March 11th, 2010
Again, I am merely touching on this theory due to the fact that I am this week discussing Junghyun Kim’s 2003 article in which he discusses this and other media theories. Soon, I will elaborate on this theory, including the subsequent Media Synchronicity and Media Naturalness theories.
Media richness theory, proposed by Daft and Lengel in 1984, essentially states that task performance increases when the task needs are matched to the medium’s richness. Additionally, the theory suggests that individuals predictably favor the use of specific communication media to perform certain tasks. Specifically, that rich media are a more likely to be found appropriate for “equivocal” communication, which occurs more in complex tasks. Daft and Lengel define the richness of media as the ability of information to change understanding within a time interval. The theory argues that the richness of media differs between media types, with face-to-face communication being richer than communicating via email, for example. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2009
In my last posts, I’ve discussed media richness theory and media synchronicity theory, the former being foundational for the latter. Another theory on communication, which stems as a response to (actually, an alternative to) media richness theory, is the media naturalness theory proposed by Ned Kock (2001). He details two problems with the media richness theory that make it insufficient. Read the rest of this entry »
September 17th, 2009
My last post discussed media richness theory. While it is not without worth for my research purposes, the theory is somewhat limited in ways that have been discussed by various authors, including Dennis and Valacich in their 1998 article, “Beyond Media Richness: An Empirical Test of Media Synchronicity Theory.” The authors define certain limitations and a lack of empirical support for media richness theory. They conclude that Read the rest of this entry »
September 13th, 2009
During my TTU Presentation in May, Dr. Eaton noted that I ought to check out media richness theory, since I might find some hints at these terms I’m trying to define, such as what I know I was incorrectly calling “humanness” (watch for upcoming posts on new terms). I’ve looked into this theory and see how it fits in with what I am doing.
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