Critics of the media effects paradigm of human communication research have argued that there may be little or even no straightforward correlation between exposure and behavior, especially at the individual level. I step into this debate as a media psychologist who takes those critiques seriously, but whose central project is to rethink what counts as an “effect” and where it shows up in the psyche. Rather than assuming a simple, linear path from “message in” to “behavior out,” I focus on more covert psychological processes and media-driven disruptions in self-experience that unfold within media-saturated environments and often remain invisible if we only track overt behavior.

My goal as a scholar is to build an empirically grounded, quantitatively testable account of how contemporary media invite people not just to act, but to repeatedly imagine themselves acting, in ways that reshape self-concept, amplifies exemplar contagious anxiety, and perceived readiness long before (and sometimes instead of) any observable behavior. At the same time, I take seriously limited- and differential-effects perspectives, which emphasize that media influence is filtered through prior dispositions, social context, and identity, and that many behavioral effects are modest or inconsistent when treated as direct outcome variables. These critiques push me toward modeling within-person change and self-processes rather than treating individuals as passive endpoints of media messages.

My work on new media, an umbrella that encompasses digital and social media, centers on how platforms solicit constant micro-performances of self for different audiences under the gaze of metrics and imagined judgements. Even when a clean correlation between “time spent online” and a particular behavior is hard to demonstrate, we can still detect systematic patterns linking media exposure to fluctuations in self-concept clarity, and downstream emotional or functional difficulties. In this sense, my scholarly story is both an embrace and a reimagining of the media effects tradition. I keep its commitment to rigor, measurement, and causal modeling, but I shift the target from crude behavioral endpoints to the quieter psychological work people perform in mediated spaces. My ambition is to develop constructs and models that honor the criticisms of simplistic “effects” thinking yet still show that media environments matter, not as omnipotent forces, but as everyday laboratories where individuals continually practice who they might become.

It’s a work in progress.

APA References

Dill, K. E., & Dill-Shackleford, K. (Eds.). (2013). The Oxford handbook of media psychology. Oxford University Press.

Dorčić, T. M., Smojver-Ažić, S., Božić, I., & Malkoč, I. (2023). Effects of social media social comparisons and identity processes on body image satisfaction in late adolescence. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 19(2), 220.

Gauntlett, D. (1998). Ten things wrong with the media “effects” model. theory.org.uk.

Mesch, G. S., & Liu, X. J. (2024). Differential media exposure and perceptions of fear and behavior change in China and Israel during the COVID-19 pandemic. New Media & Society, 26(12), 7168–7194.

Neuman, W. R., & Guggenheim, L. (2011). The evolution of media effects theory: A six-stage model of cumulative research. Communication Theory, 21(2), 169–196.

Oh, S. H., Lee, S. Y., & Han, C. (2021). The effects of social media use on preventive behaviors during infectious disease outbreaks: The mediating role of self-relevant emotions and public risk perception. Health Communication, 36(8), 972–981.

Vorderer, P., Park, D. W., & Lutz, S. (2019). A history of media effects research traditions. In Media effects (pp. 1–15). Routledge.