ABSTRACT
Over recent decades, comparative research between the media and political systems of different nations has grown steadily. Most academic studies today rarely exhibit the kind of “naïve universalism” Blumler and Gurevitch (1995: 75) once described of scholarly inquiries limited to discussing media systems within just a national focus. For the significance of theoretical interventions or empirical conclusions in journalism, media and communication research is increasingly understood in the context of broader international debates and trends. Academics have increasingly sought to collaborate on cross-national research projects, sharing their knowledge and understanding at international conferences, in scholarly journals and books (Esser and Hanitzsch 2012). Of course, the level of scholarly activity remains shaped by the economic influences of the richest nations – the US, in particular – but in order for debates to gain traction and credibility within scholarship new empirical observations or theoretical insights are expected to be tested cross-nationally. Moreover, as scholarship has become more globalized, developments in the most advanced democracies – again, most notably the US – have generally been understood as potentially shaping the future direction of other countries.
