Historical Institutionalism in Communication Studies

Abstract

New institutionalism is a collection of institutionalist theories, including historical institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and rational choice institutionalism. This article focuses on historical institutionalism in communication studies. First, we note that historical institutionalism-a dominant approach in political science-has appeared in relatively few studies of media and communications. Second, we describe the historical institutionalist approach. Third, we describe the historical institutionalist method in detail, breaking it down into 6 steps and demonstrating its usefulness, especially in the areas of communication history and communication policy and law. In the final section, we further develop our contention that the field of communications is a fruitful one for the development of historical institutionalism, and that historical institutionalism is a useful approach for communication scholars, especially in the areas of communication history, policy, and law.

Theorizing media, communication and social change: towards a processual approach

“…We should note that the processual approach we advocate here is not entirely new to communication research. Its elements are present in some of the classics of communication studiesan issue we return to belowas well as in parts of recent literature that tackles social change, most notably the work on communication and social movements (e.g., Mattoni and Treré, 2014) and research inspired by historical institutionalism (Bannerman and Haggart, 2015), but also our own work on researching change over time (Stanyer and Mihelj, 2016). Yet so far, the broader understanding of social change that underpins this work has not been made explicit, nor presented in generic terms that would allow its translation to other subfields of research.…”

Moving Beyond Self-Castigation: Let’s Reinvigorate Communication Policy Research Now!

“…Scholars have increasingly come to make use of theories that can explain how interests, MOVING BEYOND SELF-CASTIGATION 7 institutions and ideas influence policy-making and its outcomes (e.g., contributions in Just & Puppis, 2012b), and thus, for instance, apply critical theoretical approaches (e.g. Freedman, 2008), or variants of new institutionalism for understanding communication policy, politics and polity, regulation and the emergence of new governance arrangements (Bannerman & Haggart, 2015;Latzer, Just, Saurwein, & Slominski, 2003;Puppis, 2010). Moreover, the impact of convergence and growing complexity on communication policy strategies is assessed with recourse to a combination of innovation, coevolution and complexity theories (Latzer, 2014).…”

Taking Time Seriously? Theorizing and Researching Change in Communication and Media Studies

“…As Abbott () notes, the idea of turning points has a long history in the social sciences and has been applied extensively in life course research, political science, applied economics, and history of science. Within political science, the concept of critical juncture constitutes a key building block of understanding change (Collier & Collier, ) and is particularly common among historical institutionalist analysis and the broader New Institutionalism literature, which began attracting some attention among communication researchers (see Bannerman & Haggart, ). However, with exceptions (see Ryfe, , ), studies examining turning points in our sample rarely engaged with this broader literature.…”

“…A comparative cross‐national analysis of sequencing in national media policy development, for instance, could be used to establish how the impact of a new policy varies depending on pre‐existing media infrastructures, political trajectories, or other time‐bound factors. Traditions of research rooted in New Institutionalism could be helpful here, and serve to analyze path‐dependency in the context of communication and media, as suggested by Bannerman and Haggart (). Temporally, sensitive cross‐national analysis could also help to avoid the Galton problem in comparative research and reveal the extent to which cross‐national commonalities are due to borrowing or common descent.…”

“…New overarching theoretical frameworks for understanding change in media and communication have been proposed, including the theory of mediatization and the notion of a new era of minimal effects (Bennett & Iyengar, ; Lundby, ). Some authors have also begun considering the specific methodological, conceptual, and empirical challenges of researching change over time (Bannerman & Haggart, ; Corner, ; Matthes & Schemer, ; Ryfe, ). However, such reflective accounts remain sporadic, and have yet to produce a step‐change in how we research temporal processes.…”