Explaining Processes or Predicting Outcomes: The Perils and Promise of the Effects Tradition in Political Communication.

The effects tradition in mass communication has faced considerable criticism, with questions directed at the epistemological and ontological basis of tracing the influence of media. Political communication research has not addressed these critiques as well as it might, with too many scholars relying on ecologically invalid experimental studies or structural equation modeling of cross-sectional data as the basis for making claims about effects. I contend that a focus on explaining processes should displace a concern with predicting outcomes, though this shift need not mean abandoning the concept of effects. Instead, advances in methods, design, and analysis have put communication researchers, especially those concerned with politics, in a unique position to examine media influence. More complex experimental studies, multi-wave panel surveys, and full network studies of reception and expression are adding to the field's ability to explore actual and perceived effects of mass media. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]