Deconstructing Media and Communication Theories: Critical Assessment of the Advent of the New Media

This article argues that in the advent of the new media, there is no more monopoly of information by the mainstream media and as a result, the theories of influence are deconstructed and have lost much of their grip of information content to the new media. Through the new media, everyone everywhere can access, package, edit, and disseminate news content and other information in a timely, unrestricted manner. The study relied on deconstruction theory focusing on how the new media has created a communication model that mass communication theories did not foresee by putting forward the assumption that the media audience is the recipient and the media the ‘sole proprietor’ of information content. Specific communication theories, especially those that explain source-to-audience communication model were selected for critical review of their tenets and understanding of communication process. In the article, answers to the following questions were sought: What are the basic media and mass communication theories? Has new media consolidated existing theories and curved its own narrative? Are there any emerging trends or models in the processes, systems, uses and effects of new media? And what is the future of new media? Therefore, the article sought to analyze how new media, both as a technology and as a cultural object, has deconstructed tenets of traditional media theories.