Page 177 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The North/Central European Model

the British case is actually rather unusual, and tabloids or popular pa-
pers in the Democratic Corporatist countries generally have a different
place in the media system than those in Britain. They are not as central
to the newspaper market: in most countries the aggregate circulation
of quality and local papers is higher. There is also not the same sharp
class segmentation of the newspaper market. Tabloids have more middle
class readers than in Britain. In some cases, as for example with the
Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet, which has substantial cultural coverage,
they actually have a higher educational level than newspapers readers in
general (Høst 1999: 114). It is also common for people in the Democratic
Corporatist countries to read both a quality paper and a tabloid. Tabloids
in the Democratic Corporatist countries are often not as sensationalist as
those in Britain, though Germany’s Bild, with its more than four million
circulation, and the Neue Kronenzeitung are close equivalents.
The expansion of “omnibus” commercial papers is one of the most
important developments in the media of the Democratic Corporatist
countries in the twentieth century: the political press, which was domi-
nant in the beginning of the century, had by its end been marginalized by
the commercial press. In Denmark, as Søllinge (1999) notes, newspaper
penetration had reached essentially 100 percent of households by the
beginning of the twentieth century. This was achieved under the polit-
ically oriented four-party paper system, and is impressive testimony to
the ability of the political press to expand the newspaper audience. It
also meant that newspapers could no longer expand by recruiting new
readers – those who did not read any paper – but only by appealing to
readers of other papers, who could be convinced either to switch or to
read a second paper. This competition, Søllinge argues, had to be pur-
sued through other means than by appeal to political affiliation, and the
result was to encourage the growth of “omnibus” newspapers and the
diversification of newspaper content, diminishing the place of political
commentary. The pioneer in this process was Politiken, a Copenhagen
daily that in 1905 abandoned its format as a traditional political paper
and repositioned itself as an “omnibus” paper. As for the local press,
Salokangas (1999) notes that in the Finnish case, there were at least two
newspapers in each local market at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. In most cases, one of these developed into an omnibus paper and
become the market leader, while the paper in the weaker market position
generally strengthened its political affiliation to hold on to its remaining
market share, thus institutionalizing the coexistence of the political and
commercial press.

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