W. Russell Neuman - The Digital Difference: Media Technology and the Theory of Communication Effects

The Digital Difference

MEDIA TECHNOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF COMMUNICATION EFFECTS

W. Russell Neuman

Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2016

Copyright 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

All rights reserved

Cover illustration: Thinkstock

978-0-674-50493-6 (alk. paper)

978-0-674-96983-4 (EPUB)

978-0-674-96984-1 (MOBI)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Neuman, W. Russell, author.

Title: The digital difference : media technology and the theory of communication effects / W. Russell Neuman.

Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015039005

Subjects: LCSH: Information society. | Information networks. | Technology and civilization. | Information technologySocial aspects. | Information technologyPolitical aspects. | Mass mediaSocial aspects. | Mass mediaPolitical aspects.

Classification: LCC HM1206 .N477 2016 | DDC 303.48/33dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039005

The Information Revolution is causing a scientific revolution in communication research.

EVERETT ROGERS (1986)

Rather than waiting for media companies to deliver relevant content at appropriate times, customers are increasingly reaching out to pull content to them when they want.

JOHN HAGEL AND JOHN SEELY BROWN (2005)

T HIS IS A STUDY of a revolution in human communication: the digital difference. It examines how the computer-based media technologies are gradually but fundamentally transforming the relationship between the audience member and the media and among individuals in mediated social networks. In the media world it is a shift from push to pull. Where once audience members could pick from only a few headlines or channels, they are now free to pose virtually any query imaginable in a search engine and in turn peruse a virtually unlimited global collection of articles, books, and videos. It is also a shift from one-way to two-way mass communicationthat is, from broadcasting and publishing to social networking. Interpersonal and mass communication are increasingly intertwined. The distinction between face-to-face interpersonal communication and mediated mass communication has been a fundamental divide in communication scholarship for half a century. Such distinctions are self-evident and essential to the older professors behind the podium and are probably seen as more of a curious antiquity to the younger students in front of the podium. The scholarly research paradigm is lagging far behind the relentless pace of technical change.

Scholars have studied how the revolutions of speech and of written language, printing, and broadcasting have each dramatically influenced the character of human existence in the domains of economics, politics, culture, and social life. I would be remiss not to draw on these insights in the pages ahead as I try to make sense of the revolution in ubiquitous electronic communication swirling around us today. As a result this book is a purposeful blend of looking back and looking forward.

My thesis, simply put, is that the revolution in communication technology makes possible a paradigm shift in how human communication is studied and understood. I argue that this digital difference in the current revolution offers the opportunity for a fundamental rethinking of the foundational concept of communication effects and the techniques for systematically measuring their increasingly complex dynamics. I am well aware that this may be, as they say, a tough sell. There are five fundamental reasons for a skeptical view of my thesis. First, systematic scholarly research at the individual and structural levels and in the social science and humanistic traditions of human communication has been under way for many decades, and central theories and the traditional methodologies are generally well received and not frequently viewed as in need of major revision. Second, drawing on the importance of digital technologies smacks of technological determinism, a crude insensitivity to human agency and the human role in the design and use of technology. Third, and related to the second point, is the observation that although communication technologies may have changed abruptly, the evolved human cognitive system has not, and we are still subject to a variety of systematic distortions in perception whatever technology is used. Fourth, many of the suggestions I make in the pages ahead will be seen by some as not entirely new as other researchers have been pursuing these new lines of inquiry already. Fifth and finally, many scholars take a dubious view of the notion of a paradigm and paradigm shifts in the tradition of Thomas Kuhn, which strikes them as simplistic and inappropriately imported into the social sciences and humanities from the physical sciences.

So, all together, there would appear to be a very reasonable case for skepticism, and I welcome it and respond to it in detail. I attempt to make my case as strongly as possible and hope that a little controversy might help draw attention to these issues. One might characterize my project here as a recipe for exasperating friends and colleagues in the field by, in effect, presumptively arguing that they are testing the wrong theories and using the wrong methods. Let me be clear. I have a deep respect for the progress in communication scholarship over the past half century, which should be evident from the abundant citations and recitations of this literature. But I think these theories and their associated methods at this critical juncture offer great promise of reformulation and rejuvenation. This is not at all an abandonment of old theories and methods and related normative concerns but rather something of a pivot in response to the new issues and opportunities associated with the digital difference.