Page 190 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

DISCOURSES ON POLITICS 179

feature of the American sample was that themes were used by several
respondents across several issues, whereas, in the Danish study, such a
conceptualization across issues was not as manifest as the use of
particular themes concerning particular news stories by several
respondents. This may be due to the media-centered design of the
Danish research, which emphasized the viewers’ understanding of
specific stories. And, this design may similarly explain why some
Danish respondents recounted specific items while others relied more
extensively on generalized themes. From a theoretical perspective,
however, the interesting common feature of the samples is the nature of
the themes, which are at once generalized yet concrete, practice-based
concepts that appear to derive from everyday experience. It is this
theoretical perspective which is explored further below.
Finally, we would like to emphasize that the findings do not represent
a comparison of two political cultures in any empirical sense. The
purpose of the chapter is rather a theoretical analysis and discussion of
the explanatory categories which emerged in two different studies of
political communication. Initially, one might expect to find few relevant
similarities. There are fundamental differences between the political
systems, ideological spectra, size and global roles of the United States
and Denmark. In addition, the studies focused on current political issues
generally (US) and on particular news stories (Denmark), and the
purposes and disciplinary frameworks of the analyses were different.
Nevertheless, we submit that the themes point to important structural as
well as substantive similarities in the political understanding of the two
samples. These findings, above all, suggest the need for more
comparative studies of political conceptualization.

FINDINGS: FOUR TYPES OF THEMES

Powerful others

Talking about public issues provides an important context for people to
see themselves in a social perspective, relating to what Mead (1934)
described as the generalized other. The interviewees suggest that other
social agents may not just be the source of role models and norms, but
may often be thought of in terms of power or control over the
individual. These are powerful others with some political role. Four
sources of power or control are referred to in the interviews; frequently
the individual’s own lack of control is emphasized.