ABSTRACT
This book provides fresh insights into established and evolving theoretical and empirical perspectives on media choice. Today, media play an essential role in our daily activities: in the workplace, we use the computer, write emails and letters, and make phone calls; during our leisure time, we watch television, surf the Web, listen to the MP3-player, go to the movies, play video games, and read the newspaper or magazines. Every day, we choose from an abundance of available media technologies and different content to pursue our goals-sometimes mindlessly and automatically, sometimes via a reflective and well-planned approach (cf., Sloman, 2002; Smith & deCoster, 2002; Strack & Deutsch, 2004). The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of recent developments in the modeling and explaining of media choices, seeking to answer the question of why and how people choose media. A recent rush of books has sought to provide overviews on users’ experiences during media exposure or media effects (Bryant & Oliver, in press; Berger, Roloff, & Roskos-Ewoldsen, in press; Nabi & Oliver, in press; Bryant & Vorderer, 2006; Preiss, Gayle, Burrell, Allen, & Bryant, 2006), yet the only book written with a similar goal to that of the present volume was the classic Selective Exposure to Communication, edited by Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant and published in 1985. Since this time, major developments have emerged within the main lines of research into media choice, including mood-management theory (Oliver, this volume), information-seeking (Hastall, this volume), uses-and-gratifications research (Krcmar & Strizhakova, this volume; Rubin, 2002), and selective exposure based on avoidance of cognitive dissonance (Donsbach, this volume). New, alternative approaches have also entered the field, some of which follow well-established psychological theories (e.g., LaRose, this volume; Hartmann, this volume), whereas others dwell on more specific mechanisms in conceptualizing media choice (e.g., Koolstra, Ritterfeld, & Vorderer, this volume; Fahr & Boecking, this volume; Wolling, this volume). With more than 20 years having passed since the publication of Selective Exposure to Communication, it is timely to provide an up-to-date overview of the field.
