New lenses to investigate media use: The layering process perspective

Managers spend much of their time communicating and use an ever-larger range of communication tools for the purpose. Empirical studies have shown that while ICT tools extend communication opportunities, they do not replace other means of communication. Instead, managers use a set of communication tools in which traditional media coexist alongside ICT tools. In addition, studying the use of just one medium fails to give us a full picture of managerial communication. To gain a better understanding, we need to examine how a range of different means of communication are used. To this end, we conducted a case study in a car manufacturing company with data mainly collected through interviews with 36 managers. Our analysis of the data showed that managers use a set of communication tools that form superposed layers, each new ICT being layered over the existing