Social Information Processing (SIP) theory is one of my ‘must haves’ when teaching this class. It is outdated, but that is of course the point. The beginning of CMC (computer mediated communication) made it possible to say that we have a ‘new’ form of communication that must be studied. And that meant that theories that deal with interpersonal communication (IPC) must find a way to understand how it works and so this theory was born.
But this is also an old theory. How would you update it? As technology continues to develop, are we going to find ourselves in a place where the findings of SIP no longer apply? Are we going to be in a situation where this is our main form of IPC (i.e., where CMC is the way we predominately communicate)?
As we see from SIP, theory is built on major advances in technology but also as a response to major changes in social communication patterns. During the pandemic, we found that more than ever, people were working from home. Do changes in the theory need to be made based on that? Maybe we need a whole new theory?