Transculturality as a perspective: Researching media cultures comparatively

Abstract

Most of the research on media cultures operates in a “national-territorial” frame. Media cultures are considered as national cultures and other forms of media culture (for example professional journalism cultures, diasporas, celebrity cultures etc.) are not investigated in their “deterritorial” character. But it is exactly such deterritorial forms of media culture that are gaining relevance with the ongoing pace of media globalization: they therefore have to be placed in the focus of comparative media and communication research. Starting with this consideration, the article develops a transcultural perspective on researching media cultures. Within this perspective it becomes possible to conduct comparative research on (territorial) national media cultures as well as on other (deterritorial) forms of present media cultures, as this approach moves the processes of cultural construction and articulation into the focus of analysis. To arrive at a better understanding of this approach, “media cultures” are defined as translocal phenomena in their territorial as well as their deterritorial relations. Based on this, the “semantics” of a transcultural research perspective are outlined, which then makes it possible to formulate practical principles for carrying out comparative qualitative research within this framework.