Page 103 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

P1: GCV
0521835356c04.xml Hallin 0 521 83535 6 January 19, 2004 19:26

Media and Political Systems and Differentiation

Black in Canada, or Axel Springer in Germany can be seen to a significant
extent in instrumentalist terms. And clearly “structural” forms of power
6
exist in the Polarized Pluralist system as well. But in general structural
mechanisms are probably more important in the Liberal and Demo-
cratic Corporatist countries, where the relative autonomy of the media
is greater. Central among these mechanisms are professional routines of
journalism,which,accordingtosubstantialliteraturesparticularlydevel-
oped in the United States, Britain, and Canada, can be seen as embedding
in the process of news production both differential relationships of the
media to various news sources, and cultural and ideological criteria of
newsworthiness and interpretation.

CONCLUSIONS
In this chapter we have introduced the three models that will structure
our discussion of the eighteen countries whose media systems form the
empirical basis for this book. In Part II, we will explore in detail the logic
and historical evolution of the three models, the connections between
the media system and political system variables that can be seen in these
patterns of development, and the ways in which particular countries do
or do not fit the three models.
We have also introduced the debate over differentiation theory as a
framework for understanding the differences among these models and
their historical development. We have argued that differentiation theory
takes us a certain distance in understanding the broad differences in me-
dia systems, particularly in its emphasis on the historical fusion of media
systems with the system of political parties and social groups based on
class, religion, ethnicity, and the like, and the different degrees to which
systems have moved away from these relationships. At the same time,
there are good reasons to doubt that the history of media in Western
Europe and North America can be seen as a unilinear movement toward
differentiation, or that the three models can be organized into a neat
hierarchy in terms of differentiation. We will elaborate on this argument
more fully after analyzing the three models and their histories in Part II,
and after discussing more fully the trend toward convergence in media
systems in Part III. For now it is worth noting that our use of a trian-
gle in Figure 4.1 to represent the three models suggests an important

6
Sampedro (1997), for example, analyzes the coverage of the movement in opposition to
compulsory military service in Spain essentially in institutional or structuralist terms.

85