page_title: Americanization in election campaign communication
section_title: The modernization point of view
hierarchical_section_title: Americanization in election campaign communication / Americanization from two different points of view / The modernization point of view
caption_attribution_description: English: Modernization process with Americanization as a sub-category.
context_page_description: Americanization in election campaign communication is the adaptation of particular, successful election campaign elements and strategies, first developed in the United States, in other countries. Two main characteristics of Americanization are the instrumental relationship between politics and media and the professionalization of election campaigns. The campaign techniques can be applied or adapted to different extents.
  Since the concept was established in the 1970s and 80s, many recent studies have criticized and disproved the idea, because it neglects the different adaptations and variations of election campaigns between countries. Researchers arguing against the appropriateness of the concept Americanization point to the concepts of hybridization and modernization of election campaigns worldwide, which act as oppositions to Americanization.
  Furthermore, there is a wide range of studies about Americanization in election campaign communication, which use the term in slightly different ways. For example, the term is applied to different groups – such as politicians, media or electorates.
context_section_description: The second one is the modernization theory, which argues that Americanization of election campaign communication is “the consequence of an ongoing structural change in politics, society and the media system” worldwide. This theory's proponents’ say, that Americanization comes from an endogenous change – meaning a change which is originated in the interior of the countries. The development towards US-American structures in election campaigning is a result of this change, but not the reason of it. Americanization is a sub-category of modernization, as Swanson and Mancini define:
  "We hypothesize that adoption of Americanized campaign methods may reflect a wider, more general process that is producing changes in many societies, changes which are difficult to attribute to a single cause and which go far beyond politics and communication. [...] [W]e call this more general process ‘modernization’."
  Furthermore, the term modernization is often used as an alternative to Americanization to emphasize that changes in political communication around the world are not only created by the U.S.-American ideals, but are also “rooted in a process of social change” which emerge from individual countries themselves. In this point of view the term modernization replaces the term Americanization.
  The concept of using modernization as an alternative to Americanization has been criticized by Hallin and Mancini for carrying an evolutionist connotation, as “an implicit assumption that change is to be seen as ‘progress’, necessary and unilinear. It also lumps together many dimensions of change – technological, cultural, political, and economic – that need to be distinguished [...].” Nevertheless there are researchers who prefer using the term modernization instead of Americanization. [see also: Criticism]
  In addition to the two different uses of the term modernization relating to Americanization, some studies use modernization as a synonym for Americanization.
caption: Figure 1: Modernization process with Americanization as a sub-category
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