Showing papers in "Communication Theory in 2021"

Abstract: Mobile media support our autonomy by connecting us to persons, content and services independently of time and place constraints. At the same time, they challenge our autonomy: We face new struggles, decisions, and pressure in relation to whether, when and where we connect and disconnect. Digital wellbeing is a new concept that refers to the (lack) of balance that we may experience in relation to mobile connectivity. This article develops a theoretical model of digital wellbeing that accounts for the dynamic and complex nature of our relationship to mobile connectivity, thereby overcoming conceptual and methodological limitations associated with existing approaches. This model considers digital wellbeing an experiential state of optimal balance between connectivity and disconnectivity that is contingent upon a constellation of person-, device- and context-specific factors. I argue that these constellations represent pathways to digital wellbeing that—when repeated—affect wellbeing outcomes, and that the effectiveness of digital wellbeing interventions depends on their disruptive impact on these pathways.

Abstract: Despite renewed interest in news literacy (NL) as a way to combat mis- and dis-information, existing scholarship is plagued by insufficient theory building and inadequate conceptualization of both “NL” and its application. We address this concern by offering a concise definition of NL and suggest five key knowledge and skill domains that comprise this literacy. We distinguish NL from its application to behaviors that communication scholars have been interested in, including news exposure, verification, and identifying misinformation. We propose an adapted Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to include NL in addition to the existing components (attitudes towards the behavior, social norms, perceived behavioral control) when modeling NL Behaviors. We discuss how this model can unite scholars across subfields and propose a research agenda for moving scholarship forward.

Abstract: This article presents a new approach to the study of public contestation through social media. Developing this approach, we make three conceptual moves. First, to capture the dynamic character of contemporary contestation, we shift attention from publics to publicness as an interactive process. Second, we turn the focus from the “counter,” as a public or space distinct from the dominant sphere, towards distributed forms of contention. Finally, instead of considering media as arenas of claims, we investigate how media are constitutive of contentious publicness, which can be studied along its material, spatial, and temporal dimensions. These moves lead to an analytical framework through which trajectories of contentious publicness can be systematically traced and evaluated. Through case studies on the 2011 Egyptian uprising and the Occupy protests, we demonstrate how this framework can be employed to examine the construction of new contentious actors and evaluate their democratic legitimacy as claim-makers.

Abstract: Privacy has been defined as the selective control of information sharing, where control is key. For social media, however, an individual user’s informational control has become more difficult. In this theoretical article, I review how the term control is part of theorizing on privacy, and I develop an understanding of online privacy with communication as the core mechanism by which privacy is regulated. The results of this article’s theoretical development are molded into a definition of privacy and the social media privacy model. The model is based on four propositions: Privacy in social media is interdependently perceived and valued. Thus, it cannot always be achieved through control. As an alternative, interpersonal communication is the primary mechanism by which to ensure social media privacy. Finally, trust and norms function as mechanisms that represent crystallized privacy communication. Further materials are available at https://osf.io/xhqjy/

Abstract: This study examines the relevance of traditional mass communication’s two-step flow-of-communication theory in relation to algorithmic personalization. I compare the two-step flow theory’s concept of personalized content through opinion leaders with the current notion of personalized algorithms, arguing that opinion leaders and algorithms both function as gatekeeping agents. I also discuss the nature and role of peer groups in the two cases, arguing that while in the original theory, groups were seen as relatively solid (family, friends, and work colleagues), groups in the algorithmic era are much more liquid, transforming according to data inputs and users’ behavior. Finally, the article also considers differences in the source of authority of opinion leaders and algorithms in both eras, as well as the different social settings and public awareness in the second step of the communication flow.

Abstract: The theory of motivated information management ([TMIM]; Afifi & Weiner, 2004) was proposed to explicate the processes through which uncertainty motivates information management. Over the past 15 years, the theory has been tested and applied to a wide range of topics and contexts. The current study meta-analyzes 33 studies from 31 articles that have empirically tested predictions from TMIM. Potential moderating effects of age, issue importance, and study design were also examined. Results, in general, provide support for bivariate associations proposed by TMIM, although these associations are heterogeneous and moderated by the average age of the sample and study design. A path model testing TMIM associations found good model fit after some modifications. Findings highlight the utility of TMIM as a theoretical framework (e.g., proposed paths operate as predicted), but also suggest changes that might better explain the range of ways in which uncertainty motivates information management.

Abstract: This article attempts to uncover the intellectual, economic, and methodological structures that have led to the recent emergence of a particular notion of digital communication on social media platforms, one that emphasizes the power of (false) media messages to cause irrational political behavior and combines individual level understanding of media effects with a networked notion of society and information diffusion After pointing out some of the real political-economic forces at work in setting the contours of this intellectual turn, I discuss how spaces between mutually constructed but overlapping paradigmatic understandings of media behavior lead to theories that serve as boundary objects, linking (and misunderstanding) older fields in order to advance new agendas I then turn to the consequences of particular methodological choices, drawing on key works in Science and Technology Studies (STS) to make the point that these methodological choices not only establish scientific fields, they construct certain types of human subjects as well The article concludes with a call for a more humanistic and interpretive approach to the understanding of political behavior and communication

Abstract: To understand what digital democracy is, this article suggests looking at the individual level of democratic subjectivity. Who is the democratic subject and how is it constituted in digital democracy? It revisits the poststructuralist-inspired debate about cyberdemocracy in the 1990s, which conceptualized the democratic subject as disembodied discursive self, reifying through textuality in cyberspace. In contrast, current debates on new materialism offer novel perspectives with attention to the materiality of bodies and things. New materialist thought has been fruitfully incorporated for social interaction online, but they have yet to be applied to political participation. By discussing three examples of political online participation in which users materialize their classed, raced, and gendered bodies, this article contributes to a novel understanding of embodied democratic subjectivity in the digital age.

Abstract: While the influence of the culture-centered approach (CCA; Dutta, 2008 ) on health communication scholarship is undeniable, there has been no evaluation of its application in the field. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines for systematic reviews (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff & Altman, 2009), we analyzed a corpus of empirical, peer-reviewed literature (n = 47) that used the CCA. Our findings demonstrate that (a) the ontological axis of the CCA (culture, structure, and agency) was widely used as a heuristic for defining health problems; and (b) studies varied widely in their adoption of the CCA’s epistemological axis (that of dialogic co-construction with marginalized communities), either at the level of problem definition, problem interpretation, and/or community participation. Finally, while most studies reported self-reflexivity in design, we coded for methodological and philosophical reflexivity to assess fidelity to the CCA axiology. Based on the variations and consistencies in its use, we offer a refined, “nested” conceptualization of the CCA.

Abstract: This paper derives a theory of informative fictions. Common forms of misinformation--fake news, rumors, and conspiracy theories—while dysfunctional for communicating property information—information about the state and operation of things—can actually be valuable for communicating character information—information about the motivations of social agents. It is argued that narratives containing “false facts” can effectively portray a speaker’s theory of another individual’s character. Thus, such narratives are useful for gathering information about leaders and other important individuals who are evaluated in the community. After deriving the theory, TIF is used to derive propositions predicting the empirical conditions under which misinformation will be accepted, tolerated or promoted. The implications of the theory for addressing the normative problem of misinformation are also discussed.

Abstract: Affect theory has met with an uneven welcome in communication studies, although attending to affect (i.e., the fluctuating intensities of encounter) could enhance the scope and impact of communication inquiry. This article makes a case for sustained engagement at the field level, across subfields. I argue that affect confronts a premise at the heart of our discipline today: the claim that communication is constitutive as opposed to mere transmission. By engaging with affect, we can recuperate potential eclipsed by this contrast and cultivate communication theory that: (a) informs transmission as a constitutive activity, (b) expands what counts as communication beyond human language and social interaction, and (c) recovers disappeared ways that power operates communicatively. Retuning communication in this way, we can inform what remains enigmatic in affect theory: how communicability happens. Arguably, the capacity to understand and intervene in the present moment depends on developing communication theory of this kind.

Abstract: Communication scholars, especially in organizational communication, call for a constitutive approach to communication that considers communicating and organizing as a single process. Yet, current theorizing seems unable to embrace that equivalence. As an alternative, we present an informationally grounded view of communication drawing from French philosopher Gilbert Simondon. Doing so, we extend scholarship on the communicative constitution of organization by highlighting the importance of framing communication in the context of informational individuation. Following a critical summary of constitutive communication theories, we provide a brief exegesis of Simondon’s concepts of individuation and transduction, which bind information and communication, and contribute four propositions to guide informationally-grounded work on the constitutive power of communication. We then emphasize how a Simondonian view contributes to discussions on the communicating–organizing equation. We end by providing a brief empirical example and analysis using key take-aways from a Simondonian framework and offer areas for further discussion.

Abstract: The article offers a new theoretical model that conceptualizes the “exotic” expertise of journalists and other knowledge-brokers who specialize in particular domains (e.g., teachers, librarians, analysts). The model adapts theories from sociology, pedagogy and philosophy and juxtaposes them against the insights of 14 editors-in-chief from leading Israeli media, in order to validate, refine and illustrate the theoretical generalizations. According to the suggested model, specialized knowledge brokers develop a unique type of expertise that can be modeled across four distinct dimensions: The manifestation of expertise (doing/talking), the mechanism of expertise (interplay between journalistic and domain knowledge), the socio-epistemic position (outsiders/insiders) and the density of expertise (homogenous versus heterogeneous knowledge). Understanding journalists’ expertise is crucial due to the overwhelming assault on experts in “post truth” societies; their role as mega brokers of expert knowledge from all disciplines (outside one’s own expertise) and the ongoing scholarly dispute on the nature of expertise.

Abstract: Media effects research has documented the prevalence of different ideals in media content, and their effects on media users. We developed a framework for the representation of such ideals, and that may increase our understanding of the effects media have on users' well-being. Drawing on cultural sociology, communication theory, and psychological literature, we introduce the malleability narrative of mediated ideals, described as “a collection of media representations of a variety of ideals that tend to be portrayed as within reach for anyone who is committed to pursuing his/her own self-interest.” The aim of the framework is to foster content analytical research on the occurrence of the malleability narrative in popular media and to stimulate audience research on interactions between media users and the malleability narrative in media, while taking account of different explanatory routes and the heterogeneity of the audience.

Abstract: Despite widespread concern over the alleged rise of conspiracy theories, scholars continue to disagree whether it is possible to distinguish specific kinds of conspiracist accounts that can justifiably be denounced as objectionable. In this article, we review scholarship from multiple disciplines to develop a composite definition of “conspiracy theories proper” (CTP) that violate fundamental norms of democratic discourse. Besides referring to grand conspiracies to account for social phenomena, we argue, such conspiracy theories: (a) assume conspirators’ pervasive control over events and information, (b) construct dissent as a Manichean binary, and (c) employ an elusive, dogmatic epistemology. We discuss the operational potential and limitations of our definition using news user talkbacks on the U.S., British and German online editions of Russia Today (RT), a popular platform among proponents of out-of-mainstream political views. Identifying key operational challenges in the classification of natural discourse, we sketch avenues toward a more rigorous study of contentious political talk.

Abstract: This article develops a conceptualization of audience agency in the face of datafication. We consider how people, as audiences and users of media and technologies, face transforming communicative conditions, and how these conditions challenge the power potentials of audiences in processes of communication—that is, their communicative agency. To develop our conceptualization, we unpack the concept of audiences’ communicative agency by examining its foundations in communication scholarship, in reception theory and sociology, arguing that agency is understood as interpretative and relational, and applied to make important normative assessments. We further draw on emerging scholarship on encounters with data in the everyday to discuss how audience agency is now challenged by datafication, arguing that communicative agency is increasingly prospective in a datafied age. Thereby, we provide a theoretical conceptualization for further analysis of audiences in transforming communicative conditions.

Abstract: This paper explores the role of narratives about racial identity in constituting ethical performances in dialogue. SpeciBically, a dialogic communication ethics is described and placed in the context of intergroup dialogue (IGD) and communication approaches to dialogue. Then the focus turns to how these ethical frames and models for conducting dialogue functioned in a large-scale campus dialogue on race and whiteness. The paper addresses the ways identities were constructed and deployed in the dialogues by examining how dialogue topics are framed and discussed by facilitators and participants. This discussion of intention and outcome raises theoretical and practical questions in order to facilitate further conversations about identity and ethics in a controversially “Post-racial” era. Finally, the paper looks at how communication ethics and dialogue might work to address the discursive power of social group identities in pedagogical discussions of civility, inclusion, merit or a “good” life.

Abstract: Focusing on the writings of Milton and Rose Friedman, this article explicates a model of a market public as the normative mode of public engagement in a neoliberal regime of governance. The Friedmans’ market public narrowly construes conceptions of knowledge as arising from direct experience and communication as information exchange. Knowledge as direct experience supports the putative universality of self-interest and the sovereignty of individuals as exclusive public actors. Presuming a uniformity of understanding, communication as information exchange dissociates advocates from messages and contributes to the Friedmans’ view of persuasion as an individualistic mode of interaction. Connecting the Friedmans’ model to contemporary scholarly critiques of neoliberalism, I argue that this model portends significant anti-democratic consequences. Citing former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ campaign to reorganize public education as a market, I illustrate the contemporary circulation of this model.

Abstract: In this article, I argue that, as materialized in the figures of current U.S. President Donald Trump and immediate past New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a culturally resonant variant of political authenticity has become aligned with the corporeally abject. In a climate in which conventional cornerstones of political comportment have become suspect, the corporeal abject has become a marker of authenticity, material evidence of resistance to perceived “politics as usual.” Moreover, mediated coverage of Trump and Christie that turns on their corporeal abjection to the end of critique augments and sediments this effect; fetishizing the grotesque corporeal features of Trump and Christie effectively serves to secure their relative “realness” and their concomitant distance from the artifice and deceit against which a disaffected public draws itself. This analysis prompts a theoretical reconsideration of relationships between abjection, subjectivity, and relative privilege and the role and relevance of the body in mediating those relationships.

Abstract: Intellect in social theory is often presented as an ideal type—the critical, iconoclastic side of the mind—but it must anticipate an audience in mediated contexts, unlike in the Kantian realm of transcendent reason. The terrain in which academia and media meet, consequently, is ripe for exploration into the fate of intellect when transgressive. This article explicates four features of the academic–media nexus that contribute to social control of intellect: instrumental rationalism of faculty, strategic management of university communication, journalistic appropriation of the “public intellectual” role, and surveillance of academic discourse. The article situates the features in a framework to recognize whether they originate primarily in academia or media, and whether the controlling process occurs through internalized norms or calculated practice. While social control is understood as recursive and reinforcing, reflexivity induced in an inter-field dynamic implies the possibility of reconciling intellect with news work.

Abstract: Communication science is primarily based on traditional disembodied theories of cognition that inform much of the field's research endeavors. However, recent theories of embodied cognition that situate knowledge acquisition and attitude formation processes in our sensorimotor systems have challenged traditional amodal assumptions. While an embodied perspective is embraced in communication research related to virtual reality (VR), it has not been widely adopted in other areas of communication science. In this article, I (a) introduce and review relevant embodied cognition scholarship from various fields, (b) explicate embodiment in social interactions and language, (c) discuss embodied mental simulation, imagery, and visualization, (d) briefly present ways in which embodiment is currently being used to inform contemporary communication research related to VR, (e) explain how embodied mental simulation can be incorporated with traditional communication models, and (f) conclude with a call for nuanced theorizing and triangulated empirical support for communication theory with an embodied perspective.

Abstract: This article contributes to the theory of rhetorical institutionalism ( Green & Li, 2011 ) by considering the relationship between institutional entrepreneurs and the institutional fields in which they operate as configured by rhetorical strategies. Thus, we posit that the legitimacy of institutional entrepreneurs and institutional fields, respectively, is an inherently rhetorical construct ( Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005 ), whereby rhetorical engagement becomes central to the establishment, maintenance, and reform of institutions ( Brown, Ainsworth & Grant, 2012 ; Green, Babb & Alpaslan, 2008 ). Working with an illustrative case of the Co-operative Bank's financial distress and leadership scandal, we identify three particular strategies of rhetorical engagement with competing institutional logics, which we label convergence, conflict, and divergence. Thus, we add to the theory of rhetorical institutionalism by arguing, broadly, that institutional fields are arenas of rhetorical engagement between competing institutional logics and identifying, more specifically, three rhetorical strategies for constituting institutional legitimacy.

Abstract: We expanded Advice Response Theory (ART) by proposing that recipient perceptions of advisor characteristics can be distal (e.g., parenting style) and proximal (e.g., goal inference). We examined how the recipient’s inference of the advisor’s goals (confirmation, change, and novelty) mediates associations between distal characteristics and message feature evaluations and outcomes. As predicted, positive associations occurred between perceptions of parenting style, confirmation goal inference, advice efficacy and positive facework, and desirable advice outcomes. Counter to predictions, inferring change and novelty goals did not have uniformly undesirable effects. An inference of the change goal was associated with higher efficacy ratings and the recipient changing plans following the conversation. Our findings support conceptualizing ART advisor characteristics as distal and proximal, and advisor goal inference as a relevant proximal characteristic.

Abstract: With a media anthropological-philosophical approach to ICT, four convergent developmental stages are distinguished and defined: pictography, ethography, phonography, and prography. They are invented/acquired in this sequence by human individuals as well as the human genus in general. Pictograms were first invented in forager cultures, ethograms in permanently settled village communities, phonograms in the early cities and civilizations of southwest Asia and northeast Africa, and electronic programs in a globalized society under North Atlantic domination. Print is considered as a corollary to phonography. Anthropological contextualization of technologies and institutions and the socio-politico-economic inclusivity and exclusivity of media are highlighted. Since the ‘agricultural revolution’, exclusive as well as inclusive media have accompanied humanity. Lately, inclusive potential has grown again through the accessibility, ubiquity, and convergent depth of prography. However, new challenges to inclusivity, including new forms of surveillance, weaponization of the media and widening wealth disparities, have materialized in the same context.

Abstract: Mediatization remains a key concept for theorizing how our ever-evolving and intensifying media and communications environment underwrites and (re)constructs our social world, yet the socio-ecological effects of mediatization processes remain relatively unacknowledged within this research field. However, mediatization must be conceptualized as a cogent process whose impact extends beyond the confines of the “media environment” to the natural environment. We make this argument by reviewing how three dominant traditions of mediatization scholarship: (a) institutionalist, (b) cultural/social constructivist, and (c) materialist conceptualize “the environment.” We argue that scholars rarely acknowledge the materialist dimension of mediatization despite it being a fundamental aspect of mediatization processes. Consequently, we bring discourse surrounding the materiality of mediatization to the fore by drawing on theories of materiality from media and communication studies in general and highlighting three material dimensions of mediatization processes in particular: (a) resources, (b) energy, and (c) waste. In doing so, we make explicit the implicit material dimensions of mediatization processes that have been largely overlooked but are directly linked to how we understand, theorize and react to the societal, cultural, economic, environmental transformations brought about by media.

Abstract: Existing theories within interpersonal (IPC) and intergroup communication (IGC) have not yet explained when online interactions are initially intergroup in nature, interpersonal, or both. We address this undertheorized conundrum—which is particularly challenging as more communication occurs on social media, in which a multitude of goals may converge—by proposing the dual-process model of interpersonal–intergroup communication (IPC–IPG). Focusing on both the situation and a multiple goals perspective, this model can help explain where on the interpersonal–intergroup continuum online interactions fall. The ability to understand and articulate the antecedents and processes that may guide initial interactions can enhance future work by providing a mechanism through which to theorize which set(s) of theory may be most applicable to explain or predict a communicative situation and its outcomes.

Abstract: In probing how journalists negotiate the perceived discrepancy between their social role orientation and role performance, we arrive at a negotiative theory of roles. The theory is based on an inductive study where we combine classic theoretical frameworks of role theory with conceptual approaches of discursive institutionalism and Hochschilds’ theory of feeling rules. We examined journalists’ narratives from qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 Swiss newspaper journalists, who were asked to interpret the perceived gap—found in previous studies—between journalism ideals and journalism practice. The results compelled us to revisit role theories and to consider a number of overlooked or under-utilized analytic features of social roles to propose refinements to the concepts of journalistic roles and role performance. This resulted in a negotiative theory of roles that focuses attention on intra- and interpersonal discourse as well as what we call “role work.”

Abstract: The large number of comprehensive studies on mass media is indicative of the role mass media play in society and societal effects, as a result of which they are instrumental in the analysis, interpretation, and construction of social reality (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Mass media themselves—the print press, television, radio, books, as well as the Internet and social media—and especially the contents they produce and widely disseminate, have been the topics of diverse studies anchored in many disciplines. It appears, however, that one such medium has failed to attract the research attention it deserves and has even failed to be recognized as a mass medium. This medium is postage stamps, with billions of copies printed annually and disseminated worldwide. In 2009, 37 billion stamps were printed in the United States alone (Ballentine, 2016). This article proposes to define postage stamps as a mass medium, based on generally accepted definitions and well-known communication theories. Postage stamps constitute official state documents that reflect the values that a country wishes to represent to its citizens and the world. Embracing the definition of postage stamps as a mass medium would, among other things, extend the research horizons of fields such as media, politics, arts, and culture. The article has three aims: First, to define, identify, and explore the features of postage stamps as a mass medium; Second, to gain insight into the reasons for postage stamps' neglect in media research; and third, to propose potential research directions to explore postage stamps' functions as a mass medium.