What We Talk About When We Talk About Media Effects

Based on remarks at the 25th anniversary of the Center on Organizational Innovation at Columbia University, this essay suggests that canonical debates over historical media “revolutions” call attention to the narrow, behaviorist paradigm driving most research about online misinformation today. While numerous empirical studies have found only minimal exposure to or risks from lies, hoaxes and conspiracy theories circulating on social networks, defining media effects strictly in terms of individual psychology neglects the broader cultural and institutional dimensions of how media shape public life. Foundational accounts of the development and influence of the printing press —– including those that challenge deterministic assumptions —– remind us that, in hindsight, the media effects that matter will be understood as shifts in culture, perhaps especially elite political culture.