Historical Institutionalism in Communication Studies
Bannerman, Sara and Blayne Haggart. “Historical Institutionalism in Communication Studies.” Communication Theory 25 no. 1 (2015): 1-22.
21 Pages Posted: 17 May 2015
Date Written: January 1, 2015
Abstract
New institutionalism is a collection of institutionalist theories, including historical institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and rational choice institutionalism. This paper 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 six 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.
Keywords: new institutionalism, historical institutionalism, communication law, communication policy, communication history
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