The Problems of Sociological Language in International Comparisons: The Case of Social Movement Media in Chiapas and Palestine

The article emphasizes some of the scientific issues and constraints linked to the writing of an international comparison. The comparison deals with the media strategies of activists’ transnational networks in Israel-Palestine (an anti-occupation network) and in Mexico (a neo-Zapatista network). The first problem is to distinguish levels of writing within the comparison. Indeed, the movements’ journalists, activists, and intellectuals produce “counter-information” and “alternative media,” using a controversial lexical field and rhetorical figures through which they position themselves politically. A comparative analysis requires the researcher to pursue a work of linguistic deconstruction and semantic choices, which involves the whole writing process. The second problem is the relating to one another of levels of comparison in the process of writing. Both cases are indeed heterogeneous and partly interdependent. The point is to account for the specificities of both cases, generalize through comparison, and assess the effects of the interdependence at the same time. This difficulty is present in the phases of research problematization, the construction of the plan, and final writing.