Toward a group theory of political communication

Abstract Recent political communication scholarship finds that groups and identities play a central role in the crises faced by political and media systems globally, particularly in democracies. Yet an individualist orientation in the literature has resulted in key theoretical and conceptual limitations, preventing a broader group-centric theoretical framework from emerging. We synthesize disparate bodies of theory on groups, politics, and communication to offer three basic propositions underlying a group theory of political communication. First, it is the group—not the individual—that is the fundamental organizing unit of social and political life. Second, groups are constituted through communication, which is central to how they define their politics. Third, groups and politics are reciprocally influencing forces through political communication, oriented around power. We offer a framework for studying the role of groups in political communication at the micro, meso, and macro levels, providing a concrete agenda for the study of groups in political communication.