Talk:Media richness theory

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Georgetown University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2012 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Natk415.

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Peer Review
Hi !Great job on the page.. The sections look amazing and the information is also grammatically and knowledge wise very precise.

However do you think that it makes sense for you to perhaps put the application section at the end? Also perhaps you coul itemize the theory section by bulleting the points just for reading it an easier way?

Sagorika89 (talk) 01:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I am going to be working on this page over the next couple of months as part of the US Ambassador's Program through Jeanine Turner's Communication Technology and Organizations at Georgetown University. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions about the page and my work! RoxanaK (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear all,

The theory of Daft and Lengel (1984) should be included in this article.

15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)~ I really liked the history of how this theory was developed. In the Non-business applications section, it can help to have “Criticism” linked the reader can click and it goes straight to its section. Wikipedia has become a good tool of linking so that we can get more information fast so it is nice to have that continuity. I found this page to be more organized with sections and sub sections added into in more detail that most other pages. It helped categorize and understand how the theory works on different levels. It would be good to continue doing it that way with whatever else you find. - Tj180 15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tj180 (talk • contribs)

Implications
"The theory implies that, a sender can (and should) use the richest possible medium to communicate the desired message." I don't think this is implied at all. According to Lengel and Daft (1988): Effective communication is a matching process; the richness of the medium should be selected to fit the nature of the message. Communication success will occur when rich media are used for nonroutine messages and when lean media are used for routine messages. And, in fact, the referenced article says as much--that ranking media choices doesn't imply a hierarchy of some being better than others (at least, not absolutely). 61.68.61.2 (talk) 20:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Editing this article for a course assignment -- some considerations.
If you have been asked to edit this article as part of a course assignment, please: (a) refrain from making major changes to the article by adding non-notable material; (b) consider making incremental changes to the existing text, and adding appropriately formatted references; and (c) discuss the changes you want to make here first, before you make them. Daft and Lengel’s media richness theory (which is what the article is about) has been studied for many years, and is cited and empirically assessed many times every year. The article currently needs a good “Criticism” section, but that section must be balanced and prepared with input from experts in the field of communication research.--Senortypant (talk) 22:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Critique
I started a critique stub... -- Engelo(talk) 11:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC).

Diagram
Isn't "Media" the plural for "Medium"? I think "mediums" means people that can talk to the dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.70.190.174 (talk) 21:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Input for Ae482
Hi, your article is looking good. I'm a little confused whether MRT is supposed to be predictive or evaluative. For example, do communicators naturally trend toward the medium of appropriate richness, or do they think about the media available and determine which one is best based on its richness? It seems like MRT is supposed to be predictive, and the criticisms say that it overlooks evaluative uses, but clarification would be helpful. I also found the "Extended Application in New Media" section to be a little weird or misplaced. They feel like extensions or examples of the theory, which aren't bad, but as the only ones they could be in their own section or otherwise supported.

I know it's not terribly helpful for me to say that it already looks good. The length feels right, it flows well, and hits the main points. As someone who has spent no more than 90 minutes thinking about the theory, I might not be qualified to say that the content is good, but I feel like I understand MRT through the article.Jk1618 (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Rich media
In the interest of drawing greater attention to the topic, I am reposting here a request for information on Rich media — or perhaps creation of a stand-alone article. Appreciated, regards, Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 12:29, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Giving this article a facelift
Hi all, I will be working on updating this page as part of the Wikipedia Ambassador's program with Georgetown University. My key focus will be improving language fluency and effectiveness, removing old content, decreasing redundancy and reorganizing the references and links section. Please let me know if you have any feedback. Ef527 (talk) 00:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review from CCT
Hi, Ellen. Great job on the MRT! I love the way you polish the writing of the previous version, making it briefer and accurate. Here are some suggestions I think would be helpful: Background Section – there is no wiki page for Robert H. Lengel, you may delete the link for that. And perhaps removing the sentence “Since its introduction, Media Richness Theory has been applied to….” would looks briefer. Theory Section (and also Selecting an appropriate medium Section) – I would suggest adding a subtitle for each paragraph, making it direct for readers to search what they need to look at. Determining media richness Section – maybe a few more explanation (just a few words, don’t need to be long) to the four abilities would be helpful for understanding. Extended application in new media Section – you may need more words about that part, letting it looks as an equal graded part as the others, or if you don’t have too much to say about it, just remove it. Further Reading Section – I would suggest put them in the reference part. See Also Section – I would suggest move it to the external links chart. I hope this will be helpful, and I will be happy to talk. Looking forward to your final version of this page and good luck! Andyxjbao (talk)Andyxjbao —Preceding undated comment added 02:25, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Hi Ellen! This is a great page and it seem like you've already done a lot of really useful edits to the page. The rewording, internal wikipedia and external links, and overall restructuring have done wonders for the approachability and usefulness of the page. One recommendation I would have is to maybe brighten up the page a bit - the one chart fits nicely and is a helpful visual, especially to break up the text-heavy overview of the theory. Are there other charts, diagrams, or pictures you could add? The Application Section is quite extensive, which is certainly good, but perhaps the "new media" section could be separated out? The heading distinctions between "organizational and business communication" and "extended application in new media"This could just be an aesthetic issue on my part! --Rrm33 (talk) 02:49, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

University of Dayton
Here are a few errors that I found in the page that you could take a second look at and see if you agree. In the first paragraph, there should be a comma after the word gestures before which. Also, in the last sentence in the first paragraph, I am not sure that there needs to be a comma between the words richer and personal. It seems as though media richness theory is capitalized throughout the page, this may be unnecessary. In the first paragraph, to make it easier to understand for the everyday reader, I would suggest taking the word equivocal and change it to ambiguous. Or perhaps put it in parenthesis beside the word. Also, the explanatory diagram has no citations or references. Where did this originate?

I do think that the Wikipedia theory page encapsulates the theory for the non-academic reader. However, at first glance it seems as though there could be an improved explanation in the introduction to the theory in the first paragraph. The first sentence is worded a bit confusing and a person may lose interest in what they are reading and look towards another source for information. I think elaborating within this sentence or one that follows would clear up misconceptions about the theory. For example, it may be worth putting that ‘communication medium’s ability to reproduce the information sent, across multiple medium’s (media).’ This is because the theory is not discussing the reproduction of the same message over the same medium, but among mediums and its ability, or not, to be just as effective at delivering that message. Further, the complexity of the message impacts which medium would be most effective at delivery. The section titled ‘selecting an appropriate medium’ did a good job at explaining the theory in greater detail. However, I would perhaps change the title of this section to medium selection; because, as the paragraphs state, one may not always select the ‘appropriate’ medium for the message.

In the section titled ‘non-business applications’ are there any studies that connect this theory to social media? There are even different ‘mediums’ of social media that could be worth examining in terms of their ‘richness’. This is especially true because businesses, organizations and movements are all employing these types of mediums to promote their message(s). I would also consider adding other visuals where appropriate. In reading some of the research that has been conducted there were visuals that aided in my understanding of the theory. I did not see the page before you took it over but according to the people above it seems as though you’ve done a great job at simplifying. Keep up the good work! KristinPeters (talk) 03:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Feedback from The University of Dayton
This page has a nice introduction section, however it may be beneficial to add a sentence or two on what Social Information Processing Theory is and exactly how this theory builds upon that one. The examples in the introduction are suitable for a non-academic audience, and are appropriate for the context. The background section would be more comprehensive if the theory’s adaptation to include modern communication mediums was discussed in greater detail. The page also consistently switches its language in discussing the effectiveness or the level of understanding that the form of communication will contribute to; it might be beneficial to add consistency to the page by using the same language throughout. However, after reading other sources on media richness theory, as well as reading the comments my classmate Kristin has posted, I believe this page does a nice job encompassing the theory in a way that is easily understood as well as comprehensive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexBurchfield (talk • contribs) 22:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review from CCT 2016
I think there are some problems within the “theory” section on the current page. The definition of “media richness” is ambiguous. In the second paragraph, it simply says “communications media that require more time to convey understanding are deemed less rich”, which is not comprehensive. At the beginning of the “Selecting an appropriate medium” section, it does not provide an overview of the medium selection, but focuses on how manager chooses medium from a business communication perspective. I think it will lead to the misunderstanding of readers who are not familiar with this theory. In addition, the name “Selecting an appropriate medium” does not seem academic, another name of this section is recommended. -- Jiaxi Xing — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xingjiaxi (talk • contribs) 20:01, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

This page seems to be well-developed at the first glance. Obviously, the arrangement of the page is organized and different facets of the Media Richness Theory has been covered. However, I think it's problematic to divide related applications into two categories - Organizational and business communications VS Non-business applications. And the content of latter are "mixed" so that there is no coherent connection. The criticism part is great as it provides directions for further studies.--Hw296 (talk) 03:17, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Han that the applications of the theory is a little bit problematic. The contents in the two categories - business and non-business applications - are overlapping with each other. This section probably needs restructuring and removing some of the content. Also, I think the content on this page seems to be written from a business perspective. This is not very appropriate for Wikipedia page since this page should be treated as a communication theory page. As a source for people seeking basic knowledge about this specific theory, the tone of this page should be neutral. Henan Sun Hs726 (talk) 04:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi, this page is rich and contains a lot of great information. Also, the page cover aspects from the business, which would be helpful to many of the corporation. And here is some of my suggestion. There is a big part of the application of the Media Richness Theory. The examples in the part are really useful. However, I think more recent examples can be added and the most prevalent apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, iMessage, Instagram etc could be discussed in this page. The content of this page would be more vivid and up-to-date if these media could be added to the examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeyiWen (talk • contribs) 01:44, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

First, the background part needs more detail about what theories had already existed before the media richness theory. Second, change the outline into (1): background (2)theory (3)implications (4)examples (5)other related materials might make the page more explicit. Third, the references are pretty old. Adding more recent articles as reference might keep the theory up to date. Summermwt (talk) 20:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

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Peer Review from CCTP752 Fall 2022
Hi! For the Media synchronicity section in the related theories section of this page, it simply introduces the Media synchronicity theory and its relationship to other theories. It points out that the Media synchronicity theory was developed to help explain media richness theory and focus on the applications in the new media area. The concept of synchronicity and its performance on media are shown, and for the related theories mentioned, there are hyperlinks of the Wikipedia page which is convenient to get the information.

More contents could be added because there is only three short paragraphs about this theory on this page. The statement of media synchronicity on the existing page is not very clear for comprehension. The two process, conveyance and convergence, and six abilities “transmission velocity, parallelism, symbol sets, rehearsability, and reaccessability” are just listed there without any explanation. If there will be more additional explanations of those keywords and how those concepts work for this theory and how they related to the real life practice, it could help people learn about the theory more clearly. --- Lijing Zeng

Jinngzzz (talk) 19:01, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

This page seems to be well developed, but there are still some issues and points that could be improved. First of all, some of the references used by the page are relatively outdated in general, and editors can try to find some updated resources. For example, some research from 2020 to 2022 can be added. Second, the background section in this page is not perfect and needs to be enriched by considering adding more contents. Third, in order to expand the theory, the page can add more novel studies and research based on this theory, so that readers can expand a broader understanding of this theory. An example of novel study can be: How does media richness foster online gamer loyalty? The online game market is highly popular recently, especially for millennials. Possible citation for this resouces can be: Fan-Chen Tseng, Tzu-Ling Huang, Thi Tuan Linh Pham, T.C.E. Cheng, Ching-I Teng, How does media richness foster online gamer loyalty?, International Journal of Information Management, Volume 62, 2022, 102439, ISSN 0268-4012, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2021.102439. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CloudyQi (talk • contribs) 20:41, 17 October 2022 (UTC)