Comparative political communication research in the digital epoch: A typology of national communication spaces

Abstract

This study makes a systematic effort to connect digital communication research with comparative political analysis. It explores the concurrence of global influence and national resilience in digital spheres, integrating the homogenizing tendencies of networked connectedness and globalization with heterogeneous configurations of national political communication spaces, which are strongly influenced by enduring social contexts. Drawing on the process-oriented actor-connector-interlocutor model, this study uses three sets of indicators to classify national political communication spaces. It conceptualizes three distinctive types of political communication spaces – “symmetrical and fully-fledged,” “vigorous but censored,” and “infertile and unresponsive” – and identifies their characteristics, internal logics, and their linkages to other communication spaces. It offers a systematic and applicable framework that may be used in future studies on cross-national comparisons of political communication processes in digital spheres.