Page 14 - Communication Theory and Research

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Introduction and Overview 3

theory. The main exception was Germany where several universities had established
programmes in communication science and the same was true of Belgium and
the Netherlands. However, from the early 1980s onwards more or less the whole
of Europe saw a rapid introduction and expansion of undergraduate and grad-
uate programmes in media and communication under various names, respond-
ing to demand from growing student numbers and the decisions of educational
authorities.
The precise reasons are hard to pin down, but a general explanation can be
found in the belief that an ‘information society’ was being born, in which skills
relating to communication of all kinds would be in demand. There was a practi-
cal correlate in the expansion of media industries and the growth of profession-
alization, leading to new work opportunities in the field of communications and
media. The enthusiasm for opening courses was not much restrained by the fact
that the background of most existing communication research (focusing on
media effects on society) was not very suitable or practical for meeting the needs
of an information society. Nevertheless, the study of mass media provided the
available core that could be expanded to deal with more relevant matters such as
organizational communication, understanding new technology and developing
practical skills of communication, advertising, public relations and journalism.
Particularly important and difficult was the need to bridge the gap between
the public communication functions of mass media and the private (person-to-
person) communication networks carried largely by telecommunications and
subsequently the Internet. Despite the difficulties, a new field of media and
communication teaching and research has been forged in Europe that marks a
break with its founding period.

European ‘exceptionalism’?

Despite the debt owed to the United States for founding principles of ‘commu-
nication science’ and the continuing influence wielded through literature and
the dominance of international scientific publication, a distinctively European
approach to media and communication has developed. This is not, as is some-
times caricatured, more qualitative or more critical (or more amateur), but differ-
ent in its agenda of issues and in the relative salience of different themes. The
distinctiveness stems ultimately from the fact that European media systems and
circumstances are different in many, although not all, respects. Virtually every
communication ‘problem’ takes on a somewhat different definition.
There is no space or need to delve too deeply into the characteristics of media
systems in Europe, but they are different because of the history and geography
of the region (see Hallin and Mancini, 2004). The first characteristic is that they
are very diverse in forms of organization and regulation, despite shared legal
and normative principles, especially in respect of freedom and regulation. Media
systems are surprisingly varied in terms of habits of use, despite similar social
and economic conditions. This opens the way for fruitful and even necessary
cross-national comparative analysis that is not really possible in North America.