This study examines the phenomenon of multicommunicating, or engaging in multiple conversations simultaneously. The authors conducted qualitative interviews and a quantitative experiment to explore how two factors, message equivocality and interlocutor status, influence a person's likelihood of multicommunicating. The interviews revealed that multicommunicating is common but its appropriateness depends on complexity and authority. The experiment confirmed hypotheses that higher equivocality and higher status communication partners each decrease the perceived likelihood of multicommunicating. The results improve understanding of how business communicators allocate their attention across interleaved conversations.

1. Multicommunicating, Equivocality and
Status at Work
By: Jeanine Warisse Turner & N. Lamar Reinsch Jr.

2.  Means that an individual can
survey the available
communication technologies,
choose a medium that provides
the right cues for each
interaction, and divide his or her
presence among two or more
interlocutor.

3.  Concept of multicommunicating &
reports two exploratory studies.
 Authors used qualitative &
quantitative data to explore factors
that influence multicommunicating
behavior.

4.  Under qualitative study, authors
identified message equivocality and
interlocutor status as two factors that
seem to encourage (or discourage)
multicommunicating.
 Under quantitative study, authors
evaluated two hypothesis confirming the
equivocality and interlocutor status
influence the perceived likelihood of
multicommunicating.
 Analysis builds on the concept of social
presence & media richness.

5.  BaseX survey on 1,000 office
workers
“55% opened E-mails immediately
or shortly after arriving”
 Kaiser Family Foundation
“Americans aged 8-18 years old
packing more media use within the
day through media multitasking,
this trend will continue”

6.  The behavior of engaging in
more than one activity at the
same time or treating
unplanned interruptions as
equal to planned activities.
 Layman's term “multitasking.”

7.  A specific form of multitasking
involves engaging in multiple
conversations at any one time.
 Distinguished from other form of
multitasking because
communication is interactive,
requiring a person to monitor & to
adapt to others while observing
appropriate standards of etiquette.

8.  Issue: How a communicator’s
choice of medium may allow
him or her to allocate presence
and attention to second or
additional conversation
partners?

9. Social presence theory – the
degree to which a medium
conveys the physical
presence of the participants
and provides cues necessary
to develop interpersonal
relationships.

11. Media richness theory –
an attribute of a medium
that makes the channel
more or less effective for
addressing equivocal
issues.

12. Equivocality refers to the
existence of multiple &
conflicting interpretations of
an issue.
These interpretations are
subjective and open to
potential disagreement.

13.  Media Richness Theory has been criticized
for focusing too narrowly on the objective
attributes of channels and the assumption
that communicator choose a channel on a
purely rational basis.
 Two additional perspectives:
a) social influence model – media
characteristics are in part socially
constructed and selection of a medium
reflects social forces.
b) social interactionist perspective – the
choice of medium constitutes a message.

14. Do theories of social
presence and media richness
include the notion of
efficiency seeking?– Yes, but
the concept is more explicit
in the richness literature than
in social presence literature.

15.  Interviewed 20 individuals (10 male &
10 female) from high-tech org where
multicommunication occur frequently,
selected to include both positive and
negative attitudes toward
multicommunicating.
 Interviews were semistructured to
provide some consistency while
allowing participants to raise issues as
appropriate.

16.  Interview protocol included
questions about:
-media use
-criteria used to determine media
use & multicommunicating
-norms for communication within
the organization
-managing of multiple
coversations at one time

17.  Responses confirmed that
multicommunicating occured very frequently;
a common practice in every organization.
 Some interviewees felt that other people
sometimes tried to juggle multiple
conversations and became ineffective, most
interviewees regarded multicommunicating
as an efficient use of individual’s time.
 Interviews helped understand the experience
of multicommunicators and pointed to issue
complexity and status or rank with an
organization as two influential decisions
factor.

18.  Authors developed 2 hypothesis:
1. Manipulation of the equivocality of a message
will affect the perceived likelihood of
multicommunicating; greater equivocality will
discourage multicommunicating.
2. The status (rank)of one’s communication
partner will affect the perceived likelihood of
multicommunicating; the higher the interlocutor
status will discourage multicommunicating.
 Authors designed a simple 2x2 posttest-only
experiment to test for the effects of equivocality
(higher vs lower) and status or rank of
communication partner (superior vs colleague).

19. M SD Vignette
1.8 1.28 You need to discuss a problem in your department with your
superior (higher equivocality, superior status).
2.64 1.77 You wish to organize political support from your colleagues
for an idea that you have (higher equivocality, colleague
status).
2.48 1.46 You need to respond to a question by a superior concerning a
variation in a budgeted-versus-actual expenses report (lower
equivocality, superior status).
3.34 1.46 You need to respond to a question from a colleague
concerning a variation in a budgeted-versus-actual expenses
report (lower equivocality, colleague status).
Mean score are on a scale from 1 (no multicomm) to 7 (higher probability of
multicom)

20.  Respondents were less likely to
multicommunicate under conditions of higher
equivocality (M=1.8,2.64) than under
conditions of lower equivocality (M=2.48,3.34),
supports the 1st hypothesis.
 Rspondent was less prone to
multicommunicate when his partner was
described as superior (M=1.8,2.48) than when
partner was described as colleague
(M=2.64,3.34), supports the 2nd hypothesis.

21.  The quantitative results indicate that
both message equivocality (closely
related to “complexity” in the
qualitative study) and interlocutor
rank (related to comments about
status and authority in the
qualitative study) influence a
person’s decision to
multicommunicate.

22.  The 2 exploratory studies help clarify
understanding of a new type of business
interaction, the use of media to
communicate.
 Results suggest that business
communicators can and do intentionally
allocate their personal attention across a
number of ongoing, interleaved
conversations.
 The contemporary business
communicator is, therefore, revealed as a
presence allocator.