Page 116 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

P1: GCV/INL P2: GCV
0521835356agg.xml Hallin 0 521 83535 6 January 20, 2004 17:24

The Three Models

POLITICAL PARALLELISM
As the history suggests, the media in the Mediterranean countries are
relatively strongly politicized, and political parallelism is relatively high.
The style of journalism tends to give substantial emphasis to commen-
tary. Newspapers tend to represent distinct political tendencies, and this
is reflected in the differing political attitudes of their readerships. At
times newspapers play an activist role, mobilizing those readers to sup-
port political causes. Public broadcasting tends to be party-politicized.
Both journalists and media owners often have political ties or alliances,
and it remains fairly common for journalists to become politicians and
vice versa.
Greece is a strong example of this pattern. From the time of the exile
press, Greek newspapers have always been political instruments above
all, rooted culturally in passionate ideological divisions, and often tied
to the state and/or parties, which have provided financial subsidies, help
with distribution, and other forms of assistance. The many Athens news-
papers,especially,stillreflectawiderangeofideologies,andtheirwriting
isoftenhighlypolemical.ZaharapoulosandParaschos(1993)giveexam-
ples of their headlines when U.S. President George Bush visited Greece
in 1991, ranging from “National Success, the Cyprus Issue Is Solved,” to
“Frigid Bush: Cyprus Is Not Kuwait, said the Caesar.” Greek journalists
tend to be strongly opinionated and politically engaged, and often run
for political office.
The political identification of French newspapers varies, from clearly
e
ideological papers such as L’Humanit´ and La Croix to relatively apo-
litical regional papers. The major Paris dailies reflect broad political
tendencies, Le Monde and Lib´eration representing the left-center, and
Le Figaro and France-Soir the right-center. The polemical style that can
often be found in Greece and could once be found in France is mostly
gone (Charon 1990). Still, as Albert (1983) put it:

French Journalism has always been more a journalism of expres-
sion than a journalism of observation: it gives precedence to the
chronicle and the commentary over summary and reportage. As
much as in the presentation of facts, it has always been interested
in the exposition of ideas. . . . In this, it is fundamentally different
from Anglo-Saxon journalism, for which news always has priority
over commentary.
Ferenczi argues that when the mass circulation press began to de-
velop in France, key elements of the news- and information-based

98