Comparative Research on Media and Democracy

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the state of research and the existing empirical literature regarding media and democracy. This is of course a very wide field. It is therefore first of all important to narrow the subject down to what is really of interest to the present study. In this sense, it needs to be emphasized once again that I am primarily concerned with empirical studies with a comparative focus and a broad perspective of media and democracy. This is further outlined in Section 2.1. The remainder of the chapter then consists of a discussion of the most important contributions within this delimited area of research. The discussion is divided into two sections. Section 2.2 deals with studies which assess the democratic performance of mass media and media systems across countries, adopting either a qualitative or a quantitative approach. This speaks to the first of the two research questions highlighted in Chapter 1 and, accordingly, the first part of this book. Section 2.3, by contrast, presents different strands of research which examine the influence of media-related factors on various democratic and political outcomes in a cross-country perspective. This is relevant for the second research question from Chapter 1 and the second part of the book, respectively.