Walthers Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT) Essay

Walthers Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT) - Essay Example SIPT has developed in reaction to the theories of social presence, media richness, and social cues that criticized CMC. The social presence theory asserts that CMC deprives users of the actual presence of people, which results to CMC that is â€Å"more impersonal, individualistic, and task-oriented† than face-to-face communication (Griffin et al., 2015, p.122). This theory suggests that face-to-face communication has higher social presence than CMC, which results to more personalized and collective communication processes and effects (Noy, Raban, & Ravid, 2006, p.179). Media richness theory states that the bandwidth of the communication medium affects its ability to offer rich relational messages (Griffin et al., 2015, p.122). It insists that CMC has a narrower bandwidth compared to face-to-face communication, so the latter is more capable of successfully building close social relationships. Another theory asserts that CMC filters out social context cues (Griffin et al., 2015, p.122). It asserts that CMC users cannot determine and properly respond to their relative status and that CMC lacks social interaction norms, so CMC users tend to be less controlled when expressing their emotions (e.g flaming easily online since the sender is not in front of the receiver) (Griffin et al., 2015, p.122). In 1992, Walther developed the SIPT to assert that CMC users can maximize the limited cues they have to foster close relationships online (Griffin et al., 2015, p.122). Media richness theory states that the bandwidth of the communication.