Page 158 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

their media systems that seem problematic and are felt as problematic by
journalists, citizens, and scholars within these countries. These include
the narrow readership of the print press and the large gender gap in that
readership; certain remnants of authoritarian culture that are reflected
in restricted access to public information and official pressures against
critical reporting; and the tendency toward instrumentalization of the
media, both by political elites and by commercial owners (who are often,
of course, the same people). Some elements seem much more positive,
including the pluralism of the media, which unquestionably represent a
wide rangeofviews – though how one measures that pluralism and how
one could compare it across systems, remains a problem scholars have
not really confronted. In many ways, the media of the Mediterranean
countries seem close to Curran’s (1991) model of the “radical demo-
cratic” public sphere, in which the media function as a “battleground
between contending social forces” (29).
Other elements are more difficult to judge. One of those is the heavy
focus of the media on political affairs – in Italy the space dedicated
to political coverage by print press more than doubled between 1976
and 1996 (Mancini 2002) – which might be seen either as a healthy
alternative to the commercial depoliticization that is more advanced in
other media systems or as a manifestation of the hegemony of party elites
over the media. Political parties unquestionably have great importance
in all of the Mediterranean countries. This results both from the history
of political conflict and from the strong role of the state and historically
weaker development of civil society. It takes different forms in different
countries. It is probably somewhat less true of France because of the
strength of the presidency and the bureaucracy. In Spain and Portugal,
as mentioned earlier, the parties do not have the kind of penetration into
the mass public that they do – or did – especially in Italy. Nevertheless,
thepartiesplayanextremelyimportantsocialrole,havingtoasignificant
degree managed the transition to democracy (Colomer 1996). Therefore
it is not surprising either that parties would have considerable influence
on the media, or that the media should focus to a significant degree on
their activities.
Therelationofthemediatothepartiesisrelatedbothtotheirstrengths
and to their weaknesses – it has encouraged the development of a plural-
istic media system that would cover politics in a serious way. At the same
time it has contributed to the elitism of journalism, the unevenness of its
readership (manifested, e.g., in gender differences), its tendency often to
be a collaborator with political power, and a tendency for the media to

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