Modern Technology and Relationship Between Media and Audience - Essay Example

Running Head: Modern technology has made the relationship between media and audience more interactive Student’s Name: Instructor: Course Code and Name: Institution: Date the Assignment is due: Modern technology has made the relationship between media and audience more interactive One of the theories that set out to describe the relationship between media, audience and the contribution of technology is known as media richness theory. In this theory, media of communication are assessed according to their ability to reproduce all the information that is sent through them (Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur, 1976). For this reason, the greatest challenge for the public is the choice of media. For example a phone call lacks the ability to transmit visual social cues such as gestures. For this reason, a very crucial aspect of richness is missing. Media richness theory: the need for careful choice of a medium of communication The explanation offered by media richness theory is slightly different from the one offered by information processing theory and contingency theory. However, there is a point of convergence in the way richness is perceived in these two theories in that both of them support the effectiveness of communication through proper consideration of equivocal issues in different types of modern media. The 21st century information and communications technology has provided enough media tools. The main challenge is selecting the right media tool and how best to use each tool in a way that exploits all its interactivity benefits. The most important element of media richness theory is the choice of communication media. Modern technology has made it possible for people to choose different communication media in order to meet different needs. According to this theory, the sender ought to use the richest possible medium in order to meet the expectations of the audience. However, the reality of the matter today is that circumstances often force people to use less-rich media. This brings about limitations in the quality of the message that is communicated as well as the feedback that the sender receives. For instance, although a modern text message is much more interactive compared to other forms of written communication that were being used two decades ago, it is difficult for an audience to single out instances of sarcasm (Neuman, 1991). Use of less rich media forms does not necessarily mean that the there will be less interactivity. One can put the available technology to the best use in order to achieve all the intended communicative goals. The dimensions of feedback should be understood for the quality of the message to be maintained at a high level. Sometimes, people are overwhelmed by the wide range of media facilities available. Therefore, they tend to ignore crucial creative elements that enhance interactivity, quality of the message, and by extension, feedback. The concept of media richness is to a certain extent related to media interactivity. The main connector of these two elements is modern information and communications technology. Daft and Lengel (1984) define information richness as “ability to change the level of understanding within a specific time interval”. For the quality of media communication to be rich, different frames of reference have to be overcome and ambiguous issues have to be clarified in order for understanding to be promoted in a timely manner, thus ensuring that there is effective use of technology. However, richness of media is not a guarantee of interactivity. This is because although the medium may have the capacity for immediate feedback, such capacity means nothing if the people communicating are not keen on using it for their mutual benefits. Social presence is therefore an important component that seems to be decreasing with improvement in technology. Perhaps this is because of rise in expectancy levels as people become more and more overwhelmed by the introduction of new technology and unnecessary modifications of existing ones. Interactivity is determined by capacity for a medium to facilitate immediate feedback as well as availability of many cues and channels. These two functions require the social variable for them to function well. Language variety is also an important factor to be considered. The degree to which the sender of the message focuses on the recipient also determines whether there will be interactivity or not. Interactivity is about warmth of communication which comes about as a result of a sense of immediacy that propels the participants to engage with each other. When this happens, the medium should not be a let-down. Modern technology can never be a let-down if properly chosen and the right social cues adhered to. Media richness theory has been criticized by various scholars who claim that it is deterministic in nature. Markus (1994) is of the view that social pressures are more influential in matters of media use compared to richness. He continues to say that this influence takes place in ways that are very consistent with the need for interactivity. In this case, the contention seems to be which one between media richness and social pressure is more important for bringing about media interactivity rather than which one is irrelevant. The modern technology requires knowledge of different aspects of interactivity requires for each communicative contexts. In most cases, the reality is that the best channel may not be available at the time when communication has to be made. Therefore, one has to choose the second best option. Other than determining this choice, one needs to make some adjustments of social cues in order to make the best use of the presently available communication medium. In the media richness theory, a hint is made on how these adjustments should be made only that it is done with emphasis being only on the capacity by the available media to resolve existing ambiguities. Before the advent of the internet and modern computing capabilities, the main challenge for people who wanted interactivity in communication was the available media tools. Today, these tools are available. They range from internet calls, video conferencing, text messages, animated communication, email and online group chats. There are very many social networking channels that one can use to communicate with anyone wherever he or she is in the world. Media richness theory contributes to proper use of these media tools through the aspect of media richness hierarchy. The four different criteria used to determine where a media form lies within the richness hierarchy are (a) Availability of instant feedback; (b) use of natural language, (c) personal focus in the medium and (d) the capacity of a medium to transmit many cues such as voice tone, inflection and body language. According to this theory, face-to-face form of communication is the richest medium. Down the hierarchy, here is the list of other media: telephone, email, letters, notes, memos, special reports, fliers and finally bulletins. To this extent, technology can enhance communications in way that the audience may not expect it to. For instance, in the conventional way of thinking, the telephone conversation may be ranked higher due to its technical sense of efficacy. Many people may not understand why they should use face-to-face communication when they would rather use a telephone or a mobile phone. Choice of media affects interactivity at the level of strategic management perspective as well. In this case, media richness theory’s suggestion is that managers need to make very rational choices in order to match a channel of communication with the intended communicative goals. This may be a difficult thing to do in a world where technology is slowly taking over in literally all forms of communication. In this case, some forms of communication become “too handy” to ignore in preference to more interactively and contextually relevant communication channels. Improper choice of media makes the public perceive emerging technologies negatively (Daft & Lengel, 1984). For this reason, it becomes difficult to convince the audience to participate proactively in making communicative contexts successful. The worst that can happen is a scenario where the public perceives use of a certain technology as a wasteful use of technology (Trevino & Lengel, 1987). In this case, the intended message will be considered to be irrelevant. The aspect of relational considerations whenever media forms are being selected holds in the media richness theory just as it does in other theories. This is the only way in which self-presentational goals can be achieved in a world where modern technology has been fully embraced in both personal and corporate settings. For example, manager-subordinate interactions may prove successful in media that are very rich in term of immediacy and promptness of feedback. This is because there are established frames of reference that each party is not expected to flout. The case may be different when one is talking to a stranger whose social, economic, political and cultural standing you may not understand. In this case, the hierarchical analysis of media richness has to be resorted to; otherwise one would expect the hierarchy to ordinarily be considered to be a very transient model. Sheer and Chen (2004) argue that the best way to appreciate how modern technology has made the relationship between media and audience more interactive is to compare traditional media with modern media. In this case, self-presentational goals need to be intimately monitored since they’re an important variable that may affect the manner in which the audience perceives the messages, regardless of whether they are communicated using traditional technology or modern technology. Importance of knowledge on Social presence and its role in interactivity The communication process entails much more than just an exchange of information. It also entails proper understanding of the social contexts in which information is being exchanged. In this era of modern technology, the media richness theory is being challenged as virtual interactions become an integral part of day-to-day communication. Virtually interactive scenes include video conferences, group internet chat rooms, social networking sites and online associations and forums. The extent of interactivity in these social networks, unlike in conventional interactions, is dependent on how easily accessible the communication technology is. For instance, some people may not have regular access to the internet, making it difficult for regular communication to take place. The world of virtual socialization with the realm of information exchange may be more complicated than one may imagine. Although it is easy to fit in emerging technologies in the hierarchy of media richness, some additional factors may be ignored along the way, leading to inconsistencies in the process selecting the best media technology. According to Daft and Lengel (1986), it is very difficult to develop a hierarchy of richness that is based on a balance between the volume of information to be handled and the potential for the message to be misunderstood. Social presence, whether virtual or real, is often considered by proponents of media richness as relating to the extent to which both the audience and the sender of the message are able to freely show their empathy for each other’s situation. A good example is a communicator who is highly doubtful whether a conference video call will present him with the best context to present a business proposal that may unlock a lifetime investment opportunity. In this case, the sender of the message has to decide whether to travel to the foreign country for a face-to-face communication or to sit back and make the proposal in the comfort of the company’s boardroom. Social presence in terms of today’s information technology takes many forms, all of which are mediated through in different ways in order for different communicative needs to be achieved. The ability for one to realize and understand that he is not talking to technology but to a human being is what interactivity is all about. Without this understanding, the provisions of media richness are based on the wrong premise (Rice & Shook, 1990). Suh (1999) understands social presence as: “the ability among participants in a communication to project themselves in a socially effective manner within a community of inquiry. This understanding sheds some light on the factors to consider when choosing the most interactive media of communication either with one person, a small group or a large public. Additionally, availability of information per se is not enough. People have to be aware of the benefits of the technology in order to overcome the negative perceptions associated with it. It is only in this way that an objective assessment of interactivity can be made. The term “social presence” was widely used by Short (1974) when he founded the social presence theory. This theory formed the foundation of many other theories that assess the effects of new media of communication on the audience. A communicator perceives a sense of social presence through a sense of awareness that there exists an interactional partner. An increased social presence leads to a better perception of the recipient by the sender. Internet-based social interactions have increased owing to development of new technologies. This has made social presence theory very relevant in interpreting the changes that are taking place in the way people relate. The inquiry into social presence theory focuses on the elements of co-presence, psycho-behavioral availability of the parties involved in the interaction and the extent to which a form of communication is mediated (Chad & Biocca, 2003). All these elements determine on choice of media of communication. The extent of creativity according to social presence theory is often determined by both the engineering criteria and social criteria used. In terms of engineering criteria, one of factors to consider is telecommunication bandwidth. More bandwidth increases the rapidity of information exchange, making the chosen medium more interactive. Lower bandwidth makes the transfer of data very slow and people are unable to share as much information as they would want to. In terms of social criteria, Chad & Biocca (2003) prefer to use the term “social bandwidth”. Social bandwidth refers to the number of people who can potentially become part of an effective communication channel. In this case, video conferencing may be said to have a high social bandwidth since many people are able to see each other and exchange information during virtual video conferences. In online groups chat sessions, interactivity is also high but not as high as in video conferences since the people who are chatting do not see each other. Challenges of media choice in the workplace As technology permeates the workplace, work environments are being characterized by mediated communication which is facilitated on the internet. The term “mediation” is used by Coovert and Thompson (2001) to refer to any medium that does not involve face-to-face communication. Once the workplace is permeated with a network of intricate communication channels, there is a need for everyone in the workplace to take conscious decisions on how to match the content of the message with the most appropriate channel. For example, it would be unwise to send a confidential message as an internet chat message. It would be wiser to send an email. The recipient’s feedback would be prompt and confidential as long as the recipient has regular access to the internet. Later on, the sender may discuss the issue via chat, where a common frame of reference would make it possible for the issue to be discussed without the confidential details being understood by an eavesdropper. Mobile and wireless communication systems promise a continuous social contact across time and space via multimodal access (Brown and Green, 2001). Additionally, mobile video telephony is gaining popularity. For this reason, more choices of media are emerging. It seems that in the near future, emphasis will shift from the introduction of new media to an assessment of how to make the best use of existing media. There is a need for education and training to be done on how to make the best use of existing technologies. In cases where this education has already been introduced in curricular of schools and in training manuals of companies, the main areas of focus should be interactivity, reliability of the technology, potential for future technological changes, nature of the message and expectations of participants. Modern technology has made it possible for new forms of communications to emerge. Examples include augmented social interactions, tele-immersive simulations of face-to-face communication and intelligent beings that act as guides on websites and other automated systems. A decade ago, no one would have thought that these social and quasi-channels of communication were a possibility. This is enough proof that it is difficult to identify channels of communications that will be affected most dramatically by future technological changes. Unfortunately, such changes may be determined more by the forces of demand and supply rather than the need for new forms of interactions. There is a correlation between choice of media and changes in technology. As long as there is demand for new channels of communication, manufacturers will continue coming up with new innovations on products that meet this demand. The demand for these technologies, in most cases, is based on the wrong premise of hype rather than their true interactive value. Introduction of education and training on choice of media based on interactivity may therefore lead to development of the best media technologies. If this happens, the money spent on these technologies will have been put into good use. References Ball-Rokeach, S. & DeFleur, M. (1976). Dependency Model of Mass-Media Effects. Communication Research 3(1) p. 3-21. Brown, B & Green, N. (Eds.) (2001). Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chad, H. & Biocca, F. (2003). Defining and Measuring Social Presence: Contribution to the Net Worked Minds Theory and Measure. 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