Media and Ambivalence| Media and Ambivalence: The Value of a Quandary—Introduction

Abstract

Ambivalence is often associated with indecision or ineptitude, capable of paralyzing our ability to make decisions and take sides. For institutions such as the media and academia, which privilege messages that project certainty, ambivalence is a particularly terrifying concept. Even so, the concept has been central to how media scholars have thought about messages, reception, effects, and technologies. While some consider that ambivalence undercuts and undermines the media environments it inhabits, others consider it is a necessary complication of the overused binaries of late modernity. This article argues that the presence of ambivalence in contemporary media environments may well be the best we can get in times of extreme polarization.