Page 138 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

presumably a thing of the past, but some remnants carried over into the
democratic period. French law gives the State the right to seize publica-
tions under certain circumstances, a power used in the 1950s and 1960s
during the conflict over Algeria, and at the beginning of the 1970s, when
editors of some of the many radical papers that sprung up following the
May 1968 political rebellion were arrested. De Gaulle invoked a law pro-
hibiting “offenses to the chief of state” 350 times while he was in office
(Eisendrath 1982). In Spain, legal actions against journalists were com-
moninthelate1970sandearly1980s(Fern´ andezandSantana2000),and
as we shall see in the following text legal pressures on owners continue to
be an important political tactic. The remnants of authoritarianism are
strongest today in Greece, where journalists are still sometimes prose-
cuted for defamation against public officials (the result is usually a small
fine or suspended sentence), and the law gives the state the right to seize
and shut down publications, for offenses against religion or against the
President of the Republic among other things (Dimitras 1997: 100).
Thestatehasalsoplayedanimportantroleasanownerofmediaenter-
prises.AsintherestofEurope,broadcastinghasbeenmainlystateowned
through most of its history. But the state has also had significant owner-
ship in commercial media in the Mediterranean countries, including the
print press. Authoritarian governments – the Franco regime in Spain, for
example – often had state-owned newspapers. News agencies – Agence
France Presse, the Agencia Giornalistica Italia (another Italian agency
ANSA, is a cooperative run by news organizations, though it is state
subsidized), and the Spanish agency EFE – have been primarily state
owned, with varying degrees of insulation from government control. 11
Publicly funded news agencies function both to maintain the presence of
the national press on the world scene and as a subsidy to domestic news
media that use the service. France also had a publicly owned advertis-
ing agency, Havas, that controlled most advertising sales in the interwar
period and was privatized only in 1987, and for many years a publicly
ownednewsprintcompany.State-ownedenterpriseshaveattimesplayed
an important role in financing media owners’ acquisitions, most notably
in the 1970s when state-owned banks helped to finance the expansion
of Robert Hersant’s media empire. And the French government held
large blocks of shares for many years in the p´eriph´eriques – radio stations
11 Agence France Presse is generally regarded as fairly independent, though there have
often been political debates over the appointment of its head (Thogmartin 1998:
146ff). At EFE, Alfonso S´ anchez-Palomares, who headed the agency for ten years, was
a close personal friend of Felipe Gonz´ alez.

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