Frank Esser is Professor of International and Comparative Media Research at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. After studies in Mainz and London, he taught at the Universities of Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas-Austin. His research focuses on cross-national studies of news journalism and political communication. His co-edited books include the Handbook of Comparative Communication Research (2012) and Democracy in the Age of Globalization and Mediatization (2013).
Barbara Pfetsch is Professor of Communication and Media Policy at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. She was a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. Her research interests focus on comparative analyses of political communication and the mediated public sphere.