Page 27 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Comparing Political Communication

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON AS A RESEARCH STRATEGY
AND METHODOLOGY

The acknowledgment of the relevance of communication in political
processes is of course not synonymous with the successful implementa-
tion of comparative studies. A widening of the perspective thus implies
research designs in which a variety of exogenous influencing factors that
are difficult to control must be considered. As a matter of principle,
various methodological conditions are to be set when a comparative
perspective is taken.
Comparative research lives up to the rule that “every observation is
without significance if it is not compared with other observations.” It can
besaid,arguingtheoreticallyfromthepointofviewofepistemology,that
we form our ideas through comparisons. We know that apples are not
pears because we have compared them with each other. An object only
develops an identity of its own if it is compared with others” (Aarebrot
and Bakka 1997, 49). This means that we observe at least two populations
when making comparisons. In the field of political communication we
usually compare political systems that can be comprehended as nation
states, regional entities, political subsystems, or parts of subsystems (e.g.,
local areas of communication or elite or media cultures). Comparative
political communication research is also always a cultural comparison.
Eventhoughmanystudiesthatcompareacrosscountriesarebasedonthe
assumption that culture and nation overlap, this must not disguise the
factthatbothparametersarenotnecessarilycongruent.Itisoftenthecase
that contradictory and discrepant processes and phenomena of politi-
cal communication appear within one single political system taking the
form of a nation state, as is shown by comparing journalistic cultures, for
instance, in Francophone and Anglo-American Canada (Pritchard and
Sauvageau 1997) or by comparing media effects in Western and Eastern
Germany (Chapter 13, this volume). Cultures constitute communities
of values in the broadest sense. In comparative political communication
research, therefore, it is possible to study specific subcultures and their
value structures such as the political communication cultures emerg-
ing between journalists and political spokespeople in different political
systems (Chapter 15, this volume) or the local communication cultures
within their specific media environments across countries (Chapter 7,
this volume).
Although the nation-state is by no means the only reference frame for
comparative studies, we adhere to the term comparative in this volume

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