Page 153 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model

havetraditionallybeenwillingtosubsidizeeconomicallymarginalmedia
enterprises.
A strong state, combined with the history of political conflict previ-
ously discussed, has also contributed in much of Southern Europe to a
broad politicization of society. Mouzelis (1995: 22) writes about Greece:

In the same way that nothing can be done in Greece without stum-
bling over the all-pervasive state bureaucracy, so nothing is said,
thought or otherwise expressed without being colored by strong
political connotations and considerations. From dinner parties of
fashionable middle and upper-class Athenian society to everyday
coffeeshop gatherings in villages, the main mode of social interac-
tionandculturalexchangeistheimpassioneddiscussionofpolitical
happenings and personalities.... [T]his predilection for the logic
of the political...permeates all institutional spheres, from sport
to religion and from education to popular theater.

Something similar could be said about Italy, which is also a country with
a historically high level of politicization, reflected in high levels of voting
turnout and party membership. No doubt this has contributed to the
high level of politicization of even commercial media in these countries.
ThislevelofpoliticizationdoesnotextendtoSpainandPortugal,perhaps
due to the demobilization that took place during the dictatorship – both
have relatively low levels of mass involvement in politics.

Clientelism and Rational-Legal Authority
The late development of liberal institutions in Southern Europe is also
connected with the importance of clientelism and the relatively slow de-
velopment of rational-legal authority (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos
2002). Clientelism, as explained in Chapter 3, is a pattern of social
organization in which access to resources is controlled by patrons and
delivered to clients in exchange for deference and various kinds of sup-
port. It developed in Southern Europe as the traditional institutions of
feudal society broke down, persisted because of the weakness of the uni-
versalistic forms of social organization associated with liberalism – the
market, the bureaucratic state, and representative democracy. The earli-
est forms of clientelism, which involved the personal dependence of the
rural population on landowners who controlled their access to resources
of all kinds, has been transformed with modernization, without being
entirely displaced. With the development of mass parties, the old politi-
cal bosses were displaced to a significant extent, and their monopoly of

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