Methodological challenges in comparative communication research: Advancing cross-national research in times of globalization

Comparative communication research is conventionally perceived as the contrasting of different macro-level cases (e.g. world regions, political systems, subnational regions, social milieus, language areas, cultural thickenings) with respect to at least one object of investigation relevant to the field of communication. The comparative approach attempts to reach conclusions beyond single cases and explains differences and similarities between objects of analysis against the backdrop of their contextual conditions. It is important that the objects of analysis are compared on the basis of a common theoretical framework, and also that this is done by drawing on equivalent conceptualizations and methods. It should also be pointed out that spatial (cross-territorial) comparisons ought to be supplemented wherever possible by a longitudinal (cross-temporal) dimension in order to account for the fact that systems and cultures are not frozen in time, but constantly changing under the influence of manifold transformation processes (for a more thorough discussion of comparative analysis see Esser and Hanitzsch, 2012; Canel and Voltmer, in this volume)