New Communication Technologies, Old Questions - Semantic Scholar

New Communication Technologies, Old Questions

American Behavioral Scientist Volume 52 Number 1 September 2008 8-20 © 2008 Sage Publications 10.1177/0002764208321338 http://abs.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Marco C. Yzer Brian G. Southwell University of Minnesota

The recent emergence of new media, or better, new communication technologies, has afforded substantial commentary regarding societal effects, the latest chapter in a decades-old trend that rises and falls with each new communication technology. Whereas this article does not deny that the current generation of communication technologies differs from predecessors, it argues against the need for wholesale changes in theory to understand the effects of these technologies. New communication technologies do not fundamentally alter the theoretical bounds of human interaction; such interaction continues to be governed by basic human tendencies. What is perhaps most interesting about these new technologies is their ability to provide new or previously rare contexts for information expression and engagement. This article reviews two sets of rival hypotheses investigated in light of new communication technologies: proposals regarding social isolation effects versus connection effects, and ideas about whether new technologies lead to group integration or group polarization. Keywords:

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new communication technologies; new media

echnological developments in the last decade have resulted in a staggering number of new devices that can mediate information in ways that would have been deemed science fiction not 20 years ago. The collective classes of these technologies have been commonly dubbed “new media” (e.g., Jenkins & Thorburn, 2003), a label used ever since the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web in the mid-90s that now encompasses a much wider range of technologies than the network of interconnected computers to which it initially referred. The idea of “new media” is not new, nor are debates about their implications (see Light, 2006, for a helpful discussion of this point). In 1948, for example, Beville wrote about the challenge of “the new media,” referring at the time to television, FM radio, and facsimile. Marvin (1988) discussed how such discussions have occurred historically with introductions of other previously unknown media such as the telegraph and the telephone. It is by no means unprecedented, then, that the emergence of new digital media in recent years has spurred much popular and scholarly debate on the implications of these new technologies for human interaction and its outcomes. Whereas parts of this discussion seem to suggest a need for “new media theory,” we contend that the past century’s interdisciplinary quest to understand 8

Yzer, Southwell / New Technologies, Old Questions

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human interaction and information flow already provides useful explanatory frameworks. Our task is to determine what the “new” in new media technologies exactly implies for our understanding of the effects of these technologies. Although we can undoubtedly point to the emergence of new theoretical constructs, doing so excessively might lead us to overlook our new opportunity to better understand some old ideas about the relationship between information flow and human interaction. We build our argument by discussing the critical importance of identifying communication and connections between people to understand new media effects. We argue that new technologies do have a bearing on the circumstantial parameters under which human interaction occurs and do afford previously rare opportunities but also that these technologies do not fundamentally alter human needs and desires, per se, and thus do not make existing theories of behavior obsolete. We illustrate these ideas by discussing two sets of rival hypotheses pertinent to the debate on the effects of new media: isolation versus connectedness hypotheses, and integration versus polarization hypotheses. In both cases, evidence suggests that the emergence of new technologies has not overturned existing theory but instead has allowed us to witness the expression of dynamics previously considered but largely unrealized until now.

What Is in a Name? New Communication Technologies Versus New Media Although there have been many attempts to define new media, conceptual and operational definitions vary greatly. To many, new media seems to be a synonym for the Internet, but this interpretation in practice is fraught with problems. The Internet has developed from a relatively simple network of interconnected computers that can exchange text to an immensely diverse array of possibilities for nonphysical human interaction. Importantly, each of these possibilities (e.g., blogs, chat rooms, e-mail, instant messages, mobile phone calls, and hyperlinks) likely presents unique conditions for human interaction. (See Qvortrup, 2006, for a useful discussion of the related idea that media are environments.) Research that oversimplifies the Internet as a homogenous, constant medium thus seriously misses important opportunities to explain the very phenomena it seeks to explain, namely, new media effects (Bimber, 2000; McQuail, 2006; Sassenberg, 2002; Walther, Gay, & Hancock, 2005). Much would be gained if researchers address the multitude of different Internet modalities more explicitly, but even that would not be sufficient to address the range of possibilities now before us. The Internet, as a category of modalities, no longer contains all relevant technologies, as evident from new mobile technologies that offer information exchange possibilities outside the Internet. It is more useful to emphasize the defining attribute that all these new technologies share, namely, the ability to exchange information between individuals and groups (as opposed to

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American Behavioral Scientist

broadcast appliances); such a move eliminates importunate divisions between interpersonal and mass communication (Southwell & Yzer, 2007). This emphasis on communication as central, rather than on the physical medium, moves away from a technological determinism approach to new media effects, or from an interpretation of new media as simply the next mass medium (e.g., McQuail, 2006; Muhlenfeld, 2002; see discussion by Hamelink, 2006; Morris & Ogan, 1996). A communication perspective indeed highlights what is perhaps most interesting about new media technologies: the extent to which they reinforce and shed light on the possibilities for connection among and between audience members (Brunsting & Postmes, 2002; Walther et al., 2005). The recognition that communication is critical to recent new technologies is important, but of course not new (e.g., Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2002a; Qvortrup, 2006). An important example comes from computer-mediated communication (CMC), an area of study that has added significantly to our understanding of the relationship between human interaction and technological modalities. Although CMC research usefully alerted our attention to communication, it often does not speak directly to the impact of differences in technological interaction modalities. To integrate both an emphasis on modality and a focus on communication, we therefore suggest the label new communication technologies as more useful than new media or CMC (see Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2002b, for discussion).1

Isolation Versus Connection Effects of New Communication Technologies Much of the new media debate is rooted in the idea that new media will radically alter human dynamics, either by introducing largely new problems or by eliminating existing concerns. The availability of the Internet and mobile technologies, for example, has forecast for some a decline in individual connectedness, complete with an image of lonely and isolated people typing away at computer terminals. For example, in 1998 Kraut et al. asked whether the Internet might be a “social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being” (p. 1017). In the realm of journalism, Negroponte (1995) famously forecast the rise of the “Daily Me” as the news format of the future in light of the ability of new technologies that allow companies to tailor their information presentations to the known desires and preferences of individuals. On a different plane, it is common on college campuses at the moment to hear instructors bemoaning the increasing extent to which students wander around plugged into their iPod or other portable music device rather than talking with other people (for discussion on implications of such trends, see Rayner, 2006). At least some evidence undermines the hypothesis that people have become much lonelier because of new communication technologies, however. Franzen (2007), for example, points to work from Switzerland that suggests that Internet use does not


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demonstrably decrease social involvement (in terms of reported number of friends, time spent with one’s social network, or perceptions of loneliness). Work on social movements indicates that the Internet even is a popular and effective tool for mobilizing individuals for collective action (Brunsting & Postmes, 2002; Postmes & Brunsting, 2002). In addition, and in direct contrast to an isolation hypothesis, one of the reasons for joining online groups is to be—virtually—among people who are similar on dimensions that are important to people (McKenna & Green, 2002). Indeed, work on the digital divide has suggested that unequal access to new communication technologies is associated with less social support for those who cannot keep up with developments in these technologies (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004). People thus do not appear to lose connectedness because of new communication technologies but sometimes even might find connectedness through them. Putting this idea to the extreme, some have argued that new communication technologies will indeed radically increase the connections between people and will lead to an elimination of the barriers between individuals that have existed in the past (Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & Sethna, 1991; Hiltz & Turoff, 1978; see de Gournay & Smoreda, 2007, for discussion). New communication technologies indeed allow unprecedented control over information exchange, which seems associated with membership in multiple communities that exist by virtue of new communication technologies (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001; McKenna & Green, 2002; Rayner, 2006). However, this does not necessarily mean that people radically break social barriers to have widespread and previously unimaginable conversations with people very different from themselves as a result of new technologies. By pointing to constraints on the availability of communication partners such as work demands and social convention, de Gournay and Smoreda (2007) argue against the idea that people can somehow now remain continuously connected throughout the day (see also Qvortup, 2006). Moreover, de Gournay and Smoreda’s work on telephone use points to the persistence of homophily in social networks, that is, the tendency of people to associate with similar others. Importantly, this idea is consistent with work that long predates text messaging and mobile phones (e.g., Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1954; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). On a grander scale, Castells’s (1996) analysis of social change around the world informed the conceptualization of a global network society, in which information exchange is global and instantaneous. Castells argues that with increased dependence on information flows in nonlocal networks, there will be less influence from any one local social context (see Stalder, 1998, for discussion). To some, however, the idea of global interconnectedness and a consequent decrease in local social influence is not plausible. Qvortup (2006), for example, argues that “our modern global society is not one huge network, but consists of an enormous number of loosely coupled networks. All these networks influence and disturb one another, but they are not directly interconnected” (p. 347). Although this internetwork disturbance can be

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notable, it typically is followed by a return to normalcy, which at least in part seems attributable to a basic group tendency toward equilibrium and stability. In sum, this first set of examples begins to suggest that new communication technology effects on human relations might not be extreme and in fact can be explained by frameworks developed well before the entrance of recent new technologies. At least with regard to the polar choices of isolation and interconnectedness, new communication technologies seem at best to have interacted with human group tendencies to produce yet again a world in which loneliness is common but not universal and social networks exist but have important limits.

Integration Versus Polarization Effects of New Communication Technologies The idea of new communication technology effects on connectedness between people also has led to a discussion of wider implications for public opinion. A large part of the global population now has access to a vast and diverse array of information, which allows the theoretical possibility of an integration of different perspectives in opinion formation. In a similar vein, Dubrovsky et al. (1991) argued that the less computer-mediated interaction provides social status cues, the less anxious people are to be evaluated by their conversation partners. In their view, this will lead to status equalization of conversation partners, which in turn might lead to more integrated decision making. One possibility, then, is that new communication technologies will invite a worldwide equalizing of viewpoints. The marketing domain provides at least anecdotal evidence to suggest such a dramatic equalization effect. It seems for some that the entrance of new communication technologies has gone together with the onset of a trend toward “global youth,” or the convergence of youth norms and values across countries (Parmar, 2002). Addressing the political arena, Hermes (2006) argues that new communication technologies not only provide rich and fast information sources but also serve as discussion platforms. People thus might use, for example, political blogs to engage in a conversation with people who hold different views on political issues, with the possible result of reducing interpersonal differences in opinion. To make her point, Hermes discusses how following the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-Moroccan man, a very large number of Morrocan and Dutch youth used a Dutch Moroccan Web site to debate the murder and larger interethnic issues. Hermes observes that although heated, the exchange of information signaled the use of new communication technologies for dialogue that might result in more balanced opinion formation. Research on political communication does not, however, universally support the idea of global integration of perspectives as a result of new communication technology use. In an analysis of the 2004 U.S. elections, for example, Adamic and Glance (2005) demonstrated that conservative and liberal bloggers primarily sought out


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like-minded blogs. Such a pattern is exactly the opposite of what we might expect under an integration view. The topical discussions among political bloggers reflected their political preferences, thus providing little opportunity to integrate different views. These and similar observations, in turn, have swung the pendulum in the other direction, inviting a polarization hypothesis in connection with plausible new communication technology effects. Maybe what new communication technologies provide is more disagreement between groups than we otherwise would have. Jones (2002), for example, argues that information narrowcasted through new communication technologies will be more extreme than information broadcasted through traditional media because new communication technologies can better tailor messages to segmented audiences that are much more homogeneous than audiences of traditional broadcast media (see also Mendelsohn & Nadeau, 1996). The polarization idea sees media audiences more purely as selectors of information. This selective exposure can be pragmatic and serves to select from the overabundance of information that is typical for current media environments. Perhaps more important, selective exposure is in part driven by motivation: People form their self-image through interaction with others (cf. self-categorization theory; e.g., Tajfel, 1981; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) and often choose interaction partners that are perceived as similar to themselves to test the accuracy of their ideas (cf. social comparison theory; e.g., Festinger, 1954). Because of well-documented group polarization processes (e.g., Janis, 1972), opinion convergence in a group may end at more extreme positions than a tally of initial individual opinions would have suggested. General polarization hypotheses thus predict increased opinion contrast between groups as a function of the interaction among members of groups. To the best of our knowledge, however, there is little empirical work that convincingly demonstrates extreme and enduring polarization on a societal level as a direct result of exposure to the new class of communication technologies, per se. To understand the mixed results for the integration and polarization hypotheses as they relate to a general case for new communication technologies being singularly important to opinion formation, we once again must recognize the importance of communication in new communication technologies. There have been some useful recent efforts to demonstrate opinion effects among people using new communication technologies. Long-understood interpersonal communication forces seem to be responsible for effects in this new work, though new communication technology factors seem to be important in setting the appropriate conditions for certain effects. Of the theoretical frameworks that address opinion change dynamics between communication partners, two are particularly compelling for their application to new communication technologies. Both of these frameworks, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE; Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995) and the hyperpersonal interaction model (Walther, 1996), start from the general idea of interpersonal communication as information exchange behavior that can occur in, and interact with, diverse contexts (an idea also emphasized in Southwell & Yzer, 2007).

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The development of the SIDE model to a large part built on the notion that communication through computers can be anonymous in the sense that visual cues about the individual conversation partners are not available (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998). Research in the SIDE tradition has demonstrated the counterintuitive possibility that such anonymity can lead to group norm conformity (e.g., Lee, 2006; Postmes, Spears, Sakhel & de Groot, 2001). These findings in fact are hypothesized by the SIDE model and are explained with the argument that the absence of information about individual differences increases the salience of group identity, thus increasing social influence (Postmes et al., 1998; Reicher et al., 1995; cf. Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & Sethna, 1991). The hyperpersonal interaction model argues that self-presentation is actually more socially desirable in relatively anonymous computer-mediated interaction than in face-to-face interaction. Walther (1996) argued that conversation partners in such computer-mediated interaction construct their relationship based on the minimal cues that such an environment affords, making self-presentation efforts particularly important. Specifically, those cues can reflect participant characteristics and feedback, among other factors. Again, new communication technologies can afford circumstances that lead to predictable effects, but those effects also can occur in other interpersonal settings. The empirical success of these two frameworks holds important implications for our argument. Both models have been effectively applied to new communication technologies, yet in a way that builds on group dynamics work that is much more veteran. What researchers in these traditions have done is to isolate possibilities in new communication technology environments that closely resemble known conditions for interpersonal communication effects and then demonstrated that such effects can occur. This is different from anticipating that new communication technologies, or new media, will operate as a wholly new, unique, and monolithic force. Drawing particularly on the notion of deindividuation or the loss of a self-focus by people when operating in groups, SIDE and interpersonal interaction assumptions rely heavily on classic work by Le Bon (1895), Tarde (1903), Festinger (e.g., Festinger, Pepitone, & Newcomb, 1952), Zimbardo (1969), and Diener (1980). New communication technologies do appear to sometimes afford sufficient contexts for deindividuation and conformity, but these are conditions that have been theoretically anticipated previously. This provision of context is different, importantly, from encouraging unique societal shifts toward polarization or integration, as we have long had a range of options for deindividuation in interaction.

The Need for Interdisciplinary Theory Development We have emphasized the importance of understanding new communication technology effects as contingent on social group dynamics and as part of the wide array


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of human communication effects rather than as a separate arena of inquiry. We also have attempted to briefly highlight the continued relevance of frameworks that predate new communication technologies. Consider a final example to illustrate this general idea. Many theorists would agree that many health behaviors, such as going to the gym once a week, are a function of summary beliefs about the general enjoyment offered by the behavior, about whether others approve of the behavior, and about whether a person has the skills and ability to perform the behavior. For example, the integrated model of behavioral prediction (Fishbein, 2000; Fishbein & Yzer, 2003), which builds on earlier work (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), posits that behavior is a function of intention and environmental opportunity and that intention is a function of attitude, norm, and self-efficacy judgments. Simple exposure to new communication technologies should not change the tendency of a person to rely on some combination of their attitude, their sense of norms, and their sense of self-efficacy in deciding to go to the gym. What might be different now, though, is the salience of particular beliefs or the practical availability of important others as influences as a consequence of new communication technology use. Immigrants freshly arrived in a country, for example, might previously have found themselves effectively disconnected from information sources in their previous home, and consequently those sources might lose salience for them as they form or activate beliefs while influences from the new geographic context concurrently rise in importance. New communication technologies of the sort we have discussed here, however, now might shrink the world of available influence, possibly allowing the grip of norms from a previous context. None of this necessarily undermines the utility of existing behavioral theory; instead, our current era provides new contexts and new interactions for old variables. To integrate all of these dimensions, we should conceptualize new communication technology effects in a multilevel framework that acknowledges the influences of variables that reside at different levels of analysis, medium- or technology-level influences being only one group of variables that matter. (See Slater, Snyder, & Hayes, 2006, or Southwell, 2005, for recent discussion of multilevel models and media effects.) From such a perspective, we can allow information exchange to be a function of individual-, group-, and context-level variables. We thus might successfully frame new communication technologies as a source of contextual influence on communication processes, in terms of facilitating or dampening relationships rather than simply as a source of main effects. This stance can help explain why many basic human tendencies empirically persist in the face of exposure to new communication technologies (e.g., Joyce & Kraut, 2006; Kelly, Fisher, & Smith, 2006; McKenna & Green, 2002), while still acknowledging the relevance of such new technologies. Admittedly, such a call for interdisciplinary work runs counter to the tendency of scholars to retain a focus bounded by the norms of the discipline in which they were trained. Rather than encouraging a new field of new media research, nevertheless,

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the more promising path toward understanding new communication technologies seems to lie in transdisciplinary cooperation.

Conclusions We reviewed mixed and equivocal evidence for two prominent ideas that have been raised in the latest ferment of excitement accompanying the emergence of recently new media. The empirical failure of many of these ideas likely lies in an excessive theoretical focus on the “technology” in new communication technologies and insufficient attention to the human “communication” part of the equation. Consequently, we might have lost sight of the persistence of basic human interaction tendencies across the rise and fall of many communication technologies in the past. Rather than simply expecting dramatic main effects to arise from the presence of new communication technologies, a more fruitful stance could be to look at how these technologies can sometimes change the contexts for human interaction and then to ask when and how contexts arise. Our review is modest in scope but suggests that we should temper expectations of new media as a new class of agents of radical change. To return to the questions we raised in the Introduction, we can extend Marvin’s (1988) analysis of once-new technologies such as the telephone to contend that the most interesting part of what is “new” in new media stands for new functional meeting opportunities for groups to exchange ideas. As such, new media provide the contextual regulations under which human interaction occurs, and it is ultimately something about this human interaction—engagement, however mediated, between living, breathing beings—that will demonstrate old patterns or will suggest new possibilities (Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2002b; Polat, 2005). New media do not alter the essence of social interaction that stems from basic human tendencies, then, but they might condition the expression of such human interaction. Or, as Walther et al. (2005) put it when they described how the Internet suggests research topics that in other domains have already been well examined, “All is new, and nothing is new” (p. 633). For scholars and policy makers interested in the latest generations of new communication technologies, this in part means that we need to have at the table both creative professionals to tell us what is possible and researchers grounded in what it means to be human. Hamelink (2006) underscores our point that basic human tendencies are not altered in essence by new communication technologies. He argues that the widespread adoption of new communication technologies actually is fraught with potential danger; we might overly rely on these technologies to provide salvation without fully understanding the enduring tendencies of humanity. Hamelink seems to be on firm footing in the claim that new communication technologies alone will not eliminate human strife or manipulation or abuse. What he does instead is call for care and acknowledgment of ethical dilemmas as we increasingly integrate new technologies into our daily routine. Similarly, Castells (1996) argues that our


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rising dependence on new communication technologies will not eliminate hierarchies, per se, as such technologies can give enormous power to those in a position to control them rather than necessarily distributing resources to all. This conforms with earlier ideas about the gateway functions of media organizations in mediating ideas between small groups seeking social change and the larger public for whom those messages should be relevant, more than it does with more utopian visions (McLeod & Hertog, 1999). All such warnings are rooted in perspectives on humanity more so than in perspectives on technology, and we would be well served to carry that stance forward as we look for new empirical twists and turns on our old ideas.

Note 1. A similar integrative technology–communication idea underlies the term information communication technologies (ICT). ICT has particularly been used in organizational settings to refer to staff units supporting automated information flow. The term ICT also has been used in scholarly work. (See, for example, McQuail, 2006, in a recent special issue of the European Journal of Communication on the future of ICT.) Our use here of the term new communication technologies emphasizes the critical role of communication while explicitly contrasting it with the term new media.

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Marco C. Yzer, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School for Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. His research program applies behavioral theory to understand communication effects on health outcomes. Brian G. Southwell, PhD, is an associate professor in the School for Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on strategic communication in new media environments, with a special interest in the intersection of interpersonal and mass communication.