Investigating the Media Preferences of Technical Communicators (2)

The Survey

Key Findings

All respondents reported using all channels proposed by McGee; respondents overwhelmingly favoured face-to-face meetings at project start; written communication was markedly more practiced when conflicts arose (although, perhaps surprisingly, 36% favoured face-to-face meetings to resolve conflicts). These results are on the whole correlative with MRT, but McGee posits no explicit hypotheses or predictions, citing instead a conservative combination of SI theory and MRT concepts that she implies her findings will support. As if to increase the probability of that outcome, the sample is small and the tightness of the survey’s questions precludes subtlety and potentially informative data (cf. MacNealy’s  “fill-in-the-blank”-type questions, which might have been more generative, albeit more problematic to summarize and/or less hypothesis-compliant).     

Comparison of Results

Question 1. Respondent usage of channel A (cross-functional team meetings) and B (document review) varied massively between the two surveys: McGee reports 97% of respondents used cross-functional (face-to-face) team meetings as a communication channel, against only 17% of respondents on the 2006 survey. According to MRT, this channel is the “richest” communication medium (Daft and Lengel, 1984). Such variance merits discussion: without supplemental data at my disposal (only comments of “we’re not invited” from eight respondents), I proffer that the profile and autonomy of technical communicators in Japan is neither as pronounced nor recognized as it might be in the English-speaking world (echoed by Kohl et al, 1993). By convention, the Japanese technical writer’s role is  (like that of a translator) that of an agent of transfer, not an interpreter or organizer of information (Sechrest et al, 1982 and Kohl et al, 1993). Technical writers are normally not invited to meetings, as it will be the duty of an attendee to relay the relevant information to the technical writer at a later time (Kohl et al, 1993). Such middleman practice marks an interaction norm in the Japanese workplace (Ramsey, 1998).

Also striking in its dissimilarity was reported usage of channel B (document review): 100% of McGee’s respondents reported usage, against only 4% of respondents on the 2006 survey. As a writing-based channel, it is a “lean” medium (Daft & Lengel, 1984) and later results indicate that lean media were heavily favoured by respondents to the 2006 survey, a finding that conflicts with this result. The comments of four of the 2006 respondents (“no time”, “what?”, etc.) illuminate this discrepancy thus: In the Japanese technical authorship process, review comes, if at all, after document completion. It is not considered a communication channel, but a reparatory measure, enforced following complaint. Assuming that by “document review” McGee infers some sort of written evaluation method (it is not defined), its lack of endorsement among technical writers in the Japanese workplace, where critical processes are avoided wherever possible (Ramsey, 1998), becomes comprehensible.

Question 2. Respondents to the 2006 survey reported preference for three channels only (A: 52%; C: 17%; E: 30%). These results contrast most distinctly with McGee’s findings for C (50%) and E (3%). Face-to-face meetings, despite being the richest medium (Daft and Lengel, 1984) were relatively underreported in the 2006 survey – responses indicated slight preference for another rich medium (cross-functional team meetings). This might be explained by the Japanese group-oriented/consensus-generative approach (Cathcart and Cathcart, 1982). The most incongruous finding is that for E (e-mail), which, as a lean medium, seems illogically placed as second in preference order (2006 survey). Time limitations and logistical obstacles might explain this preference.

Question 3. The overwhelming majority (78%) of respondents to the 2006 survey reported preference for channel D (telephone). In the McGee survey, majority preference is split evenly between channel A and C (32% each). MRT states that the lean medium of the telephone is not an appropriate medium for deadline negotiation, and McGee’s findings are tidily compliant with this sentiment. Japanese meetings consume more time than meetings in the Anglophone world (Bennett, 1998), and I speculate that recourse to meetings would be undesirable in situations where time and interpersonal sensitivity is a concern. Telephone, on the other hand, provides time-economical and discreet communication (but poses a greater linguistic challenge, which might offset these advantages).

Question 4.  Conflict avoidance is a pivotal skill in the Japanese office environment. Hence, non-confrontational channels are emphatically favoured when dealing with problematic people or situations (Cathcart and Cathcart, 1982 and Bennett, 1998). This explains why respondents reported e-mail as their preferred channel in the event of interpersonal conflict. McGee’s results are more dispersed, although C (face-to-face meetings) and E (e-mail) share the bulk of respondent preference equally (36% each). E-mail, through its multicasting and CC:/BCC functions, provides a degree of impersonality[1] not offered by other media, accounting perhaps for its broad employment in the Japanese context.

Question 5a. For this question, respondent preferences on both surveys were broadly correlative.

Question 5b. Predominant respondent preference on the 2006 survey was B (document review) and E (e-mail), both lean media. “Document review” is synonymous with “final check” in the Japanese process, which probably explains why respondents reported its utilization at this stage.

The intuitive conclusion is that since both surveys yielded similar results for these questions, support for MRT is implied. However, since the 2006 survey is strongly lean media biased, the 2006 survey’s results are merely internally consistent, not exceptional, and therefore support but weakly the MRT premise that leaner media are more suitable for signatory communications such as completion notices. 

[1] Not to mention convenience too, of course.