From the Media Richness Theory to Saving Emotions: On the Results of an Empirical Research of CMC Usage by Modern Youth

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems have been the focus of researchers' attention in various fields of knowledge for several decades: from cultural anthropology to cybernetics, from sociology to psychology of mass communications, etc. A special place here is occupied by the media richness theory of American scientists Richard Daft and Robert Langel (1986), which was developed in 2012 as a construct of polymedia in the concept of British experts Mirka Madian and Daniel Miller. The article presents the results of quantitative (a quantitative survey of 322 respondents was carried out) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews (writing an essay) with 50 respondents were organized and conducted) research. Its participants were bachelor's and master's students of six Tomsk universities: National Research Tomsk State University, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Siberian State Medical University, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics, and Tomsk State University of Architecture and Building. The aim of this research is to verify certain provisions of the above-mentioned theoretical position. As a result of the data obtained, it is possible to confirm that the respondents find it important to use the entire repertoire of new media with the intended purpose of their emotional register: nowadays, CMC is not just an integral part of the life of the youth; it is actively used to form interpersonal relationships of their actors online and offline. The position of the media (polymedia) richness theory on the resocialization of social platforms and messengers has been confirmed: people are increasingly using the potential of the polymedia structure to build their relationships; when affordance becomes a quality, we use a person-person interaction rather than a person-computer one). Using the potential of the new media, young men and women manage their communications focusing on the degree of closeness to the partner in their communnicative interaction, on the assessment of the degree of uncertainty in the emerging communication situation, on the level of resource consumption of particular media, on the mandatory ethical aspect of communication linking formats, the technical potential of their devices, selected social platforms and messengers with the concept of decency.

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