Cross-national comparative research is a costly and time consuming process. To be worth the effort, comparative research should be more than simply studying similar phenomena in different contexts. When political communication phenomena, like campaign professionalization, newspaper readership or game framing are compared across countries and differences are found, these differences are obviously real on a descriptive level. However, one cannot automatically attribute these differences, in a causal relationship, to the country, context or system in which they occur. This paper argues that one of the keys to more cumulative progress in comparative political communication research is a more thorough theorizing of this link between the macro level and the micro level.
Building on the statement by Blumler and Gurevitch (1995: 73) that comparative political communication research should be “a matter of trying to take account of potentially varying macro-social system-level characteristics and influences on significant political communication phenomena”, this paper argues that the comparative approach benefits from a clear conceptualization of (1) system level characteristics, (2) the relevant political communication phenomenon at the micro level and (3) the mechanisms linking the two.
To conceptualize system level characteristics and their influence on political communication, the paper first looks at debate within political science about the case-based versus variable-based approach to comparative research. This is followed by a discussion of three macro-level characteristics which are central in political communication research (media system, journalistic culture and political information environment). The paper analyzes how previous studies have theorized the link between these system-level characteristics and lower level political communication phenomena. Based on this analysis, new research questions are identified. A taxonomy is presented with four types of comparative designs which can address these questions.
The paper ends with a meta-discussion of the question how comparative political communication research can develop the “capacity to identify common regularities that prove robust across widely varied contexts” (Norris, 2009: 322). Rather than searching for broad generalizations, the paper proposes that the field should follow the path of other areas of political communication (like political agenda setting or individual-level media effects) and study the conditionalities of general propositions. Following this reasoning, the goal of comparative political communication research should be to develop and test middle-range theories on the conditioning effect of macro-level contexts on the political communicators, media outlets or audiences within this context.
