Contextualising Media Choice Using Genre Analysis

Value creation is increasingly organized in virtualized settings requiring effective computer-mediated communication. While media choice has been a topic of interest in Information Systems for some time, corresponding media choice theories exhibit a range of shortcomings with regard to applicability in context. Since the theories try to generalize across social contexts, their key constructs are rather abstract and underspecified with regard to application. Against this backdrop we present an approach for contextualizing media choice using genre analysis. Genre analysis aims at identifying communication patterns (genres) in social communities (e. g. teams) as a structured overview of existing team communication. By juxtaposing requirements of the identified genres and media characteristics, we are able to propose a new set of media for improving team communication. We illustrate the application of our approach with a case example. Copyright Gabler Verlag 2009