The New “Media Affect” and the Crisis of Representation for Political Communication

Abstract

Political communication research in the United States, despite two decades of change in how the public receives information, follows theories that rely on definitions of citizenship from a century ago and on metaphors growing out of communication techniques and practices of five decades ago. A review of the state of news media, facing technical, labor, and economic crises, and the state of political science, illustrated through research methods, leads to a reexamination of communication at the intersection of media and politics. Political communication theory has come to rely on functional metaphors, economic background assumptions, an emphasis on method, and a legacy of structuralism. The crisis presents current theories with challenges for the representation of citizens and the press in democracy. Especially as young adults reject older forms of information, political communication can renew itself by deepening existing theory and shifting from old effects rationality to a new “media affect” sensibility.