Digital visibility and the role of mutual interaction expectations: Reframing the journalist-audience relationship through the lens of interpersonal communication

In the light of a new level of reciprocal visibility in the digital age, the journalist-audience relationship has fundamentally changed. Mutual expectations become visible or evolve anew. The question arises as to how these expectations and their (non-)fulfillment influence the journalist-audience relationship. Taking an interpersonal communication perspective by following expectancy violations theory, we focus on the level of interactions and propose a theoretical framework explaining how the interplay of journalists' and audience's mutual expectations affects their relationship. Our aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the journalist-audience relationship in digital media environments-and to provide indications for its functioning or failure.