Bringing together the perspectives of more than 40 internationally acclaimed authors, The Handbook of Global Media Research explores competing methodologies in the dynamic field of transnational media and communications, providing valuable insight into research practice in a globalized media landscape.
* Provides a framework for the critical debate of comparative media research
* Posits transnational media research as reflective of advanced globalization processes, and explores its roles and responsibilities
* Articulates the key themes and competing methodological approaches in a dynamic and developing field
* Showcases the perspectives and ideas of 30 leading internationally acclaimed scholars
* Offers a platform for the discussion of crucial issues from a variety of theoretical, methodical and practical viewpoints

Ingrid Volkmer is Associate Professor and Head of the Media and Communications Program at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has held visiting positions at the LSE, Harvard and MIT. She has widely published in the area of transnational political communication and implications on societies and cultures.

Notes on Contributors viii

Introduction 1
Ingrid Volkmer

Part I History of Transnational Media Research 7

1 Comparative Research and the History of Communication Studies 9
John D.H. Downing

2 Global Media Research and Global Ambitions: The Case of UNESCO 28
Cees J. Hamelink

3 Global Media Research: Can We Know Global Audiences? A View from a BBC Perspective 40
Graham Mytton

Part II Re-conceptualizing Research across Globalized Network Cultures 55

4 Media and Hegemonic Populism: Representing the Rise of the Rest 57
Jan Nederveen Pieterse

5 Digitization and Knowledge Systems of the Powerful and the Powerless 74
Saskia Sassen

6 Media Cultures in a Global Age: A Transcultural Approach to an Expanded Spectrum 92
Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp

7 Deconstructing the "Methodological Paradox": Comparative Research between National Centrality and Networked Spaces 110
Ingrid Volkmer

8 Footprints of the Global South: Venesat-1 and RascomQAF/1R as Counter-hegemonic Satellites 123
Lisa Parks

9 Securitization and Legitimacy in Global Media Governance: Spaces, Jurisdictions, and Tensions 143
Katharine Sarikakis

10 Emerging Transnational News Spheres in Global Crisis Reporting: A Research Agenda 156
Maria Hellman and Kristina Riegert

11 The "Global Public Sphere": A Critical Reappraisal 175
Kai Hafez

Part III Supra- and Sub-national Spheres: Researching Transnational Spaces 193

12 Middle East Media Research: Problems and Approaches 195
Dina Matar and Ehab Bessaiso

13 Media Industries and Policy in Digital Times: A Latin American Perspective of Notes and Methods 212
Rodrigo Gómez García

14 Methodological Pluralism: Interrogating Ethnic Identity and Diaspora Issues in Southeast Asia 227
Umi Khattab

15 "Citizen Access to Information": Capturing the Evidence across Zambia, Ghana, and Kenya 245
Gerry Power, Samia Khatun, and Klara Debeljak

16 India and a New Cartography of Global Communication 276
Daya Kishan Thussu

17 What Is Governance? Citizens' Perspectives on Governance in Sierra Leone and Tanzania 289
Vipul Khosla and Kavita Abraham Dowsing

18 Forced Migrants, New Media Practices, and the Creation of Locality 312
Saskia Witteborn

Part IV Identifying Spheres of Comparison in Globalized Contexts 331

19 Researching the News Agencies 333
Oliver Boyd-Barrett

20 Global Internets: Media Research in the New World 352
Gerard Goggin

21 Media, Diaspora, and the Transnational Context: Cosmopolitanizing Cross-National Comparative Research? 365
Myria Georgiou

22 Post-colonial Interventions on Media, Audiences, and National Politics 381
Ramaswami Harindranath

23 Media Research and Satellite Cultures: Comparative Research among Arab Communities in Europe 397
Christina Slade and Ingrid Volkmer

24 Stardust in the Audience's Eyes: Weddings as Media Events in Visual Media and the Construction of Gender 411
Eva Flicker

Part V Comparative Research and Contexts of Challenges 433

25 Lost, Found, and Made: Qualitative Data in the Study of Three-Step Flows of Communication 435
Klaus Bruhn Jensen

26 Finding Yourself in the Past, the Present, the Local, and the Global: Potentialities of Mediated Cosmopolitanism as a Research Methodology 451
Ruth Teer-Tomaselli and Lauren Dyll-Myklebust

27 Europe: A Laboratory for Comparative Communication Research 470
Claes H. de Vreese and Rens Vliegenthart

28 The Global-Local in News Production Tales from the Field in the "Shoes" of Journalists 485
Lisbeth Clausen

29 "Africa Talks Climate": Comparing Audience Understandings of Climate Change in Ten African Countries 504
Anna Godfrey, Miriam Burton, and Emily LeRoux-Rutledge

30 Organizing and Managing Comparative Research Projects across Nations: Models and Challenges of Coordinated Collaboration 521
Frank Esser and Thomas Hanitzsch

31 Benefits and Pitfalls of Comparative Research on News: Production, Content, and Audiences 533
Akiba A. Cohen

Index 547