Page 101 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Comparing Mass Communication Systems

similar to programming in the interest of the general public, which is,
however, above all carried out by private organizations and financing
(Hamm 1998). Studies of this kind underline how difficult it often is to
create terminological unity and conceptional bases of comparison.

EXAMPLES OF COMPARATIVE METHODS IN THE AREAS OF
MEDIA TRANSFORMATION AND MEDIA TECHNOLOGY
Media Transformation
Media systems develop a natural capacity for self-preservation, even
if they find themselves in a state of complete reorganization in certain
phasesoftheirdevelopment.Thelastlargeregionthatfounditselfinsuch
aprocess largely simultaneously (and partially still ongoing) is the group
of countries whose systems used to be called real socialism.The Soviet
Union, as a center of power, had forced its dependent states to adopt its
concept of the media by using its dominant status. With the end of com-
munism, media systemsset out onthe road totransformation, whichcan
be seen as modernization according to a conscious, planned, catching-
upprocess.Actuallytransformationisacomparativetheoreticalconcept,
which came into existence during the analysis of earlier processes of de-
mocratization in Latin America and Southern Europe (Thomass and
Tzankoff 2001). Apart from parallel processes, media transformation
in (Central and) Eastern Europe also clearly differs: Poland now has a
largely westernized system; in Russia, the state and oligarchies have cre-
ated new dependencies (Trautmann 2002). Differently again, the media
in (former) Yugoslavia have become a great source of ethnic defama-
tion and the construction of enemy images with well-known destructive
consequences.

State Systems and Economic Actors
Areduction in importance of individual nation-states in favor of the
world economy, especially the increasingly powerful transnational com-
panies of the media and communications industry, can be observed
internationally. The strategies of the large, globally active media actors
are perfect for comparative analyses: AOL Time Warner for instance was
aiming at convergence and the synergetic combination of old and new
forms of media; Murdoch’s News Corporation was aiming at world-
wide digital pay TV and satellite distribution, and Bertelsmann (the
world’s biggest publishers) at the production of content. For example,
the Bertelsmann Group, actually based in the small German town of

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