Transmission Creep: Media Effects Theories and Journalism Studies in a Digital Era

The nature of digital media challenges the explanatory power of effects theories that rest on a transmission model of communication. As essentially linear conceptualizations reliant on identification and measurement of discrete message components, these twentieth-century theories are poorly suited to contemporary journalistic structures and forms. This article adds to the call for a more richly theorized concept of relationship effects suitable to an immersive, iterative, and interconnected environment of news producers and products.