Abstract
Increasingly, media communications cross national and cultural borders challenging assumptions about nation-states, national public spheres and national identities as predominant categories for framing analysis. This edited collection reflects the increasing importance of this field in media and communication studies and the very significant, heterogeneous contributions that German scholars are making theoretically, methodologically and empirically to the study of transnational communications. As the editors claim, work in this field in Germany has thankfully and decisively rejected both the conservatism of nationally bounded analysis and the euphoria that often comes with a simplistic understanding of globalization to produce conceptually nuanced and empirically informed analysis of inter- and transcultural communication.
There are four elements to the growth of the analysis of transnational and transcultural communication:
The extension of comparison between national media systems and the transnational causes of systemic change. Noteworthy here are studies of: comparative political communication (Esser, Pfetsch), of comparative journalism (Hanitzsch) and comparative work on framing (Rucht, Gerhards). Work also addresses the methodological implications of increasing transnational communication for comparison between states.
Development of theories of communication that were meant originally for national contexts so that they are fit for the purpose of transnational analysis. Important work here has included the transnationalizing of the concept of public sphere (Wessler, Brüggemann) and on the European public sphere (Koopmans, Risse, Trenz).
The importation of theories (transculturality, complex connections, hybridity) from other disciplines such as sociology, philosophy and cultural studies. Key contributions here have been made by Hepp and Krotz, who have thought outside the box of both the field of media and communication and the container of the nation-state.
An increasing cross-fertilization between area studies and media and communication so that we now have German colleagues specializing in, for example, Chinese media or Arab media (Hafez, Richter).
Contributions to this volume that represent the diversity of the work being undertaken in this area in Germany range from the meta-theoretical level (Hepp on the concept of transcultural communication) to the economics of cross-border media markets (Altmeppen et al.) to the fate of media in small states in an age of transnational media (Puppis et al.) to a transnational analysis of cultures of journalism (Brüggemann) to comparisons of how journalists from different countries/regions report specific events (Offerhaus, Gerhards/Shäfer, Adolphsen/Lück) to analysis of German audiences’ interest in foreign news (Von Pape et al.) and the effects of US TV series on German viewers (Schlütz).