ABSTRACT
Comparative studies lend themselves to, among other things, theory development about the place of media in the everyday lives of their audiences. The distinctive features of a particular aspect of media use can be identified more clearly when compared and contrasted across different cultural or historical contexts. In this respect, cross-cultural research may be a special case of social and human science generally. Beniger (1992), for one, has argued that all social-scientific research is essentially comparative and, further, that some of its main theoretical advances have been due to comparisons of seemingly disparate matters:
After we designate researchers who compare across time (historians) and across space (geographers), researchers who compare communications content (content analysts), organizations (organizational sociologists), institutions (macrosociologists), countries (international relations specialists), cultures (ethnologists), and languages (linguists), and researchers who compare individuals in terms of gender, race, social class, age, education, and religion, what remains? (p. 35)
Whereas an extended definition of ‘comparison’ can contribute to a broader theory of science for the communications field (see below), specific comparative projects such as the present one may offer a particular opportunity for theory development because such research, relying on a qualitative methodology, is designed to focus on ‘difference,’ seeking to develop, refine, and substantiate its systematics with continuous cross-reference to particular cultural and historical contexts. Accordingly, this concluding chapter discusses the contributions to theory development of the empirical findings on television news reception in different cultural settings. Apart from summarizing the main similarities and differences between the seven countries, this chapter presents a model of how reality may be conceived by viewers, depending on their contexts of socialization and acculturation. In addition, some policy issues in international communication are reconsidered in the light of the present findings; a comparison of these radically different countries may also serve to highlight a range of political choices and possible interventions. Finally, the chapter discusses the implications of the News of the World project for further research, with particular reference to the different
nature of ‘comparison’ within qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and, hence, the complementarity of each of these approaches for understanding how world cultures make sense of reality through the modern mass media.
