New media and political communication in Asia: a critical assessment of research on media and politics, 1988–2008

Abstract

This study focuses on reviewing research on the interplay between new media and political communication in Asian societies. To assess the state of the discipline of political communication and how the research advances knowledge of the role and impact of media in politics, this study content-analyzed articles concerning media use in political arenas in Asian societies that were published in 10 leading communication journals between 1988 and 2008. Results reveal that the social science paradigm was the leading paradigm of inquiry, accounting for the majority of research in these journals. The analysis also indicates that most articles were theory-driven and survey was the most frequently used method. American or US-based authors dominated new media and political communica-tion research in Asia. Implications of these trends are discussed with the goal to shed some light on new directions for future research.