The Dissonant Self: Contributions from Dissonance Theory to a New Agenda for Studying Political Communication

Due to technological changes in today’s communication environments, the investigation of media use and media effects has become an ever more complex research venture. In order to adequately comprehend the social practices of media users in the age of the Internet, various scholars have recently recommended a new agenda for the future study of political communication. Based on these suggestions, the following paper briefly outlines two research strands of political communication—political polarization and political demobilization—which are currently the focus of significant attention and scientific dispute. In reference to cognitive dissonance theory, we propose one possible strategy for media research to determine future developments of political communication in both research domains by observing citizens’ motivational changes in their exposure to political information.

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