Individual and cross media communication in converging media environments : a review of research on the antecedents and effects of communication using various media in marketing contexts

Abstract

In this report we review research focusing on the antecedents of media adoption and effects of adopting different media. Both research on media adoption within organizations and media adoption in everyday life contexts is included in the review. Most of the research reviewed has focused on antecedents and effects of adopting individual media. Only a few studies have focused antecedents or effects of combining the use of several media - integrated media environments. Although we want to focus on an integrated media environment in this report, studies of individual media consumption have been included in the review. The reason for including these studies is that the understanding of antecedents and effects of single media adoption is valuable for understanding adoption of media in an integrated media environment. The review indicates a lack of research on the antecedents and effects of adoption of media in an integrated media environment. However, two theoretical and empirical traditions seem to be dominant in research on integrated media environments. Integrated marketing communication (IMC) has focused the effects of using different media in combination to increase the persuading effect of marketing communication. In addition to the IMC tradition, the uses and gratification tradition has focused on gratification overlap between different media. Most of these studies have been undertaken in everyday life contexts.