Objectivity and dialogue are competing ideals in the practice of American journalism and in the way the press is analyzed and ethically evaluated. This article examines the relationship of these two ideals using tools from the dialogical philosophy of Martin Buber and Michael Bakhtin. I argue that 'objective' journalism is part of an atmosphere that observes, maps, gathers information, and objectifies social phenomenon while keeping an outsider position and avoiding entrance into dialogical relationships. Such a position demonstrates a monologue that speaks in the ostensibly factual voice of the real world. But as the belief in objectivity waned through the postmodern crisis, the dialogical perception — as a general theoretical and methodological array of thought — started to flourish in communication studies and journalistic practices. The undermining process of the modernist objective, message-driven model of communication encouraged the rise of scholarly perceptions and journalistic practices that 'privatized' the communication process into various dialogical sites. Online journalism, with its interactive technological potential, marks another peak in the dialogic potential.

The increasing popularity of the Internet is often seen as eroding the national functions of mass media. In critically evaluating this assumption, this article examines online media consumption through 2 theories of traditional media that are considered of major significance in understanding the constitutive and reproductive roles of media in national experience: the ritual of simultaneous consumption, along with its implications on the imagination of national communities, and the discourse of media, with its embedded banal national assumptions. I contend that the element of ritual in media consumption seems to be decreasing. However, the emerging structure of the Net, the contents posted on the Web, and users' preferences and attitudes all reflect a banal national discourse.

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and short messages service (SMS) play an increasing role in contemporary interpersonal communication. Studies on the linguistic style of these means often refer to its hybrid discursive nature, which combines the formal written register and the informal oral features. This article conceptualizes the oral features of digital CMC and SMS text against the background of two previous eras of orality: the residualmanuscript orality of the Middle Ages and the ''secondary orality'' of electronic mass communication. It argues that digital orality is unique in the silence of its manifestations, as texts are not converted into the audial sphere. This new type of orality is also unique in that it is celebrated: Its users intentionally toy with the language.

Interpersonal digital discourse (CMC and SMS), currently performed by wide circles of users, is characterized by deliberate misspelling and exhibits a strong influence of orality on the written text. This article examines the social legitimation of such non-standard oral discourse and its socio-discursive implications. I argue that this digital orality has strong links to postmodern and post-structural ideas. Oral-written text ostensibly reflects a melting of linguistic structures, resembling the changes that occurred in social structures in the late modern era. However, I demonstrate, using De Saussure’s basic structural perceptions in analyzing how this oral-written text is formed, that this deliberate misuse of language is quite structural and systematic in nature. What seems to be an anarchistic use of language or a rebellion against modernist rigid linguistic structures is highly performative in essence.

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.