Characteristics of Media
If mediators describe the physical agencies which make communication
possible, characteristics describe the essential qualities of a
medium. These qualities exist, to some extent, independently of
either the mediators that constitute the medium, the effects the
medium has, or the way people use it. It is reasonable to view
characteristics as a high level description of what a medium's
possibilities.
They state what can happen when people take advantage of a medium's
potential. Viewed from this perspective, the potential inherent in
characteristics sees realization in a medium's actual effects (a
third, still to be examined, view of media).
Restating this view slightly, characteristics express abstract
qualities that are inherent to various combinations of physical
agencies (mediators). Mediators are concrete and observable.
Characteristics are also observable, but are an abstraction related to
the way mediators are used. Using biology as a metaphor in which we
can express this vocabulary, a discussion of "biological mediators"
might say that a bird has wings and a fish has fins. A similar
discussion of "biological characteristics" might say that a bird is
capable of flying and a fish is capable of swimming. In this view,
the difference is one of structure versus behavior. Characteristics
are, then, a view of the essential behavior of media.
In a third perspective of characteristics, they describe the essential
relationship of a medium's mediators (as agency) to agents (the people
that use media) and acts (the messages we transmit via media). In
this view we see a medium's mediators as having specific essential
impacts on the messages and communicators that a medium mediates:
A capacitive filter, for instance, will slow the message flow
and deliver messages in bundles. The slowed message flow can be
regarded as an expression of a characteristic of media. The bundled
message flow can be regarded as an expression of a characteristic of
media. Both characteristics describe the relationship of a medium to
its messages.
Simultaneous and parallel interfaces between communicators, in
another instance, entail both interface symmetry (both communicators
have the same interface) and a requirement for synchrony (both
communicators must use the medium at the same time). Both synchrony
and interface symmetry can be regarded as characteristics of media.
Both characteristics describe the relationship of a medium to its
users.
Each of these perspectives, characteristics as potential,
characteristics as behavior, and characteristics as relationship,
contributes to the description of what constitutes a medium's
characteristics. Each perspective is correct. None is entirely
complete. One shows how characteristics (as potential) work to create
effects (as realization). One shows how mediators (as structure) work
to create characteristics (as behavior). The third shows how
characteristics express the relationship between mediators and the
people and messages which they mediate.
Message Characteristics and Communicator Characteristics
The third view is, perhaps, the richest. It views characteristics as
the intersection of medium and agent communicator; of medium and
communication act. Characteristics are not, in this view, a simple
function of mediator selection. Characteristics instead represent an
interaction effect in which mediators have individual and collective
effects on both messages and the people that create and receive them.
Characteristics can be regarded as behavior or effects in this view,
but they are effects and characteristics of clusters of mediators
rather than of media per se. This view provides, moreover, in its
description of characteristics as expressing the relationship between
media and both agents and acts, a useful way of organizing the
characteristics of media:
Media can be said to have message characteristics, including
message speed, the distance a message can traverse, the persistence of
a message, and the medium's bandwidth.
Media can also be said to have communicator characteristics,
including audience size, interactiveness, synchrony, ease of use, and
interface symmetry.
These characteristics should be regarded as a few obvious selections
from a probably infinite variety of media characteristics. Some
of the characteristics of media will, like those named above, be easy
to observe in a reliable manner. Others will not. It will be
relatively easy to operationalize a scale on which the relative speed
of media in delivering messages can be compared. It will be extremely
difficult to operationalize a set of definitions that classify media
as "hot" or "cool" (McLuhan, 1965). It will be relatively easy to
state the senses that a medium affects and a summary measure of how
many senses are affected. It will be relatively difficult to create a
true measure of a medium's information bandwidth.
This study views characteristics as a summary statement of a medium's
relationship with its messages and mediators and will repeatedly use
this view as a tool for comparing computer conferencing with other
media. We will tend to take the easy road, concentrating on a small
range of characteristics which are relatively easy to operationalize
and reliably observe. The characteristics either:
make sense as key differentiating characteristics of communication
media from the standpoint of existing models of communication.
are exposed in our study of computer conferencing as key to
differentiating computer conferencing from other media.
are exposed in this chapter, particularly in the discussion of mediators,
as key to differentiating media.
An Informal Typology
Two of these characteristics noted above, audience
size and interactiveness, are restatements of two criterion for differentiating
interpersonal and mass media as documented by Reardon and Rogers (1988). These
measures, the number of potential recipients of a message and the potential
for feedback, are fairly clearly operationalized as stated. High levels of
feedback are clearly an inherent potential in any interpersonal medium. Where
levels of feedback are clearly high, it will probably have interpersonal character
regardless of how many participants are involved. High numbers of recipients
is clearly an inherent potential in any mass medium.
It is possible, using just these two characteristics, to create a fairly
interesting continuum of media. The table
below depicts such a continuum crossing dimensions (treated as orthogonal)
of potential recipients and potential feedback
The continuum from mass communication to interpersonal communication extends
across the dimensions. One end of the continuum resides at high feedback and
low potential recipients. The other end of the continuum at high potential
recipients and low feedback. Seventeen media are typologized within the two
dimensional structure.
An informal typology of media: A contrast of potential recipients
versus potential for feedback. Mass Media (in the upper left corner) tend
to entail both high numbers potential recipients but a low potential for feedback.
Interpersonal media (in the lower right corner) tend to entail both high levels
of feedback, but among relative small groups of individuals. A continuum from
mass to interpersonal is depicted in the diagonal line running from the upper
left to lower right. Computer conferencing, in contrast to these media entails
both large numbers of participants and high levels of feedback. It appears,
in this informal typology, to be operating independently from, or orthagonal
to, the continuum from mass media to interpersonal media.
The typology illustrates the problem presented
by computer conferencing. Prototypic exemplars of interpersonal and mass communication
occupy the extremes of the continuum. Most other media are on or near this
continuum. Computer conferencing, by contrast, occupies a third extreme. It
presents the possibility of a third major cluster of communication events,
entailing large numbers of recipients AND high levels of feedback. It also
presents the possibility that the apparent negative correlation between potential
recipients and potential feedback that forms the basis of the differentiation
of interpersonal and mass media is more historical accident than real.
The typology remains informal, however. Potential feedback and potential
recipients are but two of many characteristics of media. Both are, moreover,
agent centered characteristics of communication. There are other characteristics
to be considered, including characteristics that express the relationship
of mediators to messages. These characteristics will be explored in greater
detail when we develop a more formal typology in a
coming chapter.