Page 143 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model

broadcasting differ considerably among the five countries covered in this
chapter, but the pattern of “savage deregulation” applies to some degree
across the Mediterranean region except for France: despite the strong
role the state has traditionally played in these countries – or in some
ways perhaps because of it – the “commercial deluge” came to South-
ern Europe more suddenly and with fewer restraints than to Northern
Europe.
Italy might be said to be the classic case of “savage deregulation.” In
contrast to Greece, Spain, and Portugal, Italy shares with the Democratic
Corporatist countries a strong history of regarding broadcasting as a
public service, even if the notion was tainted in practice by the strength
of party control. Under the Christian Democrats this was motivated by
a liberal Catholic conception of the mass media as a means of raising
the cultural level of the population. Early Italian television had a heavy
emphasis on classic Italian and world literature, music, and art. By the
1970s the rising political left had become aware of the importance of
television and was advancing a conception of the media as part of the
welfare state, a means of promoting pluralism and wider access to the
publicsphere.Nevertheless,itcouldbesaidthatthe“commercialdeluge”
in European broadcasting began in Italy in the 1970s. The Italian Con-
stitutional Court invalidated RAI’s monopoly in 1976, and from 1976 to
1990 Italy had no law regulating commercial broadcasting. One Italian
government resigned during that period because of its inability to reach
agreement on a broadcasting law and even when a law was finally passed
in 1990 three ministers resigned because they felt it favored Berlusconi,
whose monopoly of commercial television was built during this long
regulatory vacuum.
Greece also fits the model of savage deregulation strongly: pirate ra-
dio and then television stations began to proliferate in the late 1980s
(often introduced by local governments ruled by other parties than the
Panhellenic Socialist Party [PASOK] then in power in Athens). The
government was forced to move toward legalization, but hundreds of
broadcast stations continued to operate without authorization as the
government was unable to establish licensing procedures. Public broad-
casting, meanwhile, which always lacked independence from the state,
has dropped to the lowest audience share in Europe (8 percent). The
level of sensationalism is extremely high in Greek commercial television
(Papathanassopoulos 1997; 2001).
In Spain, as also in Greece and Portugal, public service broadcasting
in the full sense of the word never really existed (Bustamante 1989).

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