Information and communications technology in the workplace – Part II: Social presence

How much social presence does your technology communicate?

In Part I of this article, we explored a common dilemma among professionals who work from home.  What information technology should I use to communicate with my coworkers?  For example, take two of the most common types of information and communications technologies (ICTs) used in work settings today: When should I send an email, and when should I make a video call?  (For this question, we’ll assume a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible.)

One way to answer that question is to think about what kind of knowledge we’re trying to communicate.  If the knowledge is explicit (easy to articulate in words or writing), an email should work well.  But if the knowledge is tacit (not easy to articulate in mere words or writing because it requires more discussion), a video call may be a better option, especially if everyone wants to avoid long, confusing chains of back-and-forth emails.

Additionally, there’s another way to help answer that question.  It’s to think about what kind of social interaction is more efficient and effective for communicating that knowledge.  To demonstrate what we mean, we can recruit an idea from social psychology known as “social presence.”

Social presence and media richness

Social presence refers to how well information and communications technologies are able to communicate subtle social cues, such as another person’s tone of voice, facial expression, or gesture.  For instance, email has a lower degree of social presence, since it really can’t show these social cues.  Video calling has a higher degree, because it displays those cues pretty well (at least better than email, even if not as well as face-to-face meetings).

Now, if the information technology you’re using to communicate conveys more social presence, we say it has media richness.  Since video calls are able to display vocal, facial, and gestural cues that emails cannot, it’s clear that video calling has more social presence—and media richness—compared to emailing (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Short et al., 1976).

Degrees of social presence in email versus phone call versus video call versus face-to-face meeting
Degrees of Social Presence in Email, Phone Call, Video Call, and Face-to-Face Meeting

To be sure, that’s not to say one business technology is always better than the other.  Nevertheless, one may be better than the other for particular kinds of social interactions.  To illustrate, let’s return to our original question.  What’s the more efficient and effective way to communicate with coworkers: by email or video call?  The concept of social presence gives us a way to help answer that question.

Social presence in email vs. video call

On one hand, let’s say the information we’re trying to communicate is relatively straightforward.  It doesn’t require a lot of social cues to articulate.  (For example, clear-cut facts, quick reminders, or forms of explicit knowledge—like “Don’t forget to fill out your time sheet this week!”)  In this case, we don’t need a media rich technology, because we won’t require much social presence to communicate that simple message.  Therefore, email will do the job nicely for this kind of interaction.

On the other hand, let’s say the information isn’t so straightforward.  It requires more social cues to articulate.  (For instance, nuanced discussions, in-depth conversations, or forms of tacit knowledge—like “How should we execute our business strategy next year?”)  In that case, we may need a media rich technology, because we’ll require more social presence to get that complex message across.  For this kind of interaction, video call will likely work better than numerous emails.

So, in situations where it would be helpful to hear and see other peoples’ voices, faces, and gestures to better understand what they’re saying, use a media rich technology (like video calling) with more social presence.  Otherwise, if you don’t need to see those social cues to understand the message, use a non-media rich technology (such as email) with less social presence.  In sum,

  • Use emails to communicate simple messages (clear-cut facts or quick reminders) that don’t require a lot of social presence.
  • Use video calls to communicate more complex messages (nuanced discussions or in-depth conversations) that require more social presence.

References

Daft, Richard L. and Lengel, Robert H. (1986). “Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design.” Management Science 32(5), 554–571. doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554

Short, John, Williams, Ederyn, and Christie, Bruce. (1976). The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. London: John Wiley & Sons.

If you have any tips or advice on using different types of business technology in workplace communication, feel free to share any advice below, or check out other Professional Topics on this site.

 

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