Media Richness

Reduce ambiguity through media selection.

• Daft and Macintosh (1981) describes information richness theory in organizations.
• Daft and Lengel (1984) applies media richness theory to organizations. Main point: [p. 194] "organizational success is based on the organization's ability to process information of appropriate richness to reduce uncertainty and clarify ambiguity."
• Daft and Lengel (1986) describes theory of media richness used in organizations.
• Daft, Lengel, and Trevino (1987) uses media richness model applied to message equivocality and media selection.
• Trevino, Daft, and Lengel (1990) describes the use of symbolic interactionism to understand managers' media choices in terms of message equivocality, contextual determinants, and media symbolism.
• Trevino, Lengel, Bodensteiner, Gerloff, and Muir (1990) [p. 176] "This article proposes a new thesis about the role of individual differences in managers' media choice behavior." Main point: Media preferences operate when equivocality is low; in high equivocality situations, there is an imperative to use rich media.
• Trevino, Lengel, and Daft (1987) describes media richness theory in organizations.
• Rice and Shook (1990a) explores job categories and organizational levels and communication channels, including email.
• Lengel and Daft (1988) gives guidelines for managers selecting media.
• Duncan (1972) explains characteristics of an organization versus perceived environmental uncertainty