Newcomb (1984), "On the Dialogic Aspects of Mass Communication"

In this essay, Newcomb (1984) explores the failure of cultural studies to fully account for media's impact on social relations. Specifically, he addresses the use of hegemony to explain the ways audiences and texts interact. Newcomb (1984) notes that hegemony is a useful concept in its flexibility. However, the flexibility of the term also means that hegemony stretches unpredictably. To discussions of media hegemony, Newcomb (1984) proposes a theory of dialogic media.

1. Using Volosinov's theory of language as practice, Newcomb (1984) argues that texts are constantly shifting.

Newcomb (1984) argues that the shifting nature of language is a result of its real meaning as a form of practice. Language is embedded with historical and cultural meanings that only take hold when put into the practice of social interaction. Newcomb (1984) uses this insight to critique approaches to media studies. For Newcomb (1984), the shifting nature of language makes it unfit for study through static theories.

2. Bakhtin's dialogic communication model further allows Newcomb (1984) to situate media's shifting language as part of a dialogue.

Each stage of media production and consumption is a negotiation. Newcomb (1984) argues that television production is a constant site of negotiation, as writers, producers, distributors, censors, and others struggle over narratives. This negotiation continues as the audience negotiates texts and the meanings in texts. Newcomb (1984) notes that this occurs not only at the level of individual television episodes and series, but also in the viewers' consumption of other media and nonmedia communication.

3. Newcomb (1984) uses these insights to propose two major forms of media studies -- diagonal strips and ethnographic methods.

First, Newcomb (1984) argues that media should be studied in "diagonal strips." Newcomb (1984) expands Williams' (1976) concept of television flow, arguing that as viewers change channels, alternate between recorded and live television, and skip commercials they are effectively renegotiating the text itself. The media scholar should therefore focus on real strips of television in the order they are consumed by viewers.

Second, Newcomb (1984) argues that media scholars should employ ethnographic models. This allows researchers to observe the ways that viewers make sense of television through conversation with one another.