Daniel C. Hallin - Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: December 5, 2011
Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World offers a broad exploration of the conceptual foundations for comparative analysis of media and politics globally. It takes as its point of departure the widely used framework of Hallin and Mancini's Comparing Media Systems, exploring how the concepts and methods of their analysis do and do not prove useful when applied beyond the original focus of their 'most similar systems' design and the West European and North American cases it encompassed. It is intended both to use a wider range of cases to interrogate and clarify the conceptual framework of Comparing Media Systems and to propose new models, concepts and approaches that will be useful for dealing with non-Western media systems and with processes of political transition. Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World covers, among other cases, Brazil, China, Israel, Lebanon, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Thailand.

Reviews
"This is a most welcome sequel to the editors' widely acclaimed and often cited Comparing Media Systems (2004). Whereas that earlier work derived three models of political communication systems, including four dimensions along which they could be compared, from analysis of 18 advanced capitalist democracies in Western Europe and North America, this publication branches out, ambitiously and insightfully, into other parts of the democratic world, including Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin, America, Asia and Africa. It is based on academic experts' case studies of the countries concerned, which consistently attain high standards of empirical and conceptual presentation. The results provide a rich mix of confirmation and critique of Hallin and Mancini's original framework plus ideas for other models, including hybridized ones. This book will arouse much interest, advance comparative understanding, and provoke debate."-Jay Blumler, University of Leeds

"Few other books in the field of communication have left a deeper impact than Hallin and Mancini's Comparing Media Systems. This immensely thoughtful followup publication debates the usefulness of their typology to cases outside the scope of their original analysis. It is a rare and impressive example of conceptual improvement and broader integrative theorizing in the still-young literature on comparative communication. This volume proves how theoretical exchange between scholars from diverse national backgrounds and divergent schools of thought can contribute substantially to comparative theory-building. The intention of this volume is not to institutionalize a single conceptual framework, but to establish a broad, multi-perspectival tradition of comparative analysis. It is highly successful and elevates the comparative study of media systems to a new level."-Frank Esser, University of Zürich

"Hallin and Mancini's dialogue between the 'most dissimilar systems' of the non-Western world and the 'most similar systems' of the Western world is a seminal contribution to comparative media studies."-Chin-Chuan Lee, City University of Hong Kong

"This book is an intelligent and thoughtful expansion of the seminal framework developed in Comparing Media Systems to media systems beyond the western world. Hallin and Mancini have convened an impressive group of authors who challenge, refine, and occasionally reject, their framework through a combination of detailed case studies of some key countries and comparative overviews. The book represents a bold and intellectually exciting enterprise in the area of comparative media research. It will be of interest to social scientists and to media and journalism scholars seeking to understand media systems and the linkages to media practice beyond Europe and North America.-David A. L. Levy, Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

About the Authors
Daniel C. Hallin is Professor of Communication at the University of California at San Diego and served as Chair of the Communication Department from 2006 to 2011. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The 'Uncensored War': The Media and Vietnam; We Keep America on Top of the World: Television News and the Public Sphere; and, with Paolo Mancini, Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. The last book has received the Goldsmith Book Award from the Shorenstein Center on Press and Politics, the Diamond Anniversary Book Award from the National Communication Association and the Outstanding Book Award from the International Communication Association. Professor Hallin has been awarded the Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award by the Political Communication Division of the American Political Science Association, a Mercator Professorship of the German National Science Foundation and fellowships at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His research covers media and politics, media and war, media and public health, the history of journalistic professionalism and comparative media systems, particularly in Europe and Latin America.
Paolo Mancini is Professor in the Department of Institutions and Society at the University of Perugia. He is chair of the undergraduate program in communications sciences and chair of the Ph.D. program in Social and Political Theory and Research at the University of Perugia. Mancini has served as a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego and in 1995 he was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University. In 2001, Mancini was a Fellow at the Erik Brost Institute, University of Dortmund and in 2009 he was a Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Mancini's major publications include Videopolitica: Telegiornali in Italia e in USA; Come vincere le elezioni; Sussurri e grida dalle Camere; Politics, Media and Modern Democracy, with David Swanson; Manuale di comunicazione politica; Il sistema fragile; Sociologie della comunicazione, with Alberto Abruzzese; and Elogio della lottizzazione. In 2004, with Daniel C. Hallin, he was the co-author of Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics.