Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore April 21, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

Experiments in CMC

and Media Richness

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Experiments in CMC

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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?

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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.

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Validity in Experiments

Internal Validity

External Validity

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Internal validity: Linking causes to effects

Manipulation Effect

Hand out chocolatein class

Students will sit in different seats

?

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External validity: Generalizing from experiments

?

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Ecological validity: Approximation of real-life activity

Yamagishi et al. Resnick et al.

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Media Richness

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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)

“

”

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Rich

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Lean

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A plausible ranking?

Face-to-face

Synchronous video

Synchronous audio / asynch. video

Synchronous text / asynch. audio

Asynchronous text

Richer

Leaner

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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”?

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Multiplicity of cues

Textual Production cost to encode

meaning equivalent to FTF in text

Verbal

Beyond FTF?

Non-verbal

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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

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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?

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The role of time

Affiliation: a slower process in leaner media?

Expected future interactions — commitment over time

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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

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Mean decision time (D&K)

High cues (AV) Low cues (CMC)

Task Immed. Delayed Immed. Delayed

Low equiv. 12.21 17.00 26.29 31.53

High equiv. 13.14 14.35 18.71 23.71

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Long-term, no photos

Long-term, photosShort-term, photos

Short-term, no photos

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