Content- and medium-specific decomposition of friendship relational maintenance: Integrating equity and media multiplexity approaches

Abstract

This manuscript reports an empirical study integrating equity and media multiplexity approaches to relational maintenance via separation of medium- and content-specific components of behaviors. Results from confirmatory factor analysis demonstrate good fit for the decomposition model. The analysis also revealed that content- and medium-specific components differentially predict the strength and quality of friends’ influence. Specifically, positivity and social networks predict control mutuality, whereas medium-specific components predict interdependence. Although face-to-face maintenance indirectly predicts control mutuality, online maintenance exhibits no such association. Results did not differ significantly between local and long-distance friends. In addition to introducing a statistical tool for separating content- and medium-specific effects, these results suggest how theoretical understandings of relational maintenance behavior can be refined.

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