Abstract

Concepts of interaction theory play a central role in media research that deals with the relationship between media offerings and media reception. They cover the diverse activities of media users as well as the adaptation strategies utilized of mass communication. The first part of this article briefly describes where these broad and poorly defined concepts of interaction can be found in different areas of media research. One of the problems is deciding in which cases media communication can be analyzed using interaction models. Another problem is the lack of differentiation between how people deal with media offerings and how media offerings refer to their users. The second part of the article develops a new perspective in media research, which allows the aspects mentioned above to be assigned to processes of media socialization on the one hand, or to the inclusion by mass communication on the other hand. On this basis new research projects can be designed that represent a necessary addition to the established analysis of media reception and media socialization. This research focuses on processes of inclusion as they can be observed in mass communications, mainly in television. This new component of a sociological media theory demonstrates how mass communication itself is able to create an image of its addressees and, in this way, adapt to an anonymous public.