Rethinking Political Communication in a Time of Disrupted Public Spheres

Citation: W. Lance Bennett, Barbara Pfetsch (2018) Rethinking Political Communication in a Time of Disrupted Public Spheres. Journal of Communication (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1093/joc/jqx017
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1093/joc/jqx017
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1093/joc/jqx017
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Rethinking Political Communication in a Time of Disrupted Public Spheres
Tagged: Sociology (RSS) communication studies (RSS), communication (RSS), political communication (RSS), media (RSS)

Summary

This article describes challenges posed by the growing disconnection between institutions and public spheres in an era of social media and growing inequality. The authors argue that research frameworks and concepts used in the field of political communication studies must be revised to recognize that new, alternative, and partisan media are reaching publics in a complex and networked fashion. They suggest that we are entering the fourth age of political communication, and we should revise our research agenda in response to these new conditions. The authors proceed to offer a revised understanding of the commonly-used political communication concepts gate-keeping, framing, indexing, and agenda-setting. They also suggest that studies of media effects should shift from a focus on causal inference and effect size, and instead use multiple methods to produce contingent explanations of the conditions under which media effects emerge. The authors propose three guidelines for future research: one, we should examine our work for assumptions that "public spheres and media systems" are coherent; two, we should go beyond comparative work to consider global systems and networks; three, we should incorporate techniques for handling "big data" and consider the role of algorithms.

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

This article offers an agenda-setting perspective for the field of political communication research.