Revising the Communication Mediation Model for a New Political Communication Ecology

Abstract

A long tradition of research focuses on conversation as a key catalyst for community integration and a focal mediator of media influence on participation. Changes in media systems, political environments, and electoral campaigning demand that these influences, and the communication mediation model, be revised to account for the growing convergence of media and conversation, heightened partisan polarization, and deepening social contentiousness in media politics. We propose a revised communication mediation model that continues to emphasize the centrality of face‐to‐face and online talk in democratic life, while considering how mediational and self‐reflective processes that encourage civic engagement and campaign participation might also erode institutional legitimacy, foster distrust and partisan divergence, disrupting democratic functioning as a consequence of a new communication ecology.

Facilitating Social Media and Offline Political Engagement During Electoral Cycles: Using Social Cognitive Theory to Explain Political Action Among Hispanics and Latinos

“…Results discussed above suggest five key mechanisms that either directly or indirectly influence offline political participation among this demographic group -1) one's general social media use, 2) observation of how users' own social network use social media for political purposes, 3) one's successful experiences using social media for political purposes, 4) perceptions of social media political self-efficacy and, 5) social media political expression. Together, these constructs comprise a picture of how interacting within an online social network and individuals' social media political behaviors influence offline engagement -demonstrating a positive influence on participation (Delli Carpini, 2000) in an increasingly fragmented political environment (Shah et al, 2017).…”

Opinion Climates in Social Media: Blending Mass and Interpersonal Communication

“…The fact that social media technologies allow users actively to select their interpersonal networks and news environments raises concerns about the homogeneity versus heterogeneity of information and opinions to which users are exposed through these media: One concern in this regard is that people's selection of networks as well as technological algorithms that provide personalized information consistent with the user's dispositions could form uniform “filter bubbles” (Pariser, ) and like‐minded collectives (“echo chambers”; Sunstein, , p. 94), resulting in ideological homogeneity within these groups (see Shah et al, 2017). This concern seems justified because recent research found that people tend to project the opinions that they read in other users' comments on Facebook onto the rest of the population, meaning that a few comments can, albeit weakly, shape the way users perceive the prevailing opinion climate (Neubaum & Krämer, ).…”

Understanding Self-Effects in Social Media

“…And yet others have focused on the dynamic give‐and‐take interactions between senders and recipients, in either face‐to‐face or CMC settings. But despite this conceptual broadness, few communication theories have conceptualized how creating or sending messages for the purpose of communicating to others may affect oneself (Pingree, ; Shah, ; Shah et al, ). It is only in recent years that there has been a glimmer of recognition within each of the clusters about what can be named self‐effects: the effects of messages on the cognitions (knowledge or beliefs), emotions, attitudes, and behavior of the message creators/senders themselves.…”