An issue has been rolling around in my head while I've written my last two papers and has been pressing to be released on the world. However it really needs a full paper on its own, one that will require much better theoretical grounding then I possess at the moment. So writing the full paper is at least a couple of years away. With that as background I have decided to lay out part of the problem here so I can silence the nagging voice, ranting really, in my head and move on with the work I need to get done.

Here goes:

As human beings it is very common for us to look at new ideas, technology, etc. compare them to their older antecedents and then slot them into a linear continuum between two older examples of similar phenomena. By so doing we position the new idea, technology, etc. as somewhat less then the exemplars that anchor the continuum.

As an example let's look at the oft seen comparison of face-to-face (f2f) communication with written communication that is used in media-richness discussions. Our basic model looks like:

We position these two exemplars as diametrically divergent and then analyze our new ideas, technology, etc. through comparison of the characteristics of the concepts that anchor our model exemplars in the continuum. In this case we can position Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) along the continuum ^[1].

So after our analysis our model looks something like this:

Therefore the text of our analysis becomes CMC is "sort of like" one or both exemplars. Creating an implied perfection of the exemplar and magnifying the "not quite" quality of the concept that has been slotted into the linear model.

I would like to propose that as researchers we rethink our reliance on linear models in most new media and communication issues as they oversimplify complex phenomena and create false comparisons that position the new media or communication technology as second class.

In my own research while I am forced to background some discussions with linear models so I echo the point of view found in published literature, I quickly try to move to more dimensional modeling that symbolizes the complexity of the ideas without making the ideas I am expressing overly complex and difficult for some of my audience to grasp.

I often start with a radial diagram that I think relays the relationships I want to initially express.

While the danger of creating a visual hierarchy continues to some extent in this version of a radial diagram found in Microsoft Word 2003, I believe the visual representation of the media in comparison to the phenomena rather than in comparison to each other is more appropriate.

Notes:
[1] I am not debating the concept of media-richness or the placement of element on the continuum in this entry; rather I am limiting my discussion to the linear models we create during this type of analysis. For more information on media-richness I recommend any and all of the following reference: Daft and Lengel (1984), Trevino, Lengal, and Daft (1987), Dennis and Kinney (1998), and Ngwenyama and Lee (1997).

Reference List

Daft, Richard L. & Lengel, Robert H. (1984). Information richness: A new approach to managerial behavior and organization design. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 6 ed., pp. 191-233). Greenwich CT: JAI.

Dennis, A. R. & Kinney, S. T. (1998). Testing media richness theory in the new media: The effects of cues, feedback, and task equivocality. Information Systems Research, 9, 256-274.

Ngwenyama, Ojelanki K. & Lee, Allen S. (June, 1997). Communication richness in electronic mail: Critical social theory and the contextuality of meaning. MIS Quarterly, 21(2), 145-167. Available: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~aslee/ngwleefr.htm.

Trevino, L. K., Lengel, Robert H., & Daft, Richard L. (1987). Media symbolism, media richness, and media choice in organizations: A symbolic interactionist perspective. Communication Research, 14(5), 553-574.

Posted by prolurkr at October 27, 2004 06:41 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.professional-lurker.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/258

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Concept visualization rant:

Comments