ABSTRACT:
There has been a flurry of attention in recent years to the
question of whether the changing digital media environment will require
communication researchers to recalibrate their theories and methods. Cass Sunstein, for example, ominously warns
of a new form of online political polarization.
Markus Prior is concerned about political disengagement in a high-choice
media environment. Lance Bennett and
Shanto Iyengar ask if we need to reassess the phenomenon of selective
attention.
I am going to make the argument that we need more than a minor
recalibration. It may turn out to be
better characterized as an evolving paradigm rather than a paradigm shift. But at this point in the history of the field
such questions need to be addressed. I
start with a brief excursion into the origins of the traditional effects research
paradigm derived from the study of propaganda following the Second World War. I contend that the phony debate over big
versus minimal effects has been a major theoretical distraction. I put forward the case that the critically
important issues of informational abundance and also the intrinsically
polysemic character of media messages have not yet been fully integrated into
communication theory and research methods.
I propose that new analytics addressing “big data” and over-time
measurement strategies offer special promise to reenergize and modestly
redirect the research enterprise in the digital era.
