Page 238 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Christina Holtz-Bacha

in particular on the part of the broadcasting stations. These findings thus
confirmed the powerful influence of the above-mentioned systemic vari-
ables. In addition, the design of the campaign, media reporting, and the
reactions of the electorate were influenced by time- and spacebound
factors leading Blumler to speak of “spatio-temporal ‘noise’” (1983b,
360).
However, besides the national differences and particularities the study
revealed some similarities between the nine countries that allow for gen-
eralization – at least for West European countries. For one thing, these
common features lie in a similar journalistic approach to political events.
Regardless of what the media were offered by the political actors, their
reporting concentrated more on aspects of the campaign itself than on
politicalissues.Theywerereluctanttogiveevaluativecommentsandpre-
ferred conflicts, personalization, and the national side of the campaign.
Moreover, the European Election study assessed the victorious advance
of television as a campaign channel – in all countries and in almost all
sociodemographic groups of the electorate. Finally, cross-national find-
ings supported the passive learning model of mass media effect with
television playing a central role.
In his review of the merits of the comparative approach Blumler
pointed out that political science could no longer exclude political com-
munication variables: “After all, a network of mobilizing phenomena,
linking communicator motivation with message volume, popular in-
terest in and exposure to the campaign and turnout rates, was one of
the most cross-nationally consistent patterns in our evidence at both
individual-citizen and national-system levels” (1983, 375). Because in
the 1979 European Election study, party activities and the climate of
opinion in the electorate emerged as influential factors for the way the
broadcasting stations dealt with the event, Blumler also made a plea for
future research to take into account dynamic variables in addition to
structural variables. He thus outlines a theoretical model that is simi-
lar to the dynamic-transactional approach that explains the production
of media content and its effects on the audience through interactions
(“transactions”) between communicators (journalists) and their audi-
ence on the one hand and between journalists and primary commu-
nicators (the political system in this case) on the other (cf. Fr¨ uh and
Sch¨ onbach 1982; Sch¨ onbach and Fr¨ uh 1984).
European elections provide a unique chance for internationally com-
parative research. Nevertheless, after the first direct election of the
European Parliament the opportunity has been put to little use and never

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