ABSTRACT
Over recent decades, the study of media and communication policy has been attracting growing interest and is proving to be “a meaningful area of research and theory” (Reinard & Ortiz, 2005, p. 594). Notwithstanding, media and communication policy scholarship remains “fragmented, scattered across languages, academic disciplines and traditions that are often nationally or territorially bound” (Sarikakis, 2008, p. 308). For a long time, relatively few communication scholars engaged in comparative analysis of media policy and regulation. The majority of conference papers and articles dealing with media regulation were case studies, and international comparisons constituted a minority (Reinard & Ortiz, 2005, p. 597), certainly so in the U.S.. Yet, in the last two decades, more scholars, at first predominantly in Europe, have been taking a comparative angle. Interestingly enough, this parallels with the first media policy activities of the European Commission, which inspired scholars to engage in comparative research projects (Kleinsteuber, 2004, pp. 77–78). More recently, a trend towards more cross-country comparison is also emerging in other world regions.
