Digital Footprints in Mass Communication: Networking the Concepts

This paper is an overview on the theory development in media studies and mass communication in the digital media ecosystem. It analyses the progress of theory building in mass communication with special focus on how media negotiates everyday life in a digital environment in order to make meanings. The supremacy of technology in media discourses as illustrated in the works of Toronto School of thought is the basis for this discussion. The paper tries to capture the nuances of ‘self’ in mass communication through the scholarship under new media theory and approaches the media life perspective as a new window to look at the swift changes in the digital media arena. The paper further argues that ‘Social Media Curation and Reproduction’ in place of conventional SMCR model must be problematized in the backdrop of demassification as put forth by Toffler. It put forth an idea that through media life, people experience a ‘remassification’, i.e., active audience act upon digital technology with or without agency and freedom.

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