Negotiating romantic and sexual relationships: Patterns and meanings of mediated interaction

Abstract

Everyday life is characterized by multimodality (Walther & Parks, 2002), but little research has examined how media use is incorporated into romantic/sexual relationships. The purpose of this dissertation was to better understand how communication technologies are being integrated into romantic and/or sexual relationships across stages of relational development and to uncover the underlying patterns of, expectations for, and meanings associated with that media use. In order to address this purpose, mixed-methods were employed. During phase one, 37 semi-structured interviews were conducted, which allowed for the qualitative exploration of the expectations and meanings participants attached to media use in romantic/sexual relationships. This was followed by phase two, in which a survey was constructed based upon the findings highlighted in the interview analysis and administered to 120 participants. This study adds to the growing body of literature about how young adults are incorporating communication technologies into their courtship practices (e.g., Gershon, 2010a, 2010b; Jin & Peña, 2010; Pascoe, 2009). First, these results confirm that college students are not following traditional scripts for engaging in romantic relationships (see also Bogle, 2008; Pascoe, 2009). Second, by examining how students talk about their romantic and sexual entanglements, this study uncovered and defined four terms they frequently used to describe their relationships: talking to, hanging out, dating, and hooking up. Third, the results of this study indicate that as relationships grow closer, individuals are more likely to communicate with their partners over the phone. Finally, this dissertation couples traditional interpersonal communication theories - uncertainty reduction and facework - with perspectives about media use: technological affordances and media symbolism. Results revealed that within romantic/sexual relationships characterized by high relational uncertainty (Knobloch & Solomon, 1999), partners negotiate potentially face-threatening situations by strategically employing technologies that allowed them to most effectively preserve their positive face.