The purpose of this paper is to understand what factors make media firms downsize and which channel managers will choose to inform the layoff message to employees. This paper uses interview research method to collect the data from 12 workers in different media firms. Findings indicate that there are three levels of factors cause downsize in media firms: external factors of the organization, internal factors of the organization and personal factors of employees. And managers depend on some standards to decide the list of layoff such as work performance and experience and managers¡¦ recognize about the employees. If one manager wants to inform layoff message to employees, he/she will choose face-to-face communication channel because it can ease employees feeling and makes some immediately feedbacks. The order of communication channels from interviewers¡¦ response is: face-to face, telephone and e-mail, document, MSN, bulletin board, firm¡¦s website and social network website.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-323).