Page 125 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Designs and Methods of Research

(1) Bring all the elements of the wider description of the research issue
into a hierarchical scheme.
Following Patzelt (1997, 40–5) and Esser (2000, 131), it can be helpful to
locate the research issue in a hierarchical model of social reality. Patzelt
(1997) starts from the level of structure of perception and information
processing. The second level consists of culture-specific knowledge such
as norms, values, and positions. A third level finds the single acting
individual and his or her personality. Having presented several levels,
from small groups to social organizations or institutions and states, the
scheme ends on an international or transnational level. It is obvious that
this sophisticated model is related to the micro-, meso-, and macrologic.
These different levels are subject to change, according to specific research
interests. For every study there must be a specific definition of where the
research issue is located, and of what belongs to which level in general.
After the research issue has been clearly determined, the surrounding
levels can be analyzed, in order to find social phenomena or constructs
strongly related to the research objects. A standard context factor that
should not be ignored is the dimension of history, which can bring valu-
able insight on many levels (Greenfield 1996, and applied in Rosengren
1992).
Example: In acontent analysis of soft journalism in different types
of daily press, the culture-specific press systems, press markets, le-
gal aspects of press, and so forth, should be located on the macro
level.The political system, historical development, economic sys-
tem, functions of the press, general legal and ethic framework,
and so forth could be used as context-constructs.Ona meso level,
the characteristics of the single newspapers, such as periodicity of
publication, area of circulation, political position, structure of re-
cipients, type of editorial system, and distribution channel could be
of interest. The micro level includes single editions of the papers
and characteristics such as layout, mean length of articles, and so
forth. The focus varies depending upon the research questions.
(2) Define the focus: What is important and what can be treated as less
important context factors?
Tobeclear,theestablishmentoftotalequivalencebetweendifferentstates
or cultures is impossible. One should define the basic and the context
social phenomena or scientific constructs of the scheme in the first step.
Equivalence in the basic part could be given higher priority than that

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