Inaugural Seminar for the Center for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research (The C-Center) by Prof. Daniel Hallin, a Leading Figure in Comparative Media Systems

Prof. Daniel Hallin, a distinguished scholar in political communication and comparative media systems, was invited by the School and the new Center for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research (The C-Center) to give an inaugural seminar, titled “Comparing Media Systems: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections”, for the School’s new research center on 19 April 2012.

Prof. Hallin is a Professor at the Department of Communication at University of California in San Diego and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Prof. Hallin and Paolo Mancini have published an influential book Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, which has generated a great deal of debate as well as many adaptations and applications in communication research. His lecture enlightened the audience on a few principal theoretical questions which have emerged since the publication of the book, and drew on a new edited volume just out, Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World. He explains the applicability of the Hallin/Mancini framework outside of Western Europe and North America and the question of “Eurocentrism” in media studies; the function of “models” in comparative research and the idea of the “media system” as a unit of analysis; and the debate over the relative merits of small-scale case study approaches versus large-scale statistical methods.

Prof. Joseph Chan, Director of the Center for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research (The C-Center), announced the establishment of the new research center and introduced Prof. Hallin as the speaker for the Inaugural Seminar.

Prof. Hallin discussed the debates on theory and methodology in the field of comparative media systems.

Teachers and students of the School listened to Prof. Hallin’s explication attentively.

Prof. Anthony Fung, Director of the School, raised questions about the applicability of Hallin/Mancini framework in Japanese society.

Prof. Joseph Chan and Prof. Anthony Fung presented to Prof. Hallin a souvenir, being an electronic photo frame which contains photos of the campus taken by Prof. Chan.