Page 145 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model

and Portugal were both at eleven ECU per inhabitant). 14 The French
state decided to join the p´eriph´eriques – by investing in them – rather
than fight them. And France moved rapidly into the commercial age:
“Coming among the first European countries to commercial television,
France was taken with vertigo, seized with the enthusiasm of skeptics
suddenly converted” (Dagnaud 2000: 76). The most important result of
this enthusiasm was the privatization of the first channel of public ser-
vice broadcasting. France also went through a period in the 1980s when
regulatory authorities had a good deal of difficulty enforcing regulations
on private broadcasters.
In general, however, France was much more successful than the other
Mediterranean countries in developing an effective centralized state, and
the dirigiste tradition of state intervention in the market to accomplish
national ends can be seen in the media sphere in recent years, even if the
focus of dirigisme in media policy has moved from promoting culture to
a greater emphasis on building competitive national media industries,
and even if French regulators do not always win their battles with trou-
blesome youth radio stations (Dauncy and Hare 1999). There remains a
strong consensus in France on the basic principle of broadcasting as a na-
tionalinstitution.Francehasparticularlystrongrulesonlanguageandon
European-produced content, and the Conseil Sup´ erieur de l’Audiovisuel
is a strong and active regulatory agency by world standards. It has sub-
stantial authority over programming decisions of private broadcasters.
A good example would be its intervention to require that the producers
of the reality show Loft Story give the participants some periods of time
when they were off camera.

POLITICAL HISTORY, STRUCTURE, AND CULTURE
In this section, we will try to connect the media system characteristics
previously described with the history, social and political structure, and
cultureofthecountriesofSouthernEurope.Thekeytheoreticalconcepts
employed here – particularly polarized pluralism and clientelism – are
introduced in more general terms in Chapter 3; here we will discuss their
concrete manifestation in Southern Europe.
Freedom of the press, as we have seen, was introduced to Italy
and the Iberian peninsula following the Napoleonic invasion. Liberal

14
Dagnaud (2000: 230, n. 4). Dagnaud is quoting figures from an internal document of
the Observatoire Europe´ en de l’Audiovisuel.

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