided to send him a text message to see if he wanted to eat with us. Within a minute, he responded, saying that he was interested and asking what time he should come over.

In this case, I mainly chose text messaging out of convenience. I also knew that my friend generally responded promptly to text messages, so I would likely receive a quick answer. Because of this, I felt that my choice did not have much in common with O’Sullivan’s theory of impression management. He says that for conversations in which the valence is negative and the locus is oneself, one would prefer mediated communication. In my case, the locus of the conversation was my friend (because I was asking him a question) and the valence was positive (because it was about a friendly, social gathering). Yet I still decided to use a mediated form of interaction to complete the task. Thus, I feel that my decision was more in sync with the Media Richness Theory, because it was a straightforward, unequivocal task that I elected to conduct in a lean medium.

The next day, I wanted to find out how my mother, who had recently fractured her kneecap, was doing. I decided to carry out this particular conversation over the phone.

I chose to talk to her over the phone because I felt that a more mediated form of interaction would seem more impersonal and make me sound less sincere. In this case, my decision matched up with O’Sullivan’s theory. The locus of the interaction was my mother, the valence was positive, and, indeed, I preferred to use a more robust form of communication. By making sure that my sympathy was highly visible, I was trying to manage my self-presentation in a way that my mother would better appreciate my good wishes. This conflicts with the Media Richness Theory. The task was fairly straightforward – I just wanted to find out how she was doing. The MRT may have predicted that because of this, I would have opted to use a leaner channel; this was clearly not the case.

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http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-3-media-selectionmom-dadi-need.html

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-life-choices-of-media.html

Assignment 2

I spoke for about twenty minutes with “a_dierham” (name changed to protect identity) via private messaging on Meebo. Meebo is an AJAX based service that mimics instant messengers and chats and even allows you to access your chat client based accounts from AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and ICQ. I first met a_dierham in a chat for 20+ Adults on meebo. She was the first to reply to my “hello” in the group chat and I sent her a private message to interact with her one on one.

At this point, I had already formed my first impression of her after observably a short series to posts on the general chat. Firstly, I figured she was somewhat intelligent and clearly extroversive in the manner in which she was conversing with the chat group. She spoke with good grammar and sentence structures and was almost acting as a mediating / moderator within the chat. I had also pegged her as a male given her rather androgynous screen name and the fact that the majority of the chat members were men. Clearly, I was mistaken.

As we began chatting, and I asked a_dierham how she was doing, she replied “bored - another few hours of work, then my bf comes to pick me up.” This statement quickly lead me to two conclusions: first on her job / role, she clearly has a desk job which affords her the opportunity to waste some time online and secondly, in regards to her openness I concluded that she is a wary of new contacts using her boyfriend as a shield from unwanted solicitors. I then asked her what it was she for work and she said “hotel worker.” Which to mean seemed again guarded in that she was either a bit embarrassed about her job or unwilling to fully share. As we continued to chat and I asked some probing questions to find out more about her, I affirmed my belief she was intelligent as she waxed on a bit about her life as a Hotel Front Desk employee in the Orlando area. Somewhere along the line I had pegged her to be about 25 or 26 (I never found out for sure). Overall, she seemed quite controlled in the situation stating she occasionally visited chats when bored at work and was glad to have a decent conversation without having to “baby-sit or fend off creeps” and also very agreeable by her use of smiley faces in response to statements I made about myself or conjectures on things she had said.

The impression I had formed of a_dierham fell into line with a lot of the theories discussed in class. While I had found her to be an agreeable and intelligent conversationalist and I knew a little of her life as a Hotel Employee with a boyfriend, I could provide very little else in terms of describing her. This is representative of the Social Presence Theory. Further, I did find myself to have a somewhat negative impression of her given the information she had provided to me about her job in that I assumed she probably didn’t have a college degree or at least not a good one. This observation coincides with the theories in the Cues Filtered Out (CFO) and Reduced Social Context Cues theories which resolve that CMC will lead to underdeveloped and sometimes negative impressions.

Overall, I believe that the development of my impression of a_dierham is most reflective of the Hyperpersonal Model. Firstly, in counterargument to Social Information Processing (SIP), I had felt myself making broad generalizations about a_dierham’s gender, intelligence, and extrovertiveness well before I had even spoken a word to her just by observing her in the general chat. And, while I had admitted some negative impressions relating the CFO model, overall I had found a_dierham a very capable and likable individual. That said, I believe the intensity of revere I held for her intelligence was largely undue given the length of our conversation. This exaggeration of impressions falls in line with the Hyperpersonal Model. Further, I found myself stretching what I knew about her to make judgments about other parts of her life (her education for instance).

3 sexy_samantha_9 makes new friends

For my third assignment, I decided to go with Option 1, and I suspect that I am in the minority. It was a fun and entertaining experience, and of course, it was all done in the name of science!

Chat service used for this assignment was ICQ.com and I entered the chat rooms at around 8:30 PM. Being male, my identity switch involved taking on the role of a female. I chose to experiment with the identity 'sexy_samantha_9.' With samantha, I visited the Romance Room and the 40+ Room.

The 'samantha' character is 19 years old from New York City. She is oblivious to the perils of the online chat world, arriving in the room completely innocent and taken back by the onslaught of sexual deviance that greets her. samantha's self presentation tactics included self-descriptions of herself through ASL, her going to college for interior design, and her inexperience with the internet; attitude expression manifested in frustrated and angry responses to the males in the chat rooms who were sexually aggressive; and social associations were expressed in the ease of talking with other females and when samantha would no longer speak to those who rubbed her the wrong way.

In the Romance room, I found that it was hard to hold a productive conversation with anyone, since it would eventually boil down to "do u have pix?" or "call me baby!" I would enter the room with "hi, what’s up" and would repeatedly use the language and conversational style of a stereotypical, middle-class, innocent young girl. I noticed repeated use of "like" and "whatever" in samantha’s language.

In my role playing, samantha was very concerned with maintaining her 'ought self' and in struggling toward her 'ideal self' which both dictated that she be appalled at the sexually overt nature of the other chatters, and yet remain polite and 'above the situation'. Her 'true self,' however, revealed her frustration with the others, but also a hint of curiosity, as she (or maybe I) began to entertain some of the private messages that had been flooding in, just for laughs.

After leaving the Romance room, I carried the experiment into the 40+ Room, to see if I would find similar results. Although I received less sexual attention, there was still a little, especially after I sent my ASL information. The majority of chatters, however, was respectful of my age and sexuality and, overall, seemed to exhibit the minimum self-control that one would expect of a chat room for mature audiences. In this environment, samantha felt much more comfortable and was better able to adhere to the ought and ideal selves, and in fact, even a bit of her true self began to show itself, since she allowed her defenses to lower as she began making friends in the room.

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3 | Steve is ________

Facebook status updates have taken computer mediated self-expression to a new level, and offer a new environment to test O’Sullivan’s Model. A status update always entails a self locus, as the author is telling the world how he or she is feeling at a given time. However, the valence of the update can vary in many ways and is not always constrained to positive or negative. According to the theory, the valence of updates should hinge towards the negative, confess side rather than the positive, boost side. The theory states that when one’s impression is expected to be threatened, preferences for mediated channels will be higher, hence one will be more inclined to use a status update to express oneself negatively.

To test O’Sullivan’s Model with respect to status updates, I looked at the news feed for my friends’ last 79 status updates (spanning six days) and classified the valence of the messages as positive, negative, or neutral. I found 20 to be positive, 36 negative, and 23 neutral or ambiguous. This data supports O’Sullivan’s Model, and implies that users are more inclined to utilize status updates for negative comments about themselves. However, my data only reveals a correlation, as it has nothing to do with the decision people make in their form of communication.

One instance of a negative status update says, “Courtney is sleeping all day after being in the hospital all night.” After looking at her wall, I found her friends asking if everything was well and if she was feeling alright. Her status update acted as a call for attention and sympathy from her friends. This is to be expected, as a confession about the self is intended to elicit help and support. The advent of public status updates only simplifies the process and allows Courtney to confess to all her Facebook friends at once.

Status updates provide a further buffer than instant messenger because the message isn’t actively forced upon anyone. Courtney may have chose a status update to reveal her sickness because it is less upfront and not as blatant a call for attention as an instant message would be. Therefore, the support she receives is more valuable, as her friends seem to be genuinely inquiring about her health on their own accord, not in response to a direct confession on Courtney’s part. The Facebook buffer can also explain why many of the negative updates were inconsequential complaints. Most complained about work, school, or being tired. While it wouldn’t be acceptable to complain to acquaintances through instant message that one is tired or bored, the indirect updates make it easier to casually complain to the world.

The buffer also explains why many of the updates were ambiguous. For instance one read, “Dora is five wheat thins and three cheese cubes.” Whatever this update is supposed to mean, Dora's use of a status update hinders awkwardness and negativity towards the weird message, as most people (myself included) will simply ignore it. Had she chose a more direct means of confrontation, such as instant messenger, she may receive some concerned responses.

The informality of the updates induces creativity and self expression, as the author will never know how the readers gauge the updates. Status updates act as a hyper-mediated form of online communication, as they are rarely directed at any one person and create an easier medium for self confessions to the Facebook world. The increased mediation bolsters O’Sullivan’s Model and explains why most of the status updates we see are negative.

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