Lost in a maze? On the philosophical problems with differential and individual-level susceptibility in research on media effects

This paper provides a philosophical discussion of moderators, mediators, and
person-specific differences (referred to as ‘hedges’) in research on media effects.
It is shown that while, historically, the reliance on hedges has been regarded as a
sign of theoretical sophistication (the ‘hedges-as-progress-perspective’), it has
left the field behind in a maze of epistemological problems. The paper therefore
urges to reinterpret the role of hedges as a sign of theoretical resilience instead of
sophistication (the ‘hedges-as-protection-perspective’). This shift is shown to
have substantive implications for how one describes and evaluates media effects
research – not just its history, but also its current state and its ambitions going
into the future.