Page 148 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

THE USE OF NEWS IN ‘COALITION’ GOVERNMENT 137

As for the method proposed by these authors, we note very briefly
that in Italy, first of all, strong state control of mass media exists and is
expressed, on one hand, in the state-owned television and, on the other,
4
in various forms of state-owned or economically supported press, even
though in theory the press operates in a commercially competitive
situation. The coexistence of public-service broadcasting and a
commercial press is a characteristic of many European countries
(Garnham 1986). The degree of mass media partisanship is also strong:
the political parties, also in relation to the various forms of ownership
and control exercised, have always been involved in editorial choices
and the structure of mass media, thereby assuring their loyalty. Equally
strong is the degree of media-political elites integration: actors in the
two systems share values and a single symbolical universe; there is
strong professional interchange and professionals in the political world
have often come from the world of journalism, and those in politics, in
many cases, have successfully established themselves in journalism.
Several Italian authors, following Seymour-Ure, have spoken of
‘political parallelism’ between the mass media system and the political
system: ‘the substantial support that the mass media gives to the
political system is expressed at different levels: organizational,
economic, professional, thematic and ideologic’ (Grossi and Mazzoleni
1984:139). Last, the absence of a consolidated and shared independent
professional ethic capable of assuring recognition and legitimation as a
profession is the final characteristic of a system of relationships between
media institutions and political institutions, a system which is complex
and differentiated with regard to different mass media and also
characterizes, in a special way, Italian society.
As to the extension of these last three comparative dimensions to
other countries, analyses and specific data for the different situations are
required. Nevertheless Renate Kocher has offered important insights
into the various perceptions of the role of journalists in West Germany
and England. In Germany they are characterized by a strongly social
and political involvement and are referred to as ‘missionaries’, while in
England they interpret a role defined exclusively in terms of news hunters
and are labelled ‘bloodhounds’ (Kocher 1986).
Let’s review now the constants of the political system. It should be
stated that only a few of the variables in the system have been isolated
here and they are the ones which most greatly influence the institutions
of the media, at least according to the analytical perspective proposed
here. The Italian political system can be defined as ‘coalitional’; this
term refers both to the processes of forming government majorities as