Work, friendship, and media use for information exchange in a networked organization

Caroline Haythornthwaite and Barry Wellman

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1998, vol. 49, issue 12, 1101-1114

Abstract: We use a social network approach to examine how work and friendship ties in a university research group were associated with the kinds of media used for different kinds of information exchange. The use of electronic mail, unscheduled face‐to‐face encounters, and scheduled face‐to‐face meetings predominated for the exchange of six kinds of information: Receiving Work, Giving Work, Collaborative Writing, Computer Programming, Sociability, and Major Emotional Support. Few pairs used synchronous desktop videoconferencing or the telephone. E‐mail was used in similar ways as face‐to‐face communication. The more frequent the contact, the more “multiplex” the tie: A larger number of media was used to exchange a greater variety of information. The closeness of work ties and of friendship ties were each independently associated with more interaction: A greater frequency of communication, the exchange of more kinds of information, and the use of more media. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Date: 1998
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https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1998)49:123.0.CO;2-Z

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:49:y:1998:i:12:p:1101-1114

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