Media and Communication Studies: A Critical Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the problematic of media and communication studies and the need to renew its conceptual and methodological approaches in order to be able to integrate the many changes that the modern media ecology has brought about. The approach of this ecology with inappropriate concepts and knowledge frameworks leads to many distortions. The paper argues that technological transformations in the media ecology have reshaped the actors' positions, for example, users can interact with the media and contribute to the production of their content. It also shows the fall of the boundaries between concepts such as the product and the public, where many people create adaptive content from the digital media. Current media and communication studies are, for the most part, a reflection of a historical period characterized by the dominance of traditional media. Today, however, there is a different scene. Digital media have imposed themselves, and traditional means have had to renew their performance in fear of decline and decay. It is a birth of a new era in the history of the media characterized by a rethinking of concepts such as audience, communication, production and distribution. This new ecology calls for reviewing, updating and renewing the concepts, visions and approaches of media and communication studies by adopting new concepts and methodological approaches that are compatible with the current media ecology in order to enable the academic field and its general public to better understand the contemporary media ecology in all its complexity.