The situation in media and communication research.

This article presents a metatheoretical framework for understanding media behavior at the situational level, emphasizing the dynamic interplay of psychological states, environmental context, and media context in shaping moment-to-moment media use. It distinguishes three phases of media behavior—selection, processing, and disengagement—and argues that accounting for situational variability is essential to explain the majority of media behavior fluctuations. The framework highlights the importance of both objective and subjective aspects of environmental and media contexts, alongside intraindividual psychological states, and offers six guidelines for future research, including prioritizing ecologically valid, in situ methods and considering temporal boundaries. This approach aims to advance media and communication research by providing a comprehensive, flexible toolkit for studying media behavior within its natural settings.