Bruk av videomøter i intern kommunikasjon - Ein kvalitativ studie av Skype som kommunikasjonsverktøy i organisasjonar

Abstract

Over the last few years, regional health organizations in Norway have gone through a merging process. As a result of this process, each health organization must now cover a larger geographical area. This means they will have to manage to cooperate and interact with one another, in spite of the great geographical distances. One possibility to solve this problem is to establish communication by using video conferences. But how can interpersonal communication work though technology? Because of this, it is interesting to study how communication works between organizations or agencies, which has to communicate and cooperate over large distances. Hence, it is relevant to observe how technology is being put to use as a communicative tool, and how those involved experience this. The main research problem of this thesis is stated like this: How are video conferences being used as a communicative tool in organizations, and what is needed for this to work optimally? I have conducted a qualitative research by interviewing and observing a team working on infection control within a health organization. From my analysis, this thesis states that video conferences can be a helpful tool in organizations which are widely spread over great geographical distances. With a theoretical baseline of technological determinism, domestication and interpersonal communication, I will discuss which prerequisites are needed for the internal communication to work by the aid of Skype as a communicative tool. Some of these prerequisites are the number of participants of any video conference, as video conferences are not suitable for creative and especially demanding processes. The precondition of the participants being familiar with each other was important to create a sense of fellowship, and to be able to conduct “communities of practice” sufficiently. It also became clear that the team had to meet physically, as the interpersonal aspect is somewhat lost when communicating through a video stream. In addition, physical meeting is a factor when it comes to building trust towards one another in an effective way.