A90. Kim,
H., Kim, G.J., Park, H.W. & Rice, R. E. (2007). Kim, H., Kim, G.J., Park, H. W., &
Rice, R. E. (2007). Configurations
of relationships in different media: FtF, Email, Instant Messenger,
Mobile Phone, and SMS. Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4). Online at: htttp://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/kim.html
This
study analyzes the configurations of communication relationships in Korea through
face-to-face, email, instant messaging, mobile phone, and short message
service
media. Through a web survey, we asked respondents to identify (1) for
each of
the five media (2) up to five of their most frequent communication
partners,
(3) the partner's social role (including colleagues, family, friends),
and (4)
their own employment category. Individual-level and network-level
analyses were
used to compare variations in communication relationships and
configurations of
relationships among social roles overall, within each medium, and for
different
employment categories, and to identify configurations of relationships
across
media. IM, SMS, and mobile phone are distinctive media for students,
mobile
phone for homeworkers, and email for organizational workers. Moreover,
mobile
phones tend to be used in reinforcing strong social ties, text-based
CMC media
tend to be used in expanding relationships with weak
ties. Finally, face-to-face
seems to be a universal medium without significant differences across
respondents' employment
categories.