The moderating effect of mindlessness/mindfulness upon media richness and social influence explanations of organizational media use

Although media use receives considerable attention from organizational communication scholars, empirical data fails to provide clear support for the predominant theoretical models (media richness and social influence). This study presents the construct of mindlessness/mindfulness as a factor that may moderate the relationship between variables from existing theory and media use behavior. Building upon the rationale that organizational tasks often require frequent and repetitive use of communication media, the study depicts media use as accomplished through primarily mindful (i.e., active consideration of one's media options) or mindless (i.e., overlearned behavior) processes. Two data sets from a field experiment revealed that neglecting to consider participant's degree of mindlessness/mindfulness renders existing media selection theory constructs non-predictive. However, the relationships between variables from media selection theory and media use were significantly greater when participants were in the mindful condition, indicating that mindlessness/mindfulness may moderate relationships between theoretical constructs and media use. This finding provides a means for reconciling differences that exist between various theoretical views and the data that have emerged from empirical testing.