Media Communication Research in the Digital Era: Moving Beyond Ontological Dualism

The proliferation of research in media communication has yet brought about perspectives, concepts or theories that could do justice to changes in the media world. Possible causes of the problem were named, yet few had looked for answers in the way theoretical debates unfolded in the past. An examination of the patterns of advancing debates in media studies shows the influence of ontological dualism. By bringing to light the assumptions underlying the conception of communication processes and questioning their adequacies in providing a comprehensive understanding of the media world, this study teases out the limitations that the mechanistic dualist framework has imposed on research, explains the necessity of fundamental changes, and proposes a dynamic ontological framework as an alternative.