Mapping Media Research Paradigms: Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly’s Century of Scientific Evolution

This retrospective review of nearly a century of publications in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) traces the maturation of media studies toward a scientific discipline. The field’s dominant paradigms—media effects and communicator uses—persist, adapt, and diversify over time, yielding actionable insights. Challenges include (a) bridging older and newer media theories, (b) harnessing data science, and (c) capitalizing on artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML). Future media research can conceptualize evolving three-dimensional interactions among media, people, and AI. We propose seven initiatives for the next century: revisiting classical theories, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, balancing descriptive and prescriptive theorization, nurturing indigenous theorizing, collaborating with industry, reverse theorizing with AI, and exploring and regulating AI’s role in media.