Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore June 17, 2015 // Computer-Mediated Communication Experiments in CMC and Media Richness

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore1 Experiments in CMC

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore2 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?

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore3 Putting Experimental Work in Context  Selection of subjects (i.e., what do they value?)  Task length and learning  Accounting for time in statistical analyses  Do not assume that an experiment is even trying to ‘recreate’ a specific real-life situation unless they explicitly say so.

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore4 Validity in Experiments Internal Validity External Validity

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore5 Internal validity: Linking causes to effects ManipulationEffect Hand out chocolate in class Students will sit in different seats ?

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore6 External validity: Generalizing from experiments ?

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore7 Ecological validity: Approximation of real-life activity Yamagishi et al.Resnick et al.

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore8 Media Richness

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore9 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) “ ”

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore10 Rich

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore11 Lean

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore12 A plausible ranking? Face-to-face Synchronous video Synchronous audio / asynch. video Synchronous text / asynch. audio Asynchronous text Richer Leaner

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore13 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”?

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore14 Multiplicity of cues Textual  Production cost to encode meaning equivalent to FTF in text Verbal Beyond FTF? Non-verbal

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore15 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

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore16 Social presence and processing  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?

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore17 The role of time  Affiliation: a slower process in leaner media?  Expected future interactions — commitment over time

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore18 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

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore19 Mean decision time (D&K) High cues (AV)Low cues (CMC) TaskImmed.DelayedImmed.Delayed Low equiv High equiv

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore20

6/17/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore21 Long-term, no photos Long-term, photos Short-term, photos Short-term, no photos Social affinity