Media Choice: A Theoretical and Empirical Overview (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780415964562)

This volume represents the next generation of research in media psychology, bridging selective exposure into a larger framework of choice in media usage. Considering the myriad media options available to use, this work seeks to answer such questions as: What mechanisms guide an individual's exposure to/choice of media? How can researchers model them? The questions why and how people decide to use media offerings are key in current communication scholarship. Research on selective exposure has addressed this area in the past, but the term 'media choice' is used here to represent any implicit/automatic/spontaneous or explicit/deliberate 'decisions' of the users and subsequent behavioral consequences that lead to a contact with a media stimulus.