News

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Possible Research Project

Hi Everyone!

As I indicated in the email to you all, here is my idea for revising what we will do for the rest of the semester in the seminar. Note that this is just an idea, and I'm open to suggestions, revisions or rejection of this whole thing and thus we could stick with the original plan.

My thought was that you all might find it an interesting and valuable experience to participate in a real research project that was related directly to the course theme. I've been working for a couple of years on research examining "mediated immediacy" -- that is, the forms and functions and outcomes of immediacy when it is not face-to-face. The relevance to this course is, of course, that immediacy (the ways in which we convey closeness to others) is closely related to many basic constructs of communication and so is potentially relevant to a wide range of contexts (e.g., education, health care, corporations, interpersonal relationships, mass communication, etc.).

So, this could be the basis for one, or several, projects that you could identify as relevant to your own interests. As I discussed in seminar last Thursday, there are many important areas yet to be examined. For example:

• What is the relative importance of various groupings or specific forms of mediated immediacy? For instance, is it more effective to display personalness than to be expressive? We just don't know yet.
• How are evaluations of mediated immediacy shaped by comparisons to others' immediacy behaviors?
• How might evaluations of specific mediated immediacy displays by shaped by relationships status (i.e., might some behaviors be evaluated one way at the outset of a relationship and differently later in the relationship)?
• Are certain channels associated with higher immediacy than others?
• Do types of mediated immediacy identified so far (primarily in educational contexts) work in different contexts (e.g., health care, organizations, personal relationships, etc.)?
• Is more immediacy always better? Can a lot be too much and lead not to more positive outcomes but to negative outcomes?

There are other questions, of course, but that's some that we can use as a beginning. Look these over and think about which ones seem to be of interest to you and some ideas on how to study it. Next Thursday we'll devote the entire time to clarifying our direction for the second half of the course.

Also think about whether you wish to work alone, in pairs, or in groups of three or more and we'll see what makes sense in the discussions.

If you have questions in the meantime, stop by or call or email!

See ya

Patrick