A long conversation we must have in person. There might be no way to measure effects or test claims in any definitive way. That’s the problem with humans who live in history and experience culture. There are volumes of critiques of effects studies in communication.

One reason we blend historical, quantitative, and qualitative work and limit the claims of results that show limited or no effects is that we grasp that isolating variables can be counterproductive and misleading.

Finding no effect might mean the study was too narrowly constructed. Of course, constructing a broad and long enough study might be too expensive or impossible. Capturing how people understand (or misunderstand) the world remains elusive and will for some time.