Dicussion reply

Material/Discussion.docx

Question:

Reading: Jandt, Chapter Eight (cont)

You are a consultant in conflict management and have been hired by a family court. How would you use the concept of media richness to argue in favor of using closed-circuit television for cases with the court? What do you think are the disadvantages of using email mediation?

Discussion:

Megan Van Kirk 

DB #10

COLLAPSE

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I have personally worked in the family court system as a child visitation supervisor and reporter. During these visits, I often had to facilitate getting children to and from their visits without their parents interacting. Unfortunately, there was no way around having both parents present in the building at one time for drop-offs and pickups for these visits which often led to stress and anxiety. This same stress and anxiety can be induced in other court procedures when feuding parties are forced to interact in close proximity. Therefore, from my own experience working in the family court system, I would definitely recommend keeping feuding spouses separated especially when children are involved.

One way this separation can be facilitated is through utilizing closed-circuit television in court procedures. Closed-circuit televisions or more commonly used systems like Skype, allow for individuals to communicate over a live video and audio stream from different locations. This technology provides numerous benefits in the context of a court room as it can create distance for disputing parties consequently increasing safety and easing anxiety for victims. In terms of communication, closed-circuit television provides a high level of information richness. Information richness is the “description of a medium’s reproduction of information sent over it” or more simply put technologies ability to recreate face-to-face interaction (Jandt, 2017, pg. 175).  Important aspects of communication that closed-circuit televisions are able to reproduce include traditional verbal cues and nonverbal cues like body language, context, paralanguage, and silences that are all important aspects of communication especially in regards to mediation. Other technology like email can also prove beneficial in mediation due to its ability to create distance between disputing parties. Email is an asynchronous communication meaning it “enables communication over a period of time at the participant’s own convenience and schedule” (Jandt, 2017, pg. 177). While these same characteristics can be benefits of using email, they unfortunately mean that email has low information richness in that nonverbal and verbal cues are often difficult if not impossible to pick up on making mediation hard. Overall, I definitely believe that separating feuding parties is best for everyone involved but technology like closed-circuit television that are high in information richness are preferable to low-informational mediums like email.

Jandt, F. E. (2017). Conflict and communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc

Word Count: 362

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