Comparing Nations in Mass Communication Research, 1970-97

The purpose of this article is to assess critically, within the framework of the sociology of knowledge, how we come to know what we know in comparative international communication research. The point of departure is the collective output of comparative international communication enterprise - the published articles in six major communication journals through which theories, methods and findings have been diffused and the cumulated knowledge made possible during the past three decades. A major concern is the general pattern of methodological approaches and epistemological positions as manifested in the existing comparative international communication studies. The common patterns in comparative international communication research include lack of theoretical framework, non-equivalence of concepts and indicators, incomparability of units of analysis and unawareness of Galton's problem.