Americanization

In general, the term Americanization is used to denote a process of adaptation to the way things are or look like in the United States. Mostly, this qualification is used with a negative connotation, criticizing the process and/or the object of adaptation. However, there is quite a variety in what is diagnosed with this adaptation process: Americanization has been used for different things such as culture in general, the film industry, media systems or some of its parts or its contents, political communication in general, and electoral campaigns in particular. Terms like McDonaldization, Hollywoodization, Coca Cola Culture and Mickey Mouse Culture are expressions that demonstrate how symbols of U.S. culture are used to qualify actual or feared trends. Contrary to what the discussion sometimes seems to suggest, Americanization is not a process that has been discovered only in recent years. In Germany, for instance, such trends have been diagnosed since the 1920s.

In political communication, Americanization has been primarily used to discuss trends in election campaigning in countries outside the United States, mostly in Europe and Latin America. At the same time, the term has elicited much critique based on the fact that no satisfying definition of Americanization has been presented or can be agreed upon. Attempts at defining what was meant by Americanization often were simple catalogues of characteristics of what was seen as typical for American-style campaigning: engaging political consultants and other experts from the marketing industry, poll-driven campaigning, a media- or television-centered campaign, negative campaigning, personalization, de-politicization, to name just a few. While these are attributes that refer to the organization of campaigns and the strategies that are applied, German strategist Peter Radunski added a new angle by pointing to the fact that voters, in their new unpredictability, also have become more Americanized. Researchers Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch further broadened the perspective by emphasizing that, in the Americanized environment, journalists tend to react by “mediating” the campaign more in order to avoid being made the mouthpiece of campaigners.

Although many researchers were unhappy with the term, Americanization has proved to be a useful descriptive paradigm. In fact, several studies have used Americanization as a reference. However, only few employed the comparative perspective that is inherent in the term Americanization but were rather single country studies. Thus, it is mostly unsettled if and how the Americanization hypothesis can be operationalized for empirical research.

It was another point of critique that the idea of other systems adapting more and more to the U.S. model of political communication made the United States an inevitable yardstick for research, thus neglecting the fact that the United States is an exceptional case and therefore comparisons with the United States are problematic because of the obvious differences in the political and media systems. From there, it was a short way to discuss whether what could be observed in other countries was indeed a process of Americanization or rather a general trend that was, sooner or later, going on in all countries. This led to new terms being offered instead of Americanization, such as professionalization or modernization, thus abandoning the use of U.S. campaigns as role models. This view places the United States at the forefront of a development that is going on everywhere and [Page 33]acknowledges that a multitude of intervening variables, such as national specifics of the political system and the media system, prevents the adoption of recipes for effective campaigning from one country to another. Similarities in social developments cause similar reactions by political actors which leads us to assume convergence, but there is still much room for national variance, particularly in comparison with the United States. Campaigners in other countries take over from the United States what has proved to be effective but adapt it to national conditions.

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