Page 33 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Comparing Political Communication

attitudes only apply in times of national consensus and not at all in times
of crisis.

TheModern Political Publicity Process in an
International Comparison
The second major theme of comparative communication research
referstotheemergenceofthemodernpoliticalpublicityprocess(Blumler
and Gurevitch 1995, 84). It is the common denominator of many studies
that tackle with the cross-national developments of political communi-
cation. Irrespective of whether one sees the cause in exogenous factors
of cultural diffusion or in endogenous factors of the transformation of
modern Western democracies, the thesis is that the mass media are an
independent force for the transformation of political communication.
Against the background of this presumption, a series of comparative
studies on the structures and processes, the actors and contents, and the
effects of political communication have emerged and are introduced in
the second part of this volume.
STRUCTURES OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION. Using classical approaches
in democratic theory, Pippa Norris (Chapter 6, this volume) argues that
democratization processes are conditional on the activities of the mass
media. Media systems must indeed meet a series of fundamental condi-
tions so that they can have a positive effect on democratic development:
media freedom and freedom of information, availability of uncensored
information, public control of the rulers as well as unhindered articu-
lation of different political standpoints can only be carried into effect if
the media are accessible and independent. Pippa Norris examines this
hypothesis by testing the correlations between different structural con-
ditions of media systems and indicators of good governance and hu-
man development in 135 countries across the world. The analyses sub-
stantiate that the normatively postulated positive relationship between
democratic government and human development and media systems is
manifest only in countries, that meet both conditions of an independent
free press and open pluralistic access for all citizens.
The standards expected from national media systems also apply, as
Sabine Lang (Chapter 7, this volume) ascertains, to communications
on the local level. Independent and pluralistic media are a particularly
important precondition for the complex and multilayered communi-
cation processes in the local public sphere. Sabine Lang discusses the
structures and developments of local media and emphasizes in terms of

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