Media Richness: Fun

Wednesday November 18, 2009
How could rich media represent risks to people who rely on them for wide range communications in the Public Relations and Motoring industry.
As this is my third blog, you would think these little assignments would be getting easier. Apparently not. After deliberating for 2 hours over this blog topic, I finally decided that this has to be done and in order for it to be done further research needs to be done.
Here are my findings:
According to researchers Daft, Lengel and their successors who ‘propose that communications medias have varying capacities for resolving ambiguity, negotiating varying interpretations and facilitating understanding(Jones 2009)’. From this article, I was able to come across 2 main assumptions set out by Daft and Lengel.
These were that
1. ‘people want to overcome equivocality and uncertainty in organisations’ (a key part of this theory)
2. The idea that a ‘variety of media is commonly used in organisations and often works better for certain tasks than others’ (Jones 2009)
In a corporation sense, they look for a couple of things in communication including a) availability of instant feedback, b) capacity of the medium to transmit multiple uses for example body language, c) use of natural language and d) personal focus of the medium (Lengel 2009).
So after reading this I can now find it easier to relate this back to the public relations industry, in particular the motoring industry. As face-to-face communications is characterised as rich media, new communication technologies such as email are considered lean media. As a graduating student, it has come to my attention that ‘these days’ the ‘richness’ of new communication mediums are being viewed with higher equivocality and in order to move forward in the professional world, I believe that the theory must be re-designed to include the theory’s lower equivocalities as higher in order to continue communicating.
The switchboard lady at dealerships has now been replaced with instant messaging programs on computers. According to the theory, these types of new communications offer the availability of instant feedback, it has the capacity to transmit emotions, natural language and also give the opportunity for a personal focus to the medium. New communication mediums have saved corporations millions of dollars over the last couple of years as they have been developed.
Programs like skype, msn messenger and facebook chat have become great, inexpensive ways of communicating with people however it does pose some problems to users. These problems could include things like lack of personal communication for example: people who are constantly using these types of communication (with the delay) tend to shy away from face-to-face communication. In turn, they find it easier to hide behind these programs instead of saying what comes to mind where receivers of the face-to-face communication can examine body language, tone and eye contact.
Another problem with this rising trend towards media richness is the decline in face-to-face communication, effectively weaning out the theory all together. In the public relations industry, it is characterised by a heavy ‘reliance on personal invitations, telephone contacts and other relational methods for conducting and evaluating public relations practices. The preference for richer media tactics has implications for public relations practice and theory building in the future’(Taylor 2003) . an industry which relies on face-to-face communication and relationships, it poses multiple problems. However research has proven that this industry is not embracing the new communication technologies, rather dealing with them in a productive way. For example, having skype meetings rather than flying interstate to meet, or sending emails rather than letters and the list goes on.
In conclusion, as a new blogger myself, I embrace the new communication technologies, however I still enjoy the face-to-face communication and rate-it higher than communication via the internet or SMS. In terms of the public relations industry, they too rate personal communication high, like the theory, and are not resisting change.

Jones, D. (2009). "Media Richness Theory." Scribd: 10.

Lengel, D. a. (2009). "Media Richness Theory." Retrieved 18/11/2009, 2009, from http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Mass%20Media/Media_Richness_Theory.doc/.

Taylor, M. (2003). "Exploring Public Relations Review." Public Relations Review 30(2): 145.