Page 210 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

cooperation in institutions such as journalists’ unions, press councils,
and the Bundespressekonferenz. In Chapter 2 we proposed as one of the
defining characteristics of journalistic professionalism a notion of jour-
nalism as a public trust, a conception, that is, that journalism in some
sense serves a public interest that transcends particular social interests.
This ideology, we believe, is connected with the two other defining char-
acteristics of journalistic professionalism, the development of a distinct
common culture of journalism, and the achievement by journalists of
relative autonomy in relation to other social actors. One of the principal
differences between the Polarized Pluralist system – where journalistic
professionalism is less developed – and the Democratic Corporatist and
Liberal systems, where it is more so, is that the general political culture
in the Polarized Pluralist system offers less support to the idea of a gen-
eral interest transcending particular groups and ideologies. The political
culture of democratic corporatism, by contrast, clearly includes a strong
notion that common general interest does in fact exist. This is manifested
in the Swedish concept of the “folkhem” that represented a rejection of
both liberal individualism and the Marxist concept of class struggle, and
restedontheideathataspiritofcooperationamongsocialinterestscould
produce a society in which all citizens would share fully in social life. This
became the consensus ideology of Swedish society until neoliberalism
began to challenge it in the 1970s (since that time democratic corpo-
ratism has clearly weakened, though not disappeared). The culture of
Swedish journalism, which, despite the persistence of political paral-
lelism, rested on a shared notion of the responsible journalist serving the
ends of social progress, is clearly rooted in this ideological consensus.
Sweden may be a particularly clear case, but similar developments also
took place in other Democratic Corporatist countries.
Inexplainingthe“paradox”ofideologicaldiversityandsocialpartner-
ship in democratic corporatism, Katzenstein emphasizes the prominent
role of technical experts, who “provide a common framework and ac-
ceptable data” (88) that serve as a basis for the bargaining process. This
reflects the strong development of rational-legal authority in the Demo-
cratic Corporatist countries, something that predates democratic corpo-
ratism,andisalsoimportanttounderstandingthestrengthofjournalistic
professionalism in this system. The concept of rational-legal authority,
of course, was developed most fully by Max Weber. The underlying idea
of a system of rule based on a universalistic legal framework, goes back
to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and has deep roots in German history. One

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