Page 187 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The North/Central European Model

affects appointments at many levels, in broadcasting as in many aspects
of Austrian life.
Belgium originally had a system based on external pluralism, similar
to the Dutch system. After World War II, however, it moved toward a
unitary system and then in the 1960s toward two systems, French and
Flemish, each based on internal pluralism, with directors appointed by
proportional representation. “The composition of the board of public
servicebroadcastingchangedeverytimeanewgeneralelectionwasheld,”
according to Burgelman (1989: 179–80) ... “[M]embers of the board
of directors define themselves . . . explicitly as being ‘mandatories’ of
the political parties. . . . [T]he board explicitly used the argument that
only a physical representation of the political parties could guarantee
an objective news bulletin.” Of all the Democratic Corporatist countries
Belgium is closest to the Polarized Pluralist model in the party-political
character of its broadcasting system, as it is in other respects. 12
The Nordic countries tend more toward the “professional” model,
that is toward a system in which broadcasting is conceived as a nonpolit-
ical institution serving society as a whole, though the degree of political
insulation does vary. In Sweden, the logic of the civic/corporatist model
isreflectedinthefactthatownershipoftheSwedishBroadcastingCorpo-
ration has been divided since the 1960s between “popular movements”
such as trade unions, consumers’ organizations, and churches, the other
40 percent being divided between the press and business (Weibull and
Anshelm 1992; Gustafsson 1996; and Hulten 1997). The Swedish sys-
tem is generally seen, however, as very close to the BBC in the sense
that it has a relatively high degree of autonomy from political influence
(Humphreys 1996: 156–7). As Weibull and Djerf-Pierre (2000) stress,
professionalizationstrengthenedinthe1960s.Swedishpublicbroadcast-
ing shifted toward a stance that it had a responsibility to scrutinize the
political system and its influence in political life increased. The Danish
and Norwegian systems probably shade more toward the parliamentary

12 The party-politicized character of Belgian public broadcasting is consistent with the
generally party-political character of public administration in Belgium (Keman 1996:
240) and is one of the characteristics Belgium shares with the Polarized Pluralist
countries. Belgium has not had a particularly high level of ideological polarization,
though this may in part be due to the religious and linguistic character of social
cleavages.Polarizationmayalsohaveincreasedinrecentyearsasanti-immigrantright-
wing parties have grown in strength. Belgium does share with the classic Polarized
Pluralist Model a high degree of fragmentation of the party system and a low level of
government stability: thirty-eight governments in the period 1945–96, a number very
close to that of Italy (Keman 1996).

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