Audience Appropriation of Journalistic Messages in Multi-Screen Environments: A Theory-Building Review
Abstract
This article develops a middle-range theory of audience appropriation of journalistic messages in multi-screen, platform-mediated environments through a theory-building systematic review of the literature. This study draws upon a corpus of peer-reviewed research in mass communication, journalism studies, platform studies, and digital media (2000–2025) in order to apply an abductive analytical strategy. This strategy is intended to identify recurring empirical regularities and integrate them into a coherent explanatory framework. The review systematically examines how audiences engage with media across platforms, focusing on processes of content selection, interpretation, and circulation under algorithmically structured conditions. Through iterative comparison and conceptual synthesis, the article identifies three fundamental mechanisms that structure audience appropriation: algorithmic selection, interactive modulation, and social circulation. Rather than conceptualising audience activity as isolated practices, the proposed framework explains appropriation as a socio-technical process shaped by platform architectures, cultural contexts, and levels of media literacy. The study proposes a series of theoretical propositions that are intended to provide a framework for future empirical research. The integration of fragmented empirical findings into a mechanism-based framework is a significant contribution to cumulative theory-building in mass communication, thereby advancing the understanding of audience–platform dynamics in contemporary journalism ecosystems.