Comparing Communication Systems: The Internets of China, Europe, and the United States PDF
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COMPARING COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS Emphasizing the perspective of ordinary users, this book compares the uses of the internet in three centers of the global economy and world politics: China, Europe, and the United States. It examines the internet as the current center- piece of communication systems encompassing interpersonal communication, mass communication, and social networking. The internet is unique as a medium in that it hosts both “old” media and “new” media. As such, it also integrates the prototypes of one-to-one (interpersonal) and one-to-many (broadcast) along with many-to-many (social media) and many-to-one (surveillance) communication. This book considers how all these media and communicative practices are embedded in social structures, cultural traditions, and historical legacies of place. Comparing conditions in China, Europe, and the United States, the chapters provide an overview of the distinctive regulatory regimes framing the internet and its local uses, the place of the internet in everyday life in each setting, and how the internet serves as a resource for political, economic, and cultural actions and interactions. Linking comparative analysis of media and social systems with ethnographic studies of internet usage on the ground, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars working in global media, intercultural communication, and internet studies. Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Professor, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Publications include A Theory of Communication and Justice (Routledge, 2021) and Media Convergence: The Three Degrees of Network, Mass, and Interpersonal Communication, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2022). Rasmus Helles, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, Surveillance & Society, the International Journal of Communication, and the European Journal of Communication. “The Peoples’ Internet project embodies all that is admirable about excellent research. Presenting data from seven countries across three con- tinents, its scale is matched by its theoretical heft, methodological inno- vation, and analytical rigour. The rich insights we can plumb from this ambitious study will fortify our understanding of how communication is evolving in an intensely connected yet deeply fractious world. The authors deftly explore the contestation between structure and agency, the tussle between commercial imperatives and social good, and the challenge of alienation within community.” Sun Sun Lim, Professor, Singapore University of Technology and Design “Jensen and Helles do the brave work of imagining the internet as a global information infrastructure that serves us all in ways that we understand and want. The internet envelops us and frames our engagements with reality, it provides us with forms of action and interaction, and it can exacerbate or help overcome our cognitive biases. Jensen and Helles are critical but not fatalistic in their theorizing – an internet that helps us produce, maintain, repair and transform reality is still possible.” Philip N. Howard, Professor, Oxford Internet Institute “This is an exceptional book. Placing communicative practice at the center, it weaves the material, the institutional, and the cultural to provide an empirically based comparison of communication systems. Its methodo- logical sophistication, international scope, and theoretical richness make it a unique and remarkable contribution to the study of contemporary communication.” Fernando Bermejo, Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University “What does the internet do to us – the people – and how do we use it across different regions of the world? How does it affect our social life, our iden- tity, and our ability to engage in society? These are some of the important questions that this book explores. Based on diverse empirical data from Europe, the US, and China, the book provides important new insights into people’s everyday communication as well as the local regulation that shapes such practices across different regional contexts. Congratulations to the Peoples’ Internet project for helping us understand how the internet’s material, social, and economic infrastructures interact with communica- tive practices on the ground.” Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Senior Researcher, Danish Institute for Human Rights COMPARING COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS The Internets of China, Europe, and the United States Edited by Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles Cover image: Rawpixel/Getty Images First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jensen, Klaus Bruhn, editor. | Helles, Rasmus, editor. Title: Comparing communication systems : the internets of China, Europe, and the United States / edited by Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles. Description: 1 Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022021999 (print) | LCCN 2022022000 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367522339 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367522346 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003057055 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Internet--China. | Communication--China. | Internet--Europe. | Communication--Europe. | Internet--United States. | Communication--United States. Classification: LCC HM851 .C6564 2023 (print) | LCC HM851 (ebook) | DDC 302.23/1--dc23/eng/20220728 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022021999 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022000 ISBN: 978-0-367-52233-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-52234-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-05705-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003057055 Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India CONTENTS List of illustrations ix List of contributors xii Preface xvi 1 From media systems to communication systems 1 Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles The internet and beyond 1 Communications and determinations 2 Historical prototypes of communication 6 Cultures of communication 9 Communication systems and other systems 10 Comparing communications, comparing methods 14 The chapters of the volume 19 2 The communicative state of states 24 Verena K. Brändle, Rasmus Helles, and Klaus Bruhn Jensen Communicating like a state 24 The local embedding of global technologies 26 The political economy of technology diffusion 26 Regulatory regimes reconfigured 29 Data lost, found, and re-made 31 Modeling communication systems 36 vi Contents A model of global infrastructures 36 A model of national infrastructures 40 Summary of findings 43 3 The internet and other media of communication 46 Jacob Ørmen, Sascha Hölig, Signe Sophus Lai, Jesper Pagh, Fiona Huijie Zeng Skovhøj, Uwe Hasebrink, Julia Behre, Rasmus Helles, and Klaus Bruhn Jensen Media, meta-media, and communication repertoires 46 Mass communication – online and offline 49 Speaking to the few, the many, and the masses 55 Converging cultures of communication 57 Communicating now or later 67 Communicating here and there 69 Summary of findings 74 4 Being social 77 Baohua Zhou, Nicoletta Vittadini, Piermarco Aroldi, Francesca Pasquali, Jesper Pagh, Fiona Huijie Zeng Skovhøj, Signe Sophus Lai, Chris Chao Su, Jun Liu, and Klaus Bruhn Jensen Qualities and quantities of sociality 77 The communicative affordances of humans and technologies 79 Twelve degrees of contact 81 Social contacts 84 Cultural configurations 87 Can we talk? 89 Scalable sociality 94 Listening, searching, and sharing 94 Cultural configurations 97 Social contacts 100 Organizations, communities, worlds 102 Summary of findings 106 5 How to do things with media 108 Adrian Leguina, Jacob Ørmen, Fiona Huijie Zeng Skovhøj, Signe Sophus Lai, Jesper Pagh, John Downey, Rasmus Helles, and Klaus Bruhn Jensen Communication as representation and action 108 Communications and capitals 109 Getting things done online 112 Contents vii Navigating capitals 118 Mapping capitals 126 Summary of findings 139 6 What media still do to people 141 Rasmus Helles, Stine Lomborg, and Signe Sophus Lai Tracking the trackers 141 Technologies of tracking 142 Political economies of tracking 147 Cultures of tracking 150 Summary of findings 156 7 Communication systems as scientific and normative agendas 157 Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles Empirical findings 157 The cash value of empirical comparison 157 One-to-one communication 158 One-to-many communication 158 Many-to-many communication 159 Many-to-one communication 160 Capitalizing on communication 161 Cultures of communication 162 Theoretical inferences 163 Technological momentum 163 Capitalism with regional characteristics 164 Trading cultures 166 Opening a research agenda 167 Engaging public and political agendas 170 The capability of communication 170 Rights and resources 172 Institutions of communication and regulation 173 Reviews and previews of the internet 176 8 Methodological appendix 178 Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles Critical realism 178 Quantitative surveys 180 Critical knowledge interest 180 Questionnaire 181 Survey modes 182 viii Contents Samples 183 Analyses and inferences 184 Qualitative fieldworks 185 Critical knowledge interest 185 Sampling for networks and maximum variation 186 Combining interviews and diaries 187 Analyses and inferences 189 Tracking the trackers 192 Critical knowledge interest 192 Sampling big data 193 Analyses and inferences 194 Logistics, ethics, and politics 194 Lessons of state and market 194 Habeas data 195 Do communication systems have politics? 197 References 199 Index 216 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 1.1 The three aspects of communication systems 3 1.2 The triple determination of communicative practices 5 1.3 Six levels of empirical research 16 2.1 PCA analysis of 80 world countries on PCA dimensions 33 2.2 PCA analysis of 80 world countries on PCA dimensions with regime type 41 3.1 Mass communication at least several times a week, by age (in percentages) 51 3.2 Weekly news use – print newspapers and online news combined (in percentages) 52 3.3 Mass communication repertoires of media used at least several times a week, by age (in percentages) 54 3.4 Online communicative practices at least several times a week, by age (in percentages) 56 3.5 Repertoires of online communicative practices at least several times a week, by age (in percentages) 58 3.6 Five-class solution using LCA in Latent Gold 5.1, weighted n = 10,450 61 3.7 Distribution of interpersonal communicative practices across classes 62 3.8 Predicted class memberships across age groups 65 3.9 Mexican family living in the United States 70
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