Media Richness Theory

Media richness theory, sometimes called information richness theory, is a framework for describing how well a given communication medium can reproduce the information a sender intends to convey, developed by Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel as an extension of information processing theory. The theory ranks communication media along a scale of richness based on criteria such as a medium's capacity for immediate feedback, the number of cues and channels it can carry, including tone of voice, gesture and body language alongside plain words, its use of natural language rather than only numeric or formal symbols, and its personal focus. Under this ranking, face-to-face conversation counts as a rich medium because it transmits vocal tone, facial expression and gesture along with immediate two-way feedback, while a plain written message is comparatively lean because it strips away most of those cues. Media richness theory holds that richer media are generally more effective for communicating equivocal or ambiguous matters, which benefit from rapid clarification and multiple cues, while leaner media are adequate, and often more efficient, for communicating simple and unambiguous information. In education, the theory has been applied to questions of e-learning and online-course design, informing decisions about when a video conference, a recorded lecture or a plain text message is the more suitable medium for a given kind of instructional communication.