Page 113 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model

Fascism interrupted the development of a pluralist party press; but
it reemerged strongly in the immediate post-liberation period as party
papers joined other politically oriented papers, often connected with
the resistance (in France, e.g., Combat, directed by philosopher Albert
Camus, survived until 1974) as pioneers of the new democratic media.
Fifty percent of the Italian newspapers in the late 1940s were party pa-
pers. A strong party press also developed in France (Barbrook 1995).
L’Humanit´, the paper of the Communist Party, had the largest circula-
e
tion of all French papers in 1947. By 1996 its circulation was down to
less than 60,000, though it is still seen as a significant political voice. The
value placed in French culture on the survival of this kind of ideolog-
ical newspaper is suggested by the fact that in 2001, when L’Humanit´ e
was forced to sell shares in an effort to stay alive, the main commercial
television company, TF1, became an investor.
In Spain and Portugal long periods of dictatorial rule choked off
the development of mass parties and the party press (both countries
have very low rates of party membership). Spain did have the “Prensa
del Movimiento” connected with Franco’s “Movimiento Nacional,” but
party papers have not had a significant role in the democratic period.
The Salazar dictatorship in Portugal never was a mobilizing regime, and
never placed much emphasis on the press, or has a significant party press
developed in the democratic period. In Greece, for somewhat different
reasons connected with the persistence of political clientelism, mass par-
ties did not really develop until the 1970s. So again, a true party press
has never been strong – though privately owned papers, as we shall see,
are typically fiercely partisan.
Church-linked media have played a significant role in the Mediter-
raneancountries,astheyhaveinsomeofthecountriesoftheDemocratic
Corporatist Model (e.g., the Netherlands). The Catholic-owned paper
Ya was the highest-circulation paper in Spain for a while in the 1970s; the
liberal Catholic paper La Croix has played an important role in France.
The Church owns important radio networks in Spain and Portugal, and
for a while a television network in the latter. Catholic dailies are even
more important in Italy: L’Osservatore Romano is the official paper of the
Catholic Church; L’Avvenire was the daily of the organization of Italian
Bishops and still is linked to the Church organization; and local churches
own a number of papers in Northern Italy.
Newspapers in the Mediterranean countries – whether commercially
owned or linked to parties or the Church – have been directed for the
mostparttoaneducatedeliteinterestedinthepoliticalworld.TheItalian

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