Digital communication, the electronic transmission of information, reflects and influences consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and shopping journeys. Thus, data stemming from digital communication is an important source of insights for retailers, manufacturers, and service firms alike. This article discusses emerging trends and recent advances in digital communication research, as well as its future opportunities for retail practice and research. The authors outline four consumer–retailer domains relevant to digital communication, which in turn frame their discussion of the properties of communication dynamics (e.g., trends, variations) within messages, communicators, and their interaction, as well as communication multimodality (i.e., numeric heuristics, text, audio, image, and video). These factors are critical for understanding and predicting consumers’ behaviors and market developments. Furthermore, this article delineates conceptual and methodological challenges for researchers working in contexts that feature dynamics and multimodality. Finally, this article proposes an agenda for continued research, with the goal of stimulating further efforts to unlock the “black boxes” of digital communication and gain insights into both consumers and markets.

数字通信是信息的电子传输，反映并影响消费者的感知、态度、行为和购物旅程。因此，来自数字通信的数据是零售商、制造商和服务公司等获得洞察力的重要来源。本文讨论了数字通信研究的新兴趋势和最新进展，以及零售实践和研究的未来机会。作者概述了与数字通信相关的四个消费者-零售商领域，这反过来又构成了他们对消息、传播者及其交互中的传播动态特性（例如趋势、变化）以及通信多模态（即数字启发式、文本、音频、图像和视频）。这些因素对于理解和预测消费者的行为和市场发展至关重要。此外，本文描述了在动态和多模态背景下工作的研究人员在概念和方法上面临的挑战。最后，本文提出了继续研究的议程，目的是激发进一步的努力来解锁数字通信的“黑匣子”，并深入了解消费者和市场。