Targets' Practices: How People Allocate their Attention among Multiple Streams of Incoming Information

The communication environment within organizations provides multiple opportunities for informational retrieval throughout the day. While previous research has explored media choice from a sender’s perspective, little research has explored the choices receivers or targets make in attending to messages and information streams. This paper explores the process that targets use to evaluate messages by introducing a model of target attention allocation. Built on theories of media choice, uses and gratifications, and social exchange, this model focuses on targets’ need to reduce uncertainty, the interactivity offered by the media available to them, and the social norms guiding their media choices. In doing so, the model provides a means for measuring targets’ willingness to remain focused on a given information stream or, conversely, switch to another information stream.