ABSTRACT
Revolutionary innovations in communication technologies that have created an electronic backbone for globalization have had a strong and lasting infl uence on communication studies since the end of the twentieth century. The fears and expectations that have been discussed subsequently by scholars around the world range from the effects of democratization to a new cultural imperialism, and from a strengthening of regional identities to a new cultural mainstreaming, triggered by increasing convergence processes. This wave of refl ection within political communication research has considered not only the changes in the relationship between politics and media, but has contributed-quite rare in a discipline prone to micro-orientation (Ryfe 2001)—to the historicization of the issue.
