Five decades of local media theory
Responding to globally changing media and communication systems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/mk.v42i80.166038Abstract
Media theories are best understood backwards, even if they must be articulated forwards. Media theories have continuously responded to practice – to historically changing technologies and institutions of communication – in shifting local and global research environments. This article addresses the understanding of media prevailing in Danish media and communication research at two pivotal moments –1981 and 1996 – adding a diagnosis of 2026 and a prognosis for coming generations of colleagues to better understand media and theories when looking backwards to the 2020s.
References
Altheide, D. L., & Snow, R. P. (1979). Media Logic. Sage.
Andersen, M. B., & Poulsen, J. (Eds.). (1974). Mediesociologi: Introduktion til massekommunikationsforskning [Media sociology: Introduction to mass communication research]. Rhodos.
Andersen, M. B., Jauert, P., Prehn, O., & Qvortrup, L. (Eds.). (1981). Kommunikationspolitik [Politics of communication]. Massekultur & Medier, 1(1). https://tidsskrift.dk/masmed/issue/view/573
Andersen, P. B. (1990). A theory of computer semiotics: Semiotic approaches to construction and assessment of computer systems. Cambridge University Press.
Barthes, R. (1967). Elements of semiology. Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1964)
Beniger, J. (1986). The control revolution: Technological and economic origins of the information society. Harvard University Press.
Benjamin, W. (1969). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In H. Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations: Essays and reflections (pp. 217-251). Schocken Books. (Original work published 1936)
Carey, J. W. (1989). A cultural approach to communication. In J. W. Carey (Ed.), Communication as culture (pp. 13-36). Unwin Hyman. (Original work published 1975)
Celikates, R., & Flynn, J. (2023). Critical theory (Frankfurt School). In E. N. Zalta, & U. Nodelman (Eds), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2023). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/critical-theory/
Coeckelbergh, M., & Gunkel, D. J. (2025). Communicative AI: A critical introduction to large language models. Polity.
Couldry, N. (2004). Theorising media as practice. Social Semiotics, 14(2), 115-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/1035033042000238295
de Mul, J. (2003). Digitally mediated (dis)embodiment. Information, Communication & Society, 6(2), 247-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118032000093914
de Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics. Peter Owen. (Original work published 1916)
Drotner, K. (1988). English children and their magazines, 1751–1945. Yale University Press.
Dutton, W. H. (Ed.). (2013). The Oxford handbook of internet studies. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199589074.001.0001
Finnemann, N. O. (1999). Thought, sign, and machine: The computer reconsidered. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330683498
Finnemann, N. O. (2002). Perspectives on the internet and modernity: Late modernity, postmodernity or modernity modernized? In N. Brügger, & H. Bødker (Eds.), The internet and society? (pp. 29-39). Skrifter fra Center for Internetforskning.
Floyd, J., & Katz, J. E. (Eds). (2016). Philosophy of emerging media: Understanding, appreciation, application. Oxford University Press.
Frankopan, P. (2023). The Earth transformed: An untold history. Bloomsbury.
Giersing, M. (1982). TV i USA [Television in the United States]. Gyldendal.
Guzman, A. L., McEwen, R., & Jones, S. (Eds.). (2023). The Sage handbook of human–machine communication. Sage.
Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Polity Press. (Original work published 1962).
Hall, S. (1981). Notes on deconstructing ‘the popular’. In D. Morley (Ed.), Essential essays, volume 1: Foundations of cultural studies (pp. 347-361). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw7c7.20
Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A., & Willis, P. (Eds.). (1980). Culture, media, language. Hutchinson.
Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge University Press.
Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (Eds.). (2012). Comparing media systems beyond the western world. Cambridge University Press.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2022). The infrastructural turn in media and internet research. In P. McDonald (Ed.), The Routledge companion to media industries (pp. 132-142). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429275340
Hine, C. (2017). Ethnographies of online communities and social media: Modes, varieties, affordances. In G. Blank, R. M. Lee, N. G. Fielding, & C. Hine (Eds), The Sage handbook of online research methods (pp. 401-413). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473957992.n23
Hjarvard, S., & Søndergaard, H. (1998). Media research in Denmark. Sekvens: Film- og Medievidenskabelig Årbog, 265-274.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1944)
Jay, M. (1996). The dialectical imagination: A history of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 (2nd ed.). University of California Press.
Jensen, J. F. (1999). Interactivity: Tracking a new concept in media and communication studies. In P. A. Mayer (Ed.), Computer media and communication: A reader (pp. 160-187). Oxford University Press.
Jensen, K. B. (1986). Making sense of the news: Towards a theory and an empirical model of reception for the study of mass communication. University of Aarhus Press.
Jensen, K. B. (1994). Reception as flow: The “new television viewer” revisited. Cultural Studies, 8(2), 293-305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502389400490461
Jensen, K. B. (Ed.). (1996). Dansk mediehistorie [Danish media history] (Vol. 1). Samleren.
Jensen, K. B., & Helles, R. (Eds.). (2023). Comparing communication systems: The internets of China, Europe, and the United States. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003057055
Johansen, M. B. (2025). Culture war complexity: How contaminated words and heterodox positions challenge traditional dichotomies. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 38(1), 47-60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-024-09479-0
Kay, A., & Goldberg, A. (1999). Personal dynamic media. In P. A. Mayer (Ed.), Computer media and communication: A reader (pp. 111-119). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1977)
Kissinger, H. A., Schmidt, E., & Huttenlocher, D. (2021). The age of AI: And our human future. Little, Brown and Company.
Kozinets, R. (2019). Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research. Sage.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
Lipschultz, J. H., Freberg, K., & Luttrell, R. (Eds.). (2022). The Emerald handbook of computer-mediated communication and social media. Emerald.
Lomborg, S. (2021). Internetstudier og CMC [Internet Studies and CMC]. In M. F. Eskjær, & M. Mortensen (Eds.), Klassisk og moderne medieteori [Classical and modern media theory] (pp. 495-520). Hans Reitzels Forlag.
Lundby, K. (Ed.). (2009). Mediatization: Concept, changes, consequences. Peter Lang.
Mayer-Schönberger, V., & Cukier, K. (2013). Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. McGraw-Hill.
McLuhan, M. (2001). Understanding media (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Miller, C. R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70(2), 151-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638409383686
Morley, D. (1980). The ‘nationwide’ audience. British Film Institute.
Newcomb, H., & Hirsch, P. (1983). Television as a cultural forum: Implications for research. Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 8(3), 45-55.
Persily, N., & Tucker, J. A. (Eds). (2020). Social media and democracy. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108890960
Petersen, L. N., & Johansen, M. B. (2025). Spaces of hybridized prefatory extremism (HYPE) on social media. Social Media + Society, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251340145
Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2016). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. Sage.
Poell, T., Nieborg, D., & van Dijck, J. (2019). Platformisation. Internet Policy Review, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1425
Rogers, R. (2024). Doing digital methods. Sage.
Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. Columbia University Press.
Schizer, M. W. (2021, November 2). Kissinger says AI is ‘as consequential’ but ’less predictable’ than nuclearweapons. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/2021/11/12/henry-kissinger-says-ai-consequential-less-predictable-nuclear-weapons-1644508.html
Schäfer, M. S. (2025). Social media in climate change communication: State of the field, new developments and the emergence of generative AI. Dialogues on Climate Change, 2(1), 49-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768659241300666
Taher, A., Hoda, E. K., & Nourhan, T. (2025). Examining crisis communication in geopolitical conflicts: The micro-influencer impact model. Journalism and Media, 6(3), 116-136. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia6030116
van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2-14. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v1i1.70
van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & de Waal, M. (Eds.). (2018). The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.001.0001
Williams, R. (1974). Television: Technology and cultural form. Fontana.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Author and journal

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Author and Journal.
Articles published after January 1 2024 are licensed under CCBY 4.0.
Articles published until December 31 2023 are licensed under CCBYNCND.
Articles submitted to MedieKultur should not be submitted to or published in other journals.