Communication Yearbook 36

Charles T. Salmon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136287688
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Communication Yearbook 36 continues the tradition of publishing state-of-the-discipline literature reviews and essays. Editor Charles T. Salmon presents a volume that is highly international and interdisciplinary in scope, with authors and chapters representing the broad global interests of the International Communication Association. The contents include summaries of communication research programs that represent the most innovative work currently, with internationally renowned scholars serving as respondents to each chapter. Offering a blend of chapters emphasizing timely disciplinary concerns and enduring theoretical questions, this volume will be valuable to scholars throughout communication studies.

CHAPTER CONTENTS

• A New Agenda for Communication Research in the Age of the Internet

• Polarization of Political Communication

Conflicting Viewpoints on the Severity of Echo Chambers for Deliberation

Attitudes in Reinforcing Spirals of Effects and Effects of Effects of Political Information

Attitudinal Polarization

Attitudinal Depolarization

Toward a Comprehensive Model of Political Polarization on the Basis of Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Political Demobilization in a Widening Communication Environment

Conflicting Viewpoints on the Internet’s Potential for Political Mobilization

In Search of a “Motivational Engine” for Political (DE-)Mobilization

The Self-Concept in Dissonance Research: Possible Implications for Studying Political Demobilization

• Summary and Conclusions

• References

1The Dissonant Self

Contributions from Dissonance
Theory to a New Agenda for
Studying Political Communication

Wolfgang Donsbach and Cornelia Mothes
Dresden University of Technology

Due to technological changes in today’s communication environments, the investigation of media use and media effects has become an ever more complex research venture. In order to adequately comprehend the social practices of media users in the age of the Internet, various scholars have recently recommended a new agenda for the future study of political communication. Based on these suggestions, the following paper briefly outlines two research strands of political communication—political polarization and political demobilization—which are currently the focus of significant attention and scientific dispute. In reference to cognitive dissonance theory, we propose one possible strategy for media research to determine future developments of political communication in both research domains by observing citizens’ motivational changes in their exposure to political information.

Social communication has reached a whole new level of complexity due to the development of the Internet, a situation that poses new challenges for today’s media consumers as well as media researchers. The quantitative growth of communication offers and information services allows citizens to take on a significantly higher level of personal control over their information environment. An individual’s attention to public issues and specific media content is increasingly decided by the user’s personal communication motives, attitudes, and habitual propensities (cf. Bimber & Davis, 2003; Stroud, 2011; Wirth & Schweiger, 1999). According to Prior (2005), media scholars therefore need to take into account that a person’s “media content preferences become the key to understanding the political implications of new media” (p. 587).

Increased user activity within a multifaceted information environment has led to an ongoing academic debate on the implications of the Internet for social life in a democracy (cf. DIMAGGIO, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001; Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010; Norris, 2001). Optimists expect the Internet to enhance political interest and political discussion because technological developments would make it easier for citizens to exchange information and opinions with a minimum of effort. In this way, even those who until now have had little interest in politics might become more politically involved (e. g., Bucy & Gregson, 2001; Coleman & G∅tze, 2001; Kaid, 2003; Krueger, 2002; Papacharissi, 2002b; Weber, Loumakis, & Bergman, 2003). For some scholars, through “increasing social connectedness and the sense of community” (Johnson & Kaye, 2003, p. 11), the Internet first and foremost represents an enrichment of public and political life. In contrast to these hopes for a deliberative democracy, critics fear that the Internet could foster the development of “communication ghettoes” (Graber, 2003, p. 153). Pessimists suspect that the Internet will accelerate the process of social fragmentation and will become a threat to public consensus (e. g., Galston, 2003; Gehrau & Goertz, 2010; Holtz-Bacha, 1998; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Prior, 2005; Putnam, 2000; Zittel, 2004). According to Sunstein (2001), people could “wall themselves off from topics and opinions that they would prefer to avoid” (pp. 201–202). Similarly, Tewksbury (2005) assumes that an increasing fragmentation of information sources “may reduce the likelihood of sustained, widespread attention to politicalissues” (p. 346).

When speaking about the Internet’s potential threat to democracy, two problems of social fragmentation come to the fore: On the one hand, scholars fear an increase of political polarization resulting from a reinforced exposure of media users to attitude-consistent political information (e. g., Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Sunstein, 2001). On the other hand, scholars show heightened concern about political demobilization in the sense of an alienation of citizens from politics and public affairs (e. g., Prior, 2007; Xenos & Moy, 2007). Both polarization and political demobilization may have serious consequences for political life. A free exchange of contrasting political opinions and a basic interest in politics are seen as fundamental requirements for citizens to comply with their civic duties in a democracy (cf. Dewey, 1927; Habermas, 1962/1989; Mill, 1859/1956). Accordingly, if news audiences know “less about broader subjects” and have “less and less in common with each other” (Davis, 1999, p. 55), the performance of democracy might become severely hampered.

A New Agenda for Communication Research in the Age of the Internet

Media scholars generally agree that today’s technological developments have promoted some changes in societal communication. Yet, up to now the consequences of these developments have remained relatively unclear because optimists and pessimists have derived opposing scientifi c prognoses on the social implications of the Internet. Following recent metatheoretical reviews on communication research (Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010), conflicting scientific perceptions can partly be traced back to the theoretical and methodological orientations of communication research itself. Reflecting on the state of political communication in times of social change, Bennett and Iyengar (2008), who particularly focused on media effects approaches, doubt the actual significance of current research insights in the field of political communication. They claim that contemporary media research provokes “battles over findings” (p. 707) but does not yet provide sufficient explanations for these contradictory findings, thereby impeding a comprehension of political communication in a changing and ever more complex society (pp. 713–716). The authors believe that one reason for this shortcoming is that scholars have rarely made social change itself a constituent part of their theoretical models. Instead, scholars would normally adhere to theories that, under current circumstances, are increasingly losing their explanatory power (pp. 707–713):

The inevitable result is that the field is adrift theoretically, seldom looking back to see where foundational modern theory needs to be adapted and, in some cases, overthrown, in order to keep pace with the orientations of late modern audiences, and new modes of content production and information delivery. (p. 713)

Mitchelstein and Boczkowski (2010) come to a similar conclusion for online research: Up until now, communication studies have been “characterized by stability rather than change … because research has usually drawn on traditional theoretical and methodological approaches” (p. 1085). In this way, current research lacks a “programmatic vision of possible directions for future journeys” (p. 1086).

Both research reviews independently point to similar challenges for communication research in the Internet age. Bennett and Iyengar (2008) propose a “new agenda for studying political communication” (p. 713) that pays greater attention to processes of social change in our so-called postmodern era. According to the authors, theoretical approaches, which have formerly been treated separately, would need to be incorporated into comprehensive models that describe and explain broader social “effects of effects” (p. 716) of political communication. When increased self-selection in the use of information is considered, the focus would necessarily be on political content that is actually used by citizens (p. 724). Similarly, Mitchelstein and Boczkowski (2010) emphasize the necessity for an “integrative research agenda” (p. 1093), which connects media effects and media use approaches in a more comprehensive way. The authors point to several methodological and theoretical improvements that are needed in current online research. They urge media scholars to be more rigorous in tracing observed media features back to media users’ actual behaviors (p. 1089), to differentiate between “extraordinary” and “ordinary” social practices in online communication (p. 1091), and to overcome the rather artificial distinction between media genres or formats to produce a more detailed analysis of media content that is actually used (p. 1088).

A joint investigation of media use and media effects for depicting developments of political communication requires that existing media approaches be theoretically linked. The motivation of the individual to engage in political communication can be expected to be such a focal linkage point because it acts as both a cause and an effect of a person’s communication behavior. As moderators of simple stimulus-response explanations, motivational components had been introduced early into communication studies (e. g., Blumler, 1979; Rubin & Perse, 1987). As a central part of O-S-O-R models, the individual’s motivation is still of great relevance for contemporary media effects research (e. g., Eveland, Shah, & Kwak, 2003; McLeod, Kosicki, & McLeod, 1994). In his proposed “reinforcing spirals framework” (p. 281), Slater (2007) presents a communication model that moves beyond the often rather linear motivational approaches by considering reciprocal effects of motivation and media use in a cumulative, dynamic process (pp. 282–284):

Persons engaging in this process should tend toward continued or increased use of that particular media content. This should lead to the maintenance or strengthening of the attitude or behavior in question, leading in turn to continued or increased use of relevant media content. (Slater, 2007, p. 285)

Keeping to Bennett and Iyengar’s (2008) terminology, besides the effects of media use on the individual’s motivation, Slater’s model additionally includes the effects of effects of media content on subsequent information behavior. On the basis of Slater’s assumptions, we can expect the individual’s motivation—in being affected by previous information exposure and, again, affecting subsequent exposure—to represent an important connecting link between media effects and effects of effects. A motivational approach similar to Slater’s model was introduced in the early 1980s by two German scholars (Früh & Schönbach, 1982; Schönbach & Früh, 1984). In critical response to the uses and gratifications approach, their “dynamic-transactional model” conceives the media and their users as communication elements that are involved in an ongoing interaction process. Früh and Schönbach point out that the media and their audiences constantly react to each other and can therefore be considered as both causes and effects of one another. The work of Früh and Schönbach has rarely been published or discussed outside of Germany, keeping its academic reputation predominantly confined to the German research landscape (cf. Fruh & Schönbach, 2005).

Against the backdrop of Schönbach and Früh’s early dynamic-transactional model and more recent theoretical reviews in the field of communication research, three factors appear to be of particular importance for a “new agenda” (Bennett & Iyengar, 2008, p. 713) in the study of political communication in times of social and technological change:

1. In order to make developments in political communication comprehensible—such as political polarization or demobilization—communication processes need to be causally examined in terms of effects of political messages on media users and in terms of effects of effects of political messages on users’ subsequent communication behavior.
2. In order to make changes in political communication traceable to specific information characteristics, a more detailed analysis of actually used communication features is needed.
3. The examination of the individuals’ motivation might help to understand the dynamic of political communication as a reciprocal process. As a result and a cause of communication processes, motivational changes might represent an important connecting link between media effects and effects of effects, thereby conflating media effects and media use research.

With the help of these three methodological components, there surely are many ways for media scholars to describe developments of political communication more comprehensively. Two possible applications will be presented in the following chapter. First, we will provide an overview on developments and contradictory findings in current research on political polarization and demobilization as two highly controversial fields of contemporary media research. Referring back to the social psychological theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), we will then outline how these two developments in political communication might be traced in terms of media effects and effects of effects on the basis of motivational changes. The theory of cognitive dissonance is of central relevance to both phenomena for three reasons. First, it constitutes the theoretical basis of partisan selective exposure research, which crucially contributes to the current examination of political polarization. Second, we assume that the theory of cognitive dissonance can provide more precise insights into political polarization processes by taking into consideration attitude-polarizing and attitude-depolarizing effects of political messages. Third, the theory might also be useful for the observation o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Communication Yearbook 36
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• The International Communication Association
• International Communication Association Executive Committee
• Editor's Introduction
• Communication Yearbook 36
• 1. The Dissonant Self: Contributions from Dissonance Theory to a New Agenda for Studying Political Communication
• 2. Commentary—Online News and the Demise of Political Disagreement
• 3. Intergroup Contact: An Integration of Social Psychological and Communication Perspectives
• 4. Commentary—Communication and the Contact Hypothesis
• 5. The Relative Persuasiveness of Different Forms of Arguments-From-Consequences: A Review and Integration
• 6. Commentary—What Makes Arguments-From-Consequences Convincing?
• 7. Social Media Use in Organizations: Exploring the Affordances of Visibility, Editability, Persistence, and Association
• 8. Commentary—Affordances, Effects, and Technology Errors
• 9. Reconsidering the Concept of Workplace Flexibility: Is Adaptability a Better Solution?
• 10. Commentary—Enhancing Our Understanding of Work–Life Balance from a Communication Perspective
• 11. Constructionist Social Problems Theory
• 12. Commentary—The Industrial Construction of Audiences in Mass Media Industries: Notes toward a Research Agenda
• 13. Alcohol, Advertising, Media, and Consumption among Children, Teenagers, and Young Adults
• 14. Commentary—Challenging Ourselves to Advance Scholarship on Portrayals of Alcohol in the Media
• 15. Linking Risk Messages to Information Seeking and Processing
• 16. Commentary—Risk Communication in Context: Theories, Models, Research, and Future Endeavors
• 17. On the Study of Process in Communication Research
• 18. Commentary—Some Reflections on Quantitative Modeling of Communication Processes
• 19. Assumptions behind Intercoder Reliability Indices
• 20. Commentary—A Dissenting View on So-Called Paradoxes of Reliability Coefficients
• About the Editor
• About the Associate Editors
• About the Contributors
• Author Index
• Subject Index