Is time of the essence? A temporal meta-synthesis of seven media effects theories

Abstract The media effects discipline has bequeathed scholars with an endlessly pliable set of theories helping establish the field of communication. Recent decades, however, witnessed a growing chorus of criticism pointing to theories’ anachronistic nature to suggest that ideas once known for their originality and conceptual heft overstayed their welcome. If there is intellectual disagreement, it is in fact a propitious moment to infuse the marketplace of ideas with critical data. To this end, meta- and interrupted time series-analyses of seven key media effects theories (K = 588, N = 525,670) identify a decline in effect sizes over time, while moderation analyses point to methodological and technological culprits. As it turns out, effect sizes linked with media effects theories get smaller but more statistically significant. Optimistically, this may signal that, just like humans, theories that grow long in the tooth lose some of their youthful spark but gain stability.