Page 84 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Comparing Mass Communication Systems

Media Formats, Media Contents, and Media Processes

Hans J. Kleinsteuber

Foralong time comparative media research led nothing more than a
shadowy existence in international communication. This corresponded
to agenerally low interest in activities in other parts of the world. If
at all, it was above all American developments that were included in
the analysis. However, even descriptions of the United States remained
rather superficial – this country often served the purpose of being ei-
ther a dream or a nightmare vision, that is, a projection of one’s own
thoughts, while at the same time its existing contradictions remained
unperceived. In a globalizing world, cross-national developments have
more immediate and weighty results at home: Satellites allow an insight
into programs from other continents, the Internet provides access to in-
formationfromeverycorneroftheworld.Moredirectlythaneverbefore,
we are confronted with other cultures and their media products. The in-
comprehensible must be understood and translated into the language
of our particular experience. Comparative research is deeply involved
in trying to gain an understanding of a politically and culturally frag-
mented world, which, of course, also shares common features. Both the
common features and the differences are at the core of every comparative
approach.

THE BASICS OF COMPARISON AND THE GENERATION
OF COMPARATIVE THEORY

Comparison can be seen as a universal category of human behavior in
everyday life (“comparing prices”) just as in the structured, methodolog-
ical procedures of science (e.g., legal and linguistic comparative studies).
Because people have been thinking about themselves and others, the fa-
miliar and the “foreign,” cross-national comparisons have been made.

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