Toward an integrated framework of media dependency: a theoretical review of uses–dependency and new media dependency models

Abstract

This theoretical review brings together and explores the evolution and real-world applications of three key frameworks in media dependency theory: the classic Uses and Dependency Model, adaptations for Internet use, and the New Media Uses and Dependency Effect Model. Over the past fifty years, scholars have expanded dependency theory from its original focus on the effects of mass media in traditional broadcast systems to address the increasingly interactive, accessible, and habitual nature of digital media. The foundational model explains how media influence arises from purposeful dependency relationships that connect audiences, media, and society, with audience goals centering on understanding, guidance, and entertainment. As digital technology transformed the media landscape, newer models adapted these principles to capture the unique features of online platforms, such as interactivity, the breadth of information, and constant accessibility. These adaptations shifted attention from broad media systems to individual platforms and their specific qualities. Drawing on a transparent, systematically documented search of communication and interdisciplinary databases covering 1976 through 2026, the review synthesizes theoretical, empirical, and critical scholarship on media dependency and connects it to contemporary developments in platformization, algorithmic curation, recommender systems, AI-mediated communication, and platform governance. The latest model goes further by considering how routine media habits shape dependency, outlining pathways through which everyday use leads to changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Throughout these developments, all three frameworks maintain a focus on how people rely on media to achieve their goals, while incorporating new factors like platform features, perceived usefulness, and habitual patterns to improve how we measure and test media effects today. Beyond synthesis, the review advances an original theoretical contribution: the Integrated Media Dependency Framework (IMDF), a multi-level conceptual model—presented in a figure and articulated through seven testable propositions—that unites the goal structure of the foundational model, the platform-level specificity of Internet adaptations, the habit-mediation logic of the New Media model, and a newly theorized algorithmic-agent layer capturing dependency on curation systems and generative AI. The framework is explicitly positioned relative to Communication Infrastructure Theory, Media Repertoire Theory, and Affordance Theory. Its distinct contribution is stated explicitly: an adaptive algorithmic-agent stratum of dependency targets, a recursive behavioral–algorithmic feedback loop, a reconceptualization of dependency as jointly constituted by intensity and repertoire distribution, and the treatment of platform governance as a testable macro-level moderator. This review also highlights challenges in current research, identifies contradictory findings and unresolved debates, suggests areas for future study, and discusses how these models can be integrated with other communication theories to better understand media's role in the digital age.