Charting the development of a field: A systematic review of comparative studies of journalism

Abstract

Comparative studies of journalism have gained considerable currency in recent years, and are often considered to be at the cutting edge of journalism studies. Yet, there has been relatively little systematic examination of the growth of comparative journalism studies or in-depth analysis of the power relations within the field in relation to, for example, trends in authorship or dominant methodologies and paradigms. This article reports the results of a systematic review of comparative studies of journalism published between 2000 and 2015, a key growth period for the field. By examining in detail a population of 441 articles published in 22 key journals, we demonstrate that comparative journalism studies is a dynamic field that has developed considerable structure over time, and outline some key patterns, such as a continuing focus on Western authorship, the study of Western countries and elite media, quantitative methods of analysis and political aspects of journalism.

Online Participatory Journalism: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Due to the earlier onset of an economic crisis in legacy media in the US (Nielsen, 2016), participation may have played a larger role for economic-strategic reasons-i.e., to acquire free content, build audience loyalty, optimize con- tent selection, and generate traffic (Anderson & Revers, 2018;Batsell, 2015;Borger et al, 2013;Holton & Belair-Gagnon, 2018)-in North American before it did in European journalism. The shift in focus-and the earlier presented shift in authorship-could also be a reflection of the more general trend Hanusch and Vos (2019) find in their longitudinal review of comparative studies of journalism: "The pole of power is shifting from the US to Europe" (p. 19). 12% of all studies are comparative, but only 6% examine countries from multiple world regions, which reflects the practical challenges of comparative research.…”

A reflection on explanatory factors for COVID‐19: A comparative study between countries

“…Teune and Przeworski (1970) suggest that comparative studies are useful in analyzing differences in policy but also practice in society. This means that it is a useful technique to use in order to understand collective differences that then can be studied in more specific detail (Hanusch & Vos, 2020). Increasingly comparative studies are being utilized in business research in order to provide more helpful information about country contexts (Kaplan & Kinderman, 2020).…”

Interpretations of the journalistic field: A systematic analysis of how journalism scholarship appropriates Bourdieusian thought

“…This study investigates the use of Bourdieusian thought in journalism research over the past 20 years through a systematic literature review, employing a design that includes a content analysis, a textual analysis and a bibliometric citation analysis. Even though traditional literature reviews should be as comprehensive as possible, they will always be subjective and selective to some extent (Hanusch and Vos, 2020). Systematic literature reviews in contrast, strengthen our understanding of knowledge production by increasing the scope and being replicable (Mallett et al, 2012).…”