Providing leading-edge perspectives on the legacy theories of mass media and society, this collection advances the foundational theories of mass communications, which have sustained the field of study over the past fifty years. Many of these contributions were originally published as a Deutschmann Scholarly Essay in the Mass Communication and Society journal, and together they comprise a remarkable source of knowledge, equipped to lead mass communications theory through the emergence of new technologies, and the evolution of communications, in the 21st century.
Moreover, the contributions gathered in this volume contradict any critics who may claim the theories of the 20th century have outlived their usefulness, for these prove to guide contemporary research as forcefully as ever in the digital era. Validating the classic media theories across time and their various forms constitute the second focal section of this volume. Finally, senior media scholars offer their views on the future directions in which mass communication theories can be advanced.
Introduction: Extending the Deep Legacy of Our Field’s Top Scholars Ran Wei
1. Walter Lippmann’s Ghost: An Interview With Michael Schudson Michael Schudson
2. Reassessing the People’s Choice: Revisiting a Classic and Excavating Lessons for Research About Media and Voting Stephen Lacy and Michael Stamm
3. Reading Lasswell’s Model of Communication Backward: Three Scholarly Misconceptions Zachary S. Sapienza, Narayanan Iyer and Aaron S. Veenstra
4. Beyond the Four Theories of the Press: A New Model of National Media Systems Jennifer Ostini and Anthony Y.H. Fung
5. The First-Person Effect and Its Behavioral Consequences: A New Trend in the Twenty-Five Year History of Third-Person Effect Research Guy J. Golan and Anita G. Day
6. A Media Sociology for the Networked Public Sphere: The Hierarchy of Influences Model Stephen D. Reese and Pamela J. Shoemaker
7. Studying Journalists and Journalism Across Four Decades: A Sociology of Occupations Approach David H. Weaver
8. New Directions in Agenda-Setting Theory and Research Maxwell E. McCombs, Donald L. Shaw and David H. Weaver
9. The End of Framing as we Know it…and the Future of Media Effects Michael A. Cacciatore, Dietram A. Scheufele and Shanto Iyengar
10. Yesterday’s New Cultivation, Tomorrow Michael Morgan, James Shanahan and Nancy Signorielli
11. A Three-Decade Retrospective on the Hostile Media Effect Richard M. Perloff
12. Diffusion Theory in the New Media Environment: Toward an Integrated Technology Adoption Model David J. Atkin, Daniel S. Hunt and Carolyn A. Lin
13. Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences With Media Characters Jonathan Cohen
14. Mass Communication Research at the Crossroads: Definitional Issues and Theoretical Directions for Mass and Political Communication Scholarship in an Age of Online Media Richard M. Perloff
Biography
Ran Wei is the Gonzales Brothers Professor of Journalism at the University of South Carolina, USA, and current Editor-in-Chief of Mass Communication and Society. His research focuses on new media studies, and has won numerous awards, including the Best Article of the Year award in 2013 by International Marketing Review. His current research focuses on mobile communication, new media, and the processes and effects of media messages in various contexts (political, social, promotional, health and risk) that involve a wide range of media channels and devices (traditional and emerging). He is a pioneering scholar in mobile communication research, and his mobile phone studies are widely cited. He serves on the editorial board of Mobile Media & Communication, and has been a guest editor of Media Asia.
