ABSTRACT
Comparative research on political communication systems has become ‘something of a growth stock’ in recent years (Swanson, 1992a, p. 19). Creative conceptualization has flourished; specimens of cross-societal empirical enquiry have burgeoned (see Chapter 6). Nevertheless, a significant blind spot still detracts from this otherwise impressive record: how political communication systems develop over time has received little analytical attention, reflecting a more general tendency for macrosocial communication researchers to equate comparative work almost ‘exclusively with spatial distinctions’ (Blumler, McLeod and Rosengren, 1992, p. 8) to the neglect of temporal trends.
