Thanks a lot. Good morning to everybody. I'm very honored to be here and also very afraid
because of this large audience, but also because during the preparation of this presentation,
even if I've been working on this topic for a long time, in the preparation of this presentation,
I changed many times my mind. And so I'm not so sure that at the end you will get some
sort of homogeneous view of my thoughts. I'm not sure that there will not be contradictions
within what I say. Kevin has used a lot the word transcultural, and my presentation is some sort
of play, some sort of etymological play around the word cross-national. So I will talk not about
transcultural, but cross-national comparative research. In some way, the title of, I have also
laser pen, but it does work. The title of my presentation is a little bit misleading. I will
not talk so much about comparative research in social science and media studies, but essentially
I'll talk about comparative research in political science, trying to compare comparative research in
political science with comparative research in media studies. So not so much about social science,
but essentially political science and media studies. I have two main assumptions in this
presentation. The first one is, I like to be on, as we say, on the giant shoulders. And I'm this
guy in this way, I'm using, first of all, Spencer in his textbook of 1976, when he says,
thinking without comparison is unthinkable. And the second assumption is that as many media
scholars have stated in many different occasions, there is a delay in comparative research in media
studies. But the fact is, is there a delay in comparative research in media studies? This is
the integration mark that I will put on this statement, that there is a delay in comparative
research in media studies. This is the etymological nature of my presentation, going into the assumption
that there is a delay in comparative research in media studies. After thinking a lot about this
topic, I'm not so sure that there is a delay in comparative research in media studies. We have to
be clearer about which kind of comparative research we are talking about. Now, let's go into the first
assumption that thinking without comparison is unthinkable. And again, Smerzer, how do we define
that Italy is a democratic country? Or how do we define that Germany is a rich country? The Smerzer
is telling us that when we say that Germany is a rich country, we say this because we compare
Germany with something else. When we say that in spite of Berlusconi, Italy is a democratic country,
the fact is that we are comparing Italy with something else, with some country that probably
is not democratic. So any kind of scientific inquiry needs is based on comparison. To give
a scientific statement, this is what Smerzer tells us, I have to compare a less or more democratic
situation or less or more densely populated country. I have to compare one thing with something
else. Otherwise, Smerzer is telling us this is not scientific inquiry, something else. A second
statement that I like a lot comes from a paper that Giovanni Sartori wrote in 1976. And this
is a paper another time on comparative research in political science. It's not a very well-known
paper, but I think it's an important paper that Sartori wrote in 1976. And in this paper,
it makes a differentiation between implicit and explicit comparison. Implicit is when I say that
Germany is a rich country. Without comparing Germany with something else, explicit, when I
carry on some research, empirical research, at the end of which I can demonstrate that yes,
Germany is richer than Italy. Because I have data, I have documents, so it makes this comparison
implicit and explicit comparative research. And at the end of this paper, Sartori tells us the one
who knows one country knows none. Another time, to be scientific, Sartori's point, we need to go
comparative. Now, what is my point, starting from these two statements from Smerzer and Sartori? My
point is that so far, media studies have been implicitly comparative. And this is why I am in
favor of some going to the etymology of the word comparative. While there is a delay as to cross
national comparative media studies, my presentation is all constructed about this differentiation
between implicit research, implicit research, implicit comparative research in media studies,
and explicit comparative research in cross national analysis. Let me go on with an important book by
Fetch and Esser, Comparing Political Communication. They state, it is surprising how long it took for
the comparative approach to be acknowledged as a necessary and useful strategy and tool for
communication research. Well, my point is that this delay, the fact that it took so long for
comparative research to be acknowledged as a tool for communication research, this statement has to
be better understood because, as I said, there has been a change, little by little, through the years,
communication studies have moved from implicit comparative research to explicit cross national
comparative research. There is a statement by Gurbich Blamle, they have been working, we all know,
they have been working a lot on comparative research, and in 2004, six years ago, they state
that finally the core concept of political communication research is maturity. This is a
very funny statement in some way, because six years before that statement, in 1989, they wrote
on the contrary that there was a delay in comparative research in media studies. So what
happened between 1989 and 2004, actually not six years, but five years, what has changed in five
years so that they moved from the delay that they were built in 1989 to the maturity of 2004. But
let me be more clear about what kind of delay we are talking. Let's go into political science. There
is a delay, of course, 1964, civic culture, Olman Verba, that is one of the most important books in
political science, but not in political science, also for communication scholars, comparative
political system, 1956, the study of comparative government, 1965, the logic of comparative social
inquiry, a textbook by Pizzowalski and Teone in 1970, which is a very important textbook for all
kinds of comparative research. So what media scholars were doing in those years, starting with
1956, 1964, were we interested in comparative research? Actually, not. We were not interested
in comparative research. I discussed this topic with Jurgen Wilke. I remember in Roslav, it was
a year ago, something like that. Even if there were already some attempts of comparative research,
essentially comparative research in media studies funded by UNESCO, nevertheless, most of research
in media studies were not of comparative nature. And this is why many others still talk about a
delay in comparative research. As a matter of fact, the only comparative, important comparative
study that I know in those same years in which political science were producing a lot of very
important landmark studies in comparative research, in those same years, media studies were just
producing just four tiers of a press, 1956, which was some sort of theoretical book, was not based on
any empirical data, as we well know, was essentially a theory, as a matter of fact,
they talk about four tiers of a press, a sort of theoretical inquirer on comparison among
different countries. But yes, there was a delay if we compare political science
and media studies on the other side. Why there was this delay? Which are the reasons for the delay?
First of all, the fact that a big part of media studies was based on the study on media effects.
At least at the very beginning of the field of media studies, media studies was based on the study
on the research, on the effects. Why? Essentially, this is my point, because there was money,
there was money for this research, foundation, big corporations, essentially in the United States,
and there are four, the sort of cultural imperialism that media scholars from the United States
were able to impose to other countries. Essentially, our field was based at the very
beginning of the field on the study of effects, because there was money coming from, as I said,
corporations, foundations, which were interesting knowing if I put money on this advertisement,
if I put money on this campaign, which are the consequences, which are the effects?
And they were asking, as we well know, to media scholars, which are the consequences, which are
the effects of the money that I put on the media message. So our field was based on the study of
media effects. The changeable nature of the media, while political institutions are more stable,
if not revolutions, but because a political system changes, it takes time.
There is a media are very changeable. New media are born, and very usually when new media
is born, we compare the old media with the new media. We in some sort, we compare all a new medium
because media change very frequently. The influence at the list of the very initial,
in the very initial years of our field of a behavioral approach, the influence of psychology
on media studies, the influence of Frankfurt School, and last point, the vocational nature
of much of our research. Think of journalism studies. Think how many journalism departments
are based not so much on empirical research, but on educating scholars. The vocational approach
of our field has been very, very important, very influencing the development of media studies
field. What is the consequence of all this factor? The main consequence is, and here comes my point,
that our field has been based for many years on single persons, while if we compare
media studies with political science, political science has been based on the system notion.
This is my point. At least for many years, at least for the years at the very beginning of our
field, we have been based on the single person notion, while political science on the other side
was based on the system notion, and this makes a big difference. But second point,
from implicit to explicit research, even within this opposition, even if for many years because
of the study of media effects, because of the changeable nature of media, because of the influence
of psychology, because of the vocational nature of our field, nevertheless our research has been
implicitly comparative, but not explicit, because it was based on single persons, while on the other
side political science was based on the system notion. What does it mean that for many years we
have been implicitly, implicitly, implicitly comparative? Think of this statement by
the people choice. In this study, particular attention was devoted to those voters,
in whom the process of attitude formation change could be observed. They were compared with the
constant people. Another time, even if the people choice, one of landmark in our study field,
was not based on comparative research, nevertheless, another time,
when Lazenstahl, Berleson, a good thing of attitude formation,
they do this because they compare those people who were constant with their opinion
with those people that changed their mind. Another time, the nature of our
study was implicit comparative, even if not explicit comparative. Why person?
Why implicit comparative? Because we have been looking for many years to consumption.
Another time, the study of effects on production, and all this notion are based not on the system
notion, but they are based on single person, how single person watch television. Kevin has given us
a lot of examples of what means looking at consumption, and here the notion of comparative,
how to compare the behavior of single persons. In a way, it's much more difficult than to compare
systems as political scientists did. Now, why in 2004, Blamer-Gurevich state that there has been
a tumultuous development? Because through the years, and essentially starting from the middle of 1990,
there has been a shift and a shift from, if you look at media studies, a shift from single person
level to system dimension. Little by little, we have been abandoning our focus based on the consumption
by single television, by single readers. The way in which people watch television,
we moved to a more aggregate level. We moved to system dimension.
Little by little, we moved from implicit to explicit comparative research.
Why this shift? Can I take another five minutes? Just five. I'll start later.
Why this shift? The more general change in scientific paradigms, the influence of cultural
studies, the influence of semiotics, the influence of political science that persuaded a lot of media
scholars not to look at it anymore at single person level, but to move towards
the system level, the system notion, the influence of structuralism, the study of professions,
sociology. Little by little persuade media scholars to look at how professions in media
field were organized. But also, and this is very important, our dissatisfaction with effect research.
For years, we have not been able to give some sort, even if it's not possible, to give some
sort of definitive answer, which are the effects of the message, which are the consequences of the
money that they put on advertisement. Media research has not been able to reach any definitive
answer to this question mark. Little by little, we decide that let's move to a different approach.
Let's move to a different topic. Let's abandon the single person level and move towards the system
level of our look. Why this shift? Of course, globalization. What Kevin Robbins has told us
so far, the influence of more the globalization. Think of Dallas, Katz and Leib's study on Katz,
and many other research on globalization of mass media message and how people in different
world, in different worlds, look at the message. When there's nationalization of scholars community
Korea, IMCR, occasion for meetings, and so the tumultuous development of cross-national comparative
research. Because essentially, we move from single person to system dimension as men that our research
has become not just comparative, but has become cross-national comparative research. Because
more and more we are comparing system and system. German media system, German journalists with Swedish
journalists, German journalists with Italian journalists, and so on. So we move from comparative
research implicit comparative research to some sort of explicit comparative research because we
adopted the notion system. An important point, funding. I think this is very important.
I'm finishing here in some way. This is the important reason for why we move from implicit
comparative research to explicit comparative research. Why we move from single person to system
notion. Because the funding of our research has changed. I don't know how many in this room are
involved with studies funded by EU. I can imagine many of us are involved with different research
funded for comparative research, which are based on cross-national comparative research.
Think of enlargement of a European Union. We are in Korea, European Association.
The enlargement of you towards East Europe has meant that European Union has put a lot of money
in looking at media and democracy, media and politics West East Europe. And this has meant
that we have to give some sort of cross-national view. Another time also the source of funding
has moved media scholars to abandon the level of single person to adopt the system notion.
Look at media in a more aggregate system. That means abandon the level of implicit
comparative research and move towards explicit comparative research. Abandon the comparative
research in media studies and move towards cross-national comparative research. Thanks a lot.