Showing papers in "Communication Theory in 2017"
TL;DR: This article proposed a process model of journalistic roles, where normative, cognitive, practiced, and narrated roles are connected through processes of internalization, enactment, reflection, normalization, and negotiation.
Abstract: The study of journalistic roles tends to be descriptive and is thin on theory. This article advances an understanding of journalistic roles as being discursively constituted and builds on the notion of journalism as a discursive institution. Journalistic roles are negotiated in a relational structure—the discursive field—where journalists, news outlets, and media organizations struggle over discursive authority in conversations about journalism's identity and locus in society. Journalistic roles are articulated and enacted on 2 distinct levels: role orientations (normative and cognitive roles) and role performance (practiced and narrated roles). The process model of journalistic roles proposes a circular structure, where normative, cognitive, practiced, and narrated roles are connected through processes of internalization, enactment, reflection, normalization, and negotiation.
252 citations
TL;DR: The authors introduced a multilevel framework model of softening of journalistic political communication, which showed that the four most prominent concepts of political communication can be distinguished in a hierarchical model. But despite the scholarly popularity of important developments of political communications, concepts like soft news or infotainment lack conceptual clarity.
Abstract: Despite the scholarly popularity of important developments of political communication, concepts like soft news or infotainment lack conceptual clarity. This article tackles that problem and introduces a multilevel framework model of softening of journalistic political communication, which shows that the 4 most prominent concepts—(a) sensationalism, (b) hard and soft news (HSN), (c) infotainment, and (d) tabloidization, and, additionally, (e) eroding of boundaries of journalism—can be distinguished in a hierarchical model. By softening, we understand a metaconcept representing developments in political journalism that are observed on different levels of investigation, from journalism as a system (macrolevel) down to single media items (microlevel).
71 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the limitations of parental mediation theory as applied to current trends in children's media use and suggest how it can be enhanced to accommodate the fast changing media landscape that is populated by complex and intensively used media forms such as video games, social media, and mobile apps.
Abstract: This article argues that parental mediation theory is rooted in television studies and must be refined to accommodate the fast-changing media landscape that is populated by complex and intensively used media forms such as video games, social media, and mobile apps. Through a study of parental mediation of children's video game play, we identify the limitations of parental mediation theory as applied to current trends in children's media use and suggest how it can be enhanced. This study seeks to improve parental mediation theory's descriptive and explanatory strength by identifying and outlining the specific activities that parents undertake as they impose their media strategies. We explain how restrictive, co-use, and active mediation are constituted by gatekeeping, discursive, diversionary, and investigative activities.
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make a theoretical contribution by looking at the value of relative deprivation theory (RDT) in understanding digital inequalities, arguing that evaluations of personal circumstances depend on social and temporal contexts and are, therefore, relative.
Abstract: Digital inequalities research adopted the idea that exclusion is compound and multifaceted. Nevertheless, digital exclusion theory and empirical research often takes an individual, static approach; assuming that personal characteristics such as socioeconomic status consistently influence how individuals engage with information and communication technologies across different contexts. This article makes a theoretical contribution by looking at the value of relative deprivation theory (RDT) in understanding digital inequalities. RDT argues that evaluations of personal circumstances depend on social and temporal contexts and are, therefore, relative. Digital inequalities research could benefit from a shift toward this relative approach in both theorization and empirical research by incorporating explanations based on context and social group processes into existing individual and structural explanations of digital inequalities.
63 citations
TL;DR: This study reconceptualizes communication overload and builds a theoretical foundation to understand how this phenomenon applies in contemporary life by relying on past research and using a Q-method to capture the subjective perspectives of people who experience communication overload.
Abstract: This study reconceptualizes communication overload and builds a theoretical foundation to understand how this phenomenon applies in contemporary life. We build theory by relying on past research and using a Q-method to capture the subjective perspectives of people who experience communication overload. In our refinement of this abstract concept, we identified seven dimensions composing communication overload. The dimensions included: compromising message quality, having many distractions, using many information and communication technologies, pressuring for decisions, feeling responsible to respond, overwhelming with information, and piling up of messages. Our reconceptualization integrates disparate research, links the availability–expectation–pressure pattern to overload, and elaborates on communication quality, quantity, and generalized perceptions of feeling overwhelmed. The resulting formative theoretical model sets the stage for additional theorizing and empirical studies.
53 citations
TL;DR: The Communicate Bond Belong (CBB) theory as discussed by the authors is an evolutionary and motivational explanation of human communication's role in relational functions of social interaction, which is based on a homeostatic system, developed from internal pressures to satiate a need to belong.
Abstract: The Communicate Bond Belong (CBB) theory is an evolutionary and motivational explanation of human communication's role in the relational functions of social interaction CBB theory conceives of all social interactions as energy expending, but posits that only some social interactions are striving behaviors (ie, actions taken to satiate a need) CBB theory proposes that social interaction operates within a homeostatic system, developed from internal pressures to satiate a need to belong, shaped by competing desires to invest and conserve social energy, and adaptable to new social circumstances and technological affordances The theory bridges gaps among evolutionary and social psychology theories and interpersonal communication theories by attending to the multifunctional nature of everyday talk in relation to fundamental human needs
48 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that poststructural theory, and specifically a Foucauldian orientation toward discourse and power, can provide scholars of interpersonal communication a novel yet disciplinarily grounded avenue for future critical empirical research.
Abstract: Despite calls to integrate critical theory into interpersonal communication research over the past 25 years, and despite the considerable influence of critical theory in other communication subdisciplines, critical interpersonal communication research remains limited I argue that poststructural theory, and specifically a Foucauldian orientation toward discourse and power, can provide scholars of interpersonal communication a novel yet disciplinarily grounded avenue for future critical empirical research By providing a roadmap that traverses the history of critical thought in interpersonal communication, redirects key vocabulary, offers avenues for integrating critical theory into empirical research, and emphasizes pathways of critical qualitative inquiry, I contend that the subdiscipline of interpersonal communication will be enriched through attention to power in the discursive constitution of identities and relationships
41 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that this inattention derives partly from the limited number of critically inflected family communication theories, and seek to encourage critical family communication theorizing by explicating the critical underpinnings of the recent rearticulation of relational dialectics theory, RDT version 2.0.
Abstract: Despite modest growth in interpretive research, the study of family communication remains predominantly situated within postpositivism to the relative neglect of critical approaches. We argue that this inattention derives partly from the limited number of critically inflected family communication theories. In this article, we seek to encourage critical family communication theorizing. We do so by explicating the critical underpinnings of the recent rearticulation of relational dialectics theory, RDT version 2.0 (Baxter, 2011). We frame our (re)reading in terms of critical family communication considerations of power; connection of private familial spheres to larger public discourses and structures; and inherent openness to critique, resistance, and transformation of the status quo (Suter, 2016).
34 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored responses to online communicative deviance by integrating social identity approaches (a group-level perspective) and expectancy violations theory (an individual level perspective) in anonymous online contexts.
Abstract: Several theories have sought to address responses to normatively deviant behavior, but have done so with a focus either on group-level or on individual-level behavior. Yet, due to some characteristics of online contexts, identities can be salient at both a group and/or individual level, creating a more complex set of influences on responding to deviance. We explore responses to online communicative deviance by integrating social identity approaches (a group-level perspective) and expectancy violations theory (an individual-level perspective). Social identity emphasizes the role of group identification in responding to deviance, especially relevant in anonymous online contexts, while expectancy violations theory notes how individuals respond to ambiguous deviance through assessing the reward value of the deviant.
28 citations
TL;DR: Hate spin this article absorbs the familiar concept of hate speech, or incitement, and combines it with the less understood strategy of offense-taking or manufactured indignation, which is used by political entrepreneurs to mobilize supporters and coerce targeted groups.
Abstract: Religious intolerance manifests itself periodically in ways that test democracies' commitment to freedom of expression. Responding to this challenge requires a conceptual clarity that is often lacking. This article proposes a corrective lens in the form of a new concept, hate spin. Hate spin absorbs the familiar concept of hate speech, or incitement, and combines it with the less understood strategy of offense-taking or manufactured indignation. The two sides of hate spin—incitement and offense-taking—are used by political entrepreneurs to mobilize supporters and coerce targeted groups. Incitement may warrant legal intervention, but censorship is a counterproductive response to offense. The article explicates the concept of hate spin, identifies its key characteristics, and suggests directions for further research.
18 citations
TL;DR: This paper reviews and presents limitations of the extant literature, including conflating different manifestations, privileging explicit acts, and presuming agency, and proposes a new framework that articulates a process and typology of information control in relationships.
Abstract: Research on information control in interpersonal contexts has grown in the last 30 years. Scholars have considered multiple manifestations of information control, including taboo topics, topic avoidance, privacy, and secrecy, as ways individuals withhold information. This paper reviews and presents limitations of the extant literature, including conflating different manifestations, privileging explicit acts, and presuming agency. The paper then addresses these limitations by proposing a new framework that articulates a process and typology of information control in relationships. The typology departs from existing research to categorize information control based on the perspectives of the sender and receiver. In so doing, the framework organizes several strands of research to offer a comprehensive approach to the study of information control in interpersonal contexts.
TL;DR: The authors analyzed Bourdieu's theoretical framework of field, habitus, and capital to understand the role of normativity in communication studies and identified differences between the norms of the orthodox and the heretics, based on various schools of thought and on paradigms from both U.S. and German communication research histories.
Abstract: Normativity is inarguably a major concept in the social sciences. Even so, social science research seldom acknowledges its importance, its influence on research inquiries, and its impact on the trajectories of communication science and on the scientists themselves. It is against that background that this article calls for a better understanding of the role of normativity in communication studies. In doing so, it analyzes Bourdieu's theoretical framework of field, habitus, and capital and how the intersection of all three concepts helps explain and justify the importance of norms in communication research. Finally, this article identifies differences between the norms of the orthodox and the heretics, based on various schools of thought and on paradigms from both U.S. and German communication–research histories.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that this approach narrowly defines health and such communication efforts are focused on changing the work environment to facilitate the reduction of individual risk prevalence, and they use lived experiences of FSWs as a case study to discuss the relationships between gender and health.
Abstract: The environmental-structural communication approach attempts to reduce the prevalence of individual health risks to female sex workers' (FSW) through community-level interventions. However, I argue that this approach narrowly defines health and such communication efforts are focused on changing the work environment to facilitate the reduction of individual risk prevalence. Based on 35 in-depth interviews, I use lived experiences of FSWs as a case study to discuss the relationships between gender and health. The intersectionality framework allows health communication efforts to incorporate analysis of multiple and simultaneous influences of gender relations, gender identities, and class on the transmission of health risks. These intersections draw our attention to think differently about inequalities and vulnerabilities that shape health and health behaviors of FSWs.
TL;DR: The authors conceptualized questions and information requests as important forms of contribution to generating online public information goods, and showed that individuals make visible an informational need, calling for attention from those who may be able to fulfill that need and alerting those who share that need.
Abstract: In contrast to previous research that treats question-askers as free-riders, this article conceptualizes questions and information requests as important forms of contribution to generating online public information goods. By requesting information, individuals make visible an informational need, calling for attention from those who may be able to fulfill that need and alerting those who share that need. Communicating questions can result in groups forming around particular shared interests, giving rise to permeable group boundaries that distinguish the interested from others. Such groups continue or even grow if new information needs are introduced. Once all information needs are fulfilled, the group will eventually dissolve, leaving their informational assets as public goods for the whole community.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that what is at stake in provocations are crucial issues of intentionality, accountability, and blame, while some provocations elicit reactions that are beneficial to the parties involved, others may incite violence.
Abstract: Despite multiple uses, the concept of provocation is undertheorized and underinvestigated. Theorizing provocation narratives as communication strategies, this article shows that what is at stake in provocations are crucial issues of intentionality, accountability, and blame. While some provocations elicit reactions that are beneficial to the parties involved, others may incite violence. The second part of our study focuses on the latter because of their potential for shifting blame to victims. To deconstruct the mechanism by which provocation introduces this type of bias, we use Labov's method of narrative analysis and apply it to two news items. We conclude on how provocation can serve as a theoretical framework and methodological tool for narrative analysis in many communication contexts and fields.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explain language mediation using Luhmann's theory of communication systems, in particular the concepts of self-reference, reflexivity, function, structure, and structural coupling.
Abstract: Language mediation is employed as a possible solution for problems of migrants' inclusion in institutional services, within multilingual and multicultural societies. Interpreting Studies has highlighted that language mediation is coordination of social interactions and social construction of narratives. This paper explains language mediation using Luhmann's theory of communication systems, in particular the concepts of self-reference, reflexivity, function, structure, and structural coupling. Language mediation is observed as a self-referential communication system fulfilling the function of promoting participation and new narratives through reflexive coordination. In particular, the concept of structural coupling explains how language mediation can enhance change within other communication systems, promoting dialogue across difference. Language mediation, however, can also assume a hierarchical structure, which creates marginalization and ethnocentrism.
TL;DR: Focusing on collective action organizations, this work proposes a typology of organizations and traces the filtering tactics they develop for identifying members who manifest desired attributes and demonstrates that despite the differences among groups, a common logic guiding filtering behavior is the search for cost-discriminating signs of trustworthiness.
Abstract: The ways in which various groups use affordable Internet-based tools to expand the scope and variety of their members is well documented. We focus on the means they develop for identifying “suitable” members. Drawing on signaling theory, we offer a framework for analyzing recruitment practices in a digital media environment. We demonstrate that despite the differences among groups, a common logic guiding filtering behavior is the search for cost-discriminating signs of trustworthiness, that is, signals attesting to the candidates' characteristics that are too costly for mimics to fake, but affordable for the genuinely trustworthy recruit. Focusing on collective action organizations, we propose a typology of organizations and trace the filtering tactics they develop for identifying members who manifest desired attributes.
TL;DR: The authors argue that charisma and celebrity represent distinct and even partly contradictory logics of social distinction, but that they nonetheless substantially intertwine and coextend in society, which renders their interaction ambiguous, conflictual, and creative of new social forms.
Abstract: Some scholars label celebrities as “charismatic,” while others avoid that Weberian term, deeming it inappropriate in the context of celebrity culture None, however, offers a systematic account of the relationship between Weberian charisma and celebrity To this task, this article moves beyond the semantics toward a systematic analysis and comparison of the logics guiding charismatic and celebrity dynamics I argue that charisma and celebrity represent distinct and even partly contradictory logics of social distinction, but that they nonetheless substantially intertwine and coextend in society, which renders their interaction ambiguous, conflictual, and creative of new social forms This social-ontological conceptualization provides the now-lacking theoretical foundation for empirical studies into the many complex interactions between charismatic and celebrity dynamics throughout society
TL;DR: This article argued that media culture frequently associates security with imitation and advocated for enhanced usage of mimetic theory to critique media representation of security, as that condition is pursued through cultural practices of adaptation, disguise, and simulation.
Abstract: Contemporary media culture frequently associates security with imitation. This essay theorizes critique of related textuality within the contemporary “media/security nexus.” It advocates for enhanced usage of mimetic theory to critique media representation of security, as that condition is pursued through cultural practices of adaptation, disguise, and simulation. Two competing traditions of mimetic theory are reviewed, along with their appropriations in the fields of media studies and security studies. Four benefits are proposed for mimetic critique of “media/security.” The essay concludes by considering the ethical and political stakes of this critique.
TL;DR: In this paper, a theoretical process of organizational speciation is developed to explain how certain new organizations are able to emerge and subsequently disrupt the organizational ecosystem by leveraging the blind spots of existing organizations.
Abstract: This article develops the theoretical process of organizational speciation to explain how certain new organizations are able to emerge and subsequently disrupt the organizational ecosystem by leveraging the blind spots of existing organizations. The process of organizational speciation addresses the means by which new organizations develop, compete for resources, and survive over time. As a theory of organizational communication, organizational speciation is particularly useful for understanding how rapid disruptions emerge. Changes in a number of industries are utilized to illustrate the process of speciation. This article lays a foundation for research examining how organizations understand and respond to rapid change.