Page 29 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Comparing Political Communication

majority vote system versus countries with proportional representation)
in different system contexts. The groups in field experiments comparing
different countries are then compared to see to which degree the systems
differ with respect to the dependent variables (e.g., personalization of
election campaign reporting). Such quasi-experimental research designs
certainlyforbidastronglycausalattributionofexplanatoryfactorsforthe
determined variance of the dependent variable. However, “soft control”
of the variance can be achieved by describing systematically the insti-
tutional and cultural contexts, and thereby fulfill the requirements “to
think structurally, to conceptualize in macro terms, to stretch vertically
across levels and horizontally across systems” (Blumler et al. 1992, 8).
Against the background of these specifications the understanding of the
comparative approach underlying this volume can be complemented
in the following way: Comparative political communication research
refers to a particular strategy to gain insight that allows for general con-
clusions, the scope of which cover more than one system and more than
one cultural context, and that explains differences (or similarities) be-
tween objects of investigation within the contextual conditions of the
surrounding systems or cultures.
The comparative research strategy in political communication is not
only associated with chances but also risks. The fundamental problem
of comparative research in the social sciences lies, as Werner Wirth and
Steffen Kolb (Chapter 5, this volume) point out, with the establishing of
functional equivalence. The authors show in their chapter that the pit-
falls of comparability appear on many levels so that researchers have to
make a series of far-ranging strategic decisions when conceiving studies.
Among these, the selection of countries and the determining of a quasi-
experimental design seem to be among the easier ones. The authors
rightly refer to the two strategies that are discussed as “most similar”
and “most different systems design” in the literature (Przeworski and
Teune 1970). Studies that are based on a “most similar design” make it
possible to study the cultural differences in most similar systems. Studies
that are based on a “most different design” unearth the similarities in the
systems that differ the most. It is more difficult, on the other hand, to
determine functionally equivalent constructs, indicators, and methods
in such a way that it doesn’t amount to contortions and the interpre-
tation of measurement artifacts as differences. The chapter by Wirth
and Kolb makes us sensitive to the fact that comparative research rests
on many prerequisite and implicit conditions. Moreover, the quality of
comparative studies regarding their potential to empirically determine

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