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MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY and NEW ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION MEDIA: a STUDY of VOICE MAIL and ELECTRONIC MAIL Maha M

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MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY and NEW ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION MEDIA: a STUDY of VOICE MAIL and ELECTRONIC MAIL Maha M Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) International Conference on Information Systems ICIS 1992 Proceedings (ICIS) 1992 MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY AND NEW ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION MEDIA: A STUDY OF VOICE MAIL AND ELECTRONIC MAIL Maha M. El-Shinnawy University of California, Los Angeles M. Lynne Markus The Claremont Graduate School Follow this and additional works at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1992 Recommended Citation El-Shinnawy, Maha M. and Markus, M. Lynne, "MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY AND NEW ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION MEDIA: A STUDY OF VOICE MAIL AND ELECTRONIC MAIL" (1992). ICIS 1992 Proceedings. 36. http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1992/36 This material is brought to you by the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in ICIS 1992 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact [email protected]. MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY AND NEW ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION MEDIA: A STUDY OF VOICE MAIL AND ELECTRONIC MAIL Maha M. El-Shinnawy Anderson Graduate School of Management University of California, Los Angeles M. Lynne Markus Information Science The Claremont Graduate School ABSTRACT In situations requiring the exchange of information to resolve equivocality or reduce uncertainty, can Media Richness Theory account for differences in individuals' preferences for electronic mail and voice mail relative to one another? The results of this study indicate that, as predicted, electronic mail was preferred over voice mail for the exchange of information to reduce uncertainty. However, contrary to the predictions of Media Richness Theory, voice mail was not preferred over electronic mail for the resolution of equivocality. These results suggest that Media Richness Theory in its current formulation may not be applicable to the study of the new media. Future research should redefine and extend the concept of richness and its elements to account for the nature and functionality of the new media and investigate alternative social dimensions to individuals' preferences for and usage of the new media 1. INTRODUCTION (Rice 1984; Daft and Lengel 1986). The proliferation of the new media has altered the nature of organizational There is a long tradition of research on the choice, use, and communication in fundamental ways (Huber 1990; Crow- impacts of communication media (Chandler 1977; Chapanis ston and Malone 1987; Culnan and Markus 1987; Hiltz 1971; Chapanis et al. 1972; Rogers 1986; Pool 1977; 1984; Hiltz and Turoff 1979; Johansen, Vallee, and Span- Szlichcinski 1983; Strassman 1985; Winograd and Flores gler 1979; Rice 1980, 1984; Short, Williams and Christie 1986; Short, Williams and Christie 1976; Hiltz and Turoff 1979; Steinfield 1986; Strassman 1985; Zuboff 1988; 1979; Williams 1975, 1977). In the past, research was Rogers 1986; Huber 1990). specialized by communication medium: interpersonal communication (such as memos and face-to-face interac- Research on user preferences for, and usage of, the new tion) and mass media (TV and newspapers). With the media has, unfortunately, been limited to comparisons of introduction of the telegraph (for reviews see Aronson new media with traditional media (Culnan and Markus 1971; Chandler 1977) and the telephone (for reviews see 1987; Sproull and Kiesler 1986; Rice and Shook 1990). Brooks 1976; Pool 1977), scholars recognized a third The basic limitation of this line of research is that it as- category of media, machine-assisted communication media sumes channel equivalence (Reder and Schwab 1988), that (Dominick 1983). The advent of electronic computer- is, the ability of a medium to substitute for an ideal com- mediated communication technologies, e.g., voice mail munication medium, usually face-to-face communication (vmail), electronic mail (email), group decision support (Bair 1989). Communication media are then assessed on systems, and computer supported cooperative work tools, in how much they deviate from this ideal (Culnan and Markus the 1980s, has generated a fourth category of communica- 1987; Markus 1991; Huber 1990). This approach leads tion media. researchers to focus attention on the common set of capa- bilities shared by the ideal and the new media and to Electronic communication media provide such significant overlook the capabilities of new media not found in the advances over traditional media in terms of storage, pro- ideal communication medium. Not surprisingly, in such a cessing and transmission capabilities (Culnan and Markus biased comparison, the new media frequently appear defi- 1987) that they are often referred to as "the new media" cient (Bair 1989; Sproull and Kiesler 1986). 91 A prominent theory of communication media choice and shared understanding of the solution (Daft, Lengel and usage is Media Richness Theory (MRT). MRT is con- Trevino 1987). Communication media appropriate for cemed with determining the most appropriate communica- equivocality reduction need to promote the ability to clarify tion medium for the task at hand (Daft, Lengel and Trevino or explain, rather than simply provide large amounts of 1987; Huber and Daft 1987; Trevino, Lengel and Daft data. At issue here is the ability of the medium to process 1987). It was developed and tested by comparing among "rich" information (Daft and Lengel 1986). Communica- traditional media and was later expanded to include email. tion media are proposed to vary in their capacity to process While MRT is thought to be equally applicable to the new rich information along a one-dimensional continuum that media (Daft and Lengel 1984, 1986), this claim has not yet includes, in order of decreasing richness: face-to-face been substantiated empirically. discussion, phone calls, written addressed communication, and written unaddressed communications (Lengel and Daft 1984). This richness continuum is a function of four The purpose of this paper is to determine the applicability of MRT to two new media: email and vmail. The research factors: feedback capability, cues, personalization, and question posed in this paper is: Can MRT account for language variety. The greater the medium's ability to individuals' preferences for, and usage of, email and vmail, provide timely feedback, the richer it is. If a medium can convey cues such as voice tone and inflection, then it is relative to one another, in situations requiring the exchange richer than one that does not. Richness also concerns the of information to resolve equivocality or reduce uncer- medium's ability to encompass the variety offered by tainty? natural language and to convey personal feelings (Huber and Daft 1987). 1 THEORY In general, it is believed that oral media are preferred for communication situations high in equivocality, while 2.1 MRT: Equivocality and Uncertainty written media are preferred for communication situations low in equivocality (Daft, Lengel and Trevino 1987). Thus, according to MRT (Daft and Lengel 1984, 1986; MRT is based on the information processing model of Daft, Lengel and Trevino 1987; Trevino, Lengel and Daft organizations (Galbraith 1977; Tushman and Nadler 1978), 1987), rich, oral media facilitate equivocality reduction by which suggests that organizational communication is in- enabling individuals to process subjective messages, create fluenced by two forces: uncertainty (Leavitt 1951; Meis- shared meaning, and resolve ambiguity stemming from sner 1969; Galbraith 1973b, 1977) and equivocality (Weick multiple, conflicting interpretations of a situation. For 1979; Daft and Lengel 1984, 1986). MRT is concerned effective communication to occur, the richness of the with identifying the most appropriate communication medium has to match the equivocality of the message. medium in response to these two forces (Figure 1). In summary, media that facilitate shared meaning are Uncertainty has been defined as the absence of information different from those that facilitate the exchange of large (Garner 1962; Shannon and Weaver 1949; Miller and Frick amounts of data. The fundamental claim of MRT is that 1949) or "the difference between the amount of informa- for effective communication, individuals should match tion required to perform the task and the amount of infor- media to communication tasks. Media high in richness, mation already possessed by the organization" (Galbraith such as face-to-face interaction and telephone calls, enable 1973a). To reduce uncertainty, communication media need negotiation, clarification, explanation and exchange of to bridge the gap between the amount of information subjective views. On the other hand, media low in rich- already possessed and that required to perform the task. As ness, such as written media, although not appropriate for the amount of information processed increases, the level of resolving equivocal issues, are effective for processing of uncertainty decreases (Daft and Lengel 1986). Therefore, large amounts of standard, accur'ate, objective and quantita- the need to reduce uncertainty leads to the acquisition of live data. By being sensitive to the ability of communica- information to answer specific questions. In short, commu- tion media to satisfy different communication needs, indi- nication media appropriate for uncertainty reduction are viduals can deal with their dual information needs for those that facilitate the exchange of large amounts of uncertainty reduction and equivocality resolution (Figure 1). accurate, objective, or numerical
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