Table Of ContentCOMPARING 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
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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
