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Saturday, November 12
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PP 648
The Effect of Interaction Topic And Social Tie on Media Choice and the Role of Four Underlying Mechanisms
E. Croes
1
, M. Antheunis
1
, A. Schouten
1
, E. Krahmer
1
, D. Bleize
2
1
Tilburg University, Tilburg Center for Cognition and Communication TiCC, Tilburg, Netherlands
2
Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands
The mobilization of computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies enhances the connectedness among members of a social network. Individuals
are now able to choose from many communication applications when interacting with their friends, family and colleagues, with different modalities and
affordances (Birnholtz et al., 2013). Having access to a large pool of available media has made choosing the right one more important than ever. Previous
CMC research is often experimental, whereby participants are assigned to a communication condition (Walther & Bazarova, 2008). However, in the real
world (online) media are often chosen strategically from a large number of channels individuals have at their disposal. Therefore, the question arises
what determines people’s preference for certain communication media when they do have the option to choose. We propose that two factors determine
individual’s media choice: the interaction topic and the interaction partner. Furthermore, we pose that people base their media preference on four under‑
lying mechanisms: anonymity, controllability, co-presence and affective understanding. The study employed a 3 (topic intimacy: low, medium, high) x 2
(social tie: strong, weak) scenario-based design with topic intimacy and social tie as independent variables and medium choice as the dependent variable.
The scenarios described interaction situations of low, medium and high intimacy with a weak or a strong tie. Participants (N = 238) viewed five scenarios.
After each scenario, they answered questions regarding the underlying mechanisms and ranked four communication channels (FtF, Skype, audio-only
and text-based CMC) in their order of preference. The results showed that, overall, people had the highest preference for FtF communication, followed by
audio-only CMC, text-based CMC and audiovisual CMC. Furthermore, people preferred audio-only CMC and FtF communication for highly intimate topics,
and text-based CMC and FtF communication with strong ties. Additionally, when people value controllability, they have higher preference for audio-only
CMC while when people value anonymity, they prefer to communicate via text-based CMC. Moreover, when people value co-presence they are more likely to
prefer FtF communication and audiovisual CMC. Finally, an interaction effect showed that preference for FtF communication was higher when communicat‑
ing about a highly intimate topic with a strong tie versus with a weak tie. Our study has three conclusions. First, FtF communication was the most preferred
way of communicating (Baym et al., 2004), especially with strong ties. People may not find CMC suitable enough for communication with close friends as
these media often lack nonverbal cues. Second, the four underlying factors largely explained media choice, especially for FtF communication and text-based
CMC. More specifically, preference for FtF communication increases when co-presence is valued more, and preference for text-based CMC increases when
people value anonymity. Third, the interaction effect between topic intimacy and social tie illustrates that when people share an intimate topic with their
strong ties, they prefer FtF communication, as they seek empathy and closeness, which can be achieved through non-verbal cues. In sum, individuals do
not necessarily seek out the richest channels, or the poorest channels, but strategically choose a channel depending on the interaction topic and partner.