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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
This volume argues in favor of increasing consideration of international comparison in political communication research. From our point of view, the potential of comparative research to contribute to knowledge is promising in many respects (Blumler and Gurevitch 1995a):
Comparative analysis expands the existing database, and by doing so, simplifies generalization and refines theories of political communication research.
Comparative analysis provides an antidote to naïve universalism, countering the tendency to presume that political communication findings from one's own country also apply to other countries. It thereby helps to prevent parochialism and ethnocentrism.
Comparative analysis is a way of enhancing the understanding of one's own society by placing its familiar structures and routines against those of other systems. Comparison makes us aware of other systems, cultures, and patterns of thinking and acting – casting a fresh light on our own political communication arrangements and enabling us to contrast them critically with those prevalent in other countries.
Comparative analysis can be used as a key to discern general findings from culture-specific ones by rendering visible the specific identity of political communication arrangements within a given system. Only a cross-national perspective can draw our attention to the macrosocietal structures and imperatives that are taken for granted within our own system, and can thus only be detected from an outside perspective, that is, by comparing.
Another advantage of comparative analysis lies in the wealth of practical knowledge and experience it offers. As we gain access to a wide range of alternative options, problem solutions, and reforms, comparative research can show us a way out of similar dilemmas or predicaments – as long as these solutions can be adapted to our own national context.
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