Media Selection for Deceptive Communication

What media do deceivers choose for their deceptions and why do they choose them? Few past studies of media selection have investigated media choice for deception. Media richness theory predicts that the most common media choice for deception would be face-to-face, while Hancock et al’s three-factor model predicts that phone would be the dominant choice. Our data allow us to compare these two perspectives. We also investigate two aspects of communication event context: severity of the problem and familiarity of the deceiver with the recipient. To investigate these issues, we conducted a sample survey of over 500 middle and upper managers. Our findings tend to support media richness theory, as the favored media for deception was face-to-face. The importance of face-to-face was amplified when the recipient was a friend of the deceiver instead of a stranger. The situation´s urgency only helped respondents decide if they would lie or not.