Page 164 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

THE EARLY ROOTS OF THE PRINT PRESS
The countries of Northern Europe – both on the continent and in
Britain – pioneered the development of press freedom. The principles of
publicity that characterize both parliamentary democracy (Humphreys
1996) and the press as a social institution developed early and strongly.
In some cases the development of the first newspapers was linked to
merchant capitalism while in other cases it was linked to political or reli-
gious struggles. As we shall see more fully in a later section of this chapter,
the strong development of the press in Northern Europe is related to the
weakness of the ancien r´egime relative to rising forces of liberalism. The
exact historical pattern varied from country to country, but in one way or
another the development of print media tied to a growing literate mid-
dle class is central to the media history of all the Democratic Corporatist
countries.
In Germany and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, out of which
Austria was formed, both the aristocracy and the absolutist state re-
mained strong much longer than in the smaller countries. In these coun-
tries, as in the Polarized Pluralist countries, the transition to a liberal or-
der was longer and more conflictual. Nevertheless, the development of a
commercial and industrial middle class was sufficient to support many
of the institutions of the new social order, including a strong mass-
circulation press.
In the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium, merchants – whose
widespreadcommercialinterestsmadethemthefirstconsumersofnews-
papers – dominated society from a very early period. In Scandinavia
industrialism did not develop strongly until the late nineteenth century.
Nevertheless, feudal institutions were not as strong as in other parts of
Europe, and the emerging urban middle class, often in alliance, as we
shall see, with an independent peasantry, rose to power relatively early –
and played a key role in the development of the press. As Gustafsson
and Hadenius point out, referring to what is often considered Sweden’s
first modern paper, established in 1830: “mine owners, merchants
and intellectuals – pillars of pre-industrial society – constituted the
Aftonbladet readership. They needed an efficient means of commu-
nication and the paper provided it” (Gustafsson and Hadenius 1976:
32). Aftonbladet not only carried advertising and political and commer-
cial information useful in the emerging market society, but expressed
the desire of the new middle class for liberal political and eco-
nomic reforms (Hadenius and Weibull 1999). “Conservative forces,”

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