Media Symbolism, Media Richness, and Media Choice in Organizations A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

摘要: Symbolic interactionism is presented as a theoretical approach for understanding media choice processes during managerial communications. In an exploratory study, 65 managers from 11 organizations were interviewed about communication incidents involving face-to-face, telephone, electronic mail, and written media. Managers asked the reasons they chose particular medium. A content analysis of suggests that three factors influenced managers' choices: (a) ambiguity message richness medium, (b) symbolic cues provided by (c) situational determinants such time distance. The findings also indicated diversity use in management communications, with face-to-face selected primarily reasons, whereas telephone mail typically chosen because constraints.