Page 212 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

generally. Third, legal institutions often have an important influence
on the media systems in the Democratic Corporatist countries. This is
probably most important in Germany, where the Federal Constitutional
Court has played an important role in protecting the independence of
the public broadcasting system when the politicians at either the federal
or L¨ ander level have tried to assert greater control (Humphreys 1994:
161ff). Fourth, a pattern of rational-legal authority makes the kind of
instrumentalization of media that frequently characterizes the Polarized
Pluralist systems less likely. Because resources are allocated and decisions
taken on the basis of transparent rules, particularistic pressures and al-
liances are less crucial to success in business or other social endeavors.
Media owners thus have less incentive to use their media properties as
means of pressure and particularistic bargaining, and other business in-
terests have less incentive to enter the media field for that purpose. We
will elaborate on this argument in the following chapter, as this is a char-
acteristic the Democratic Corporatist countries share with the Liberal
ones. In the Democratic Corporatist system, the existence of formally
neutral legal and administrative institutions combines with the highly
institutionalized representative process by which policy decisions are
made to decrease the importance of media as a means of applying polit-
ical pressure outside this system. Business and other social interests are
formallyrepresentedbytheirpeakassociationsinahighlyorganizedbar-
gaining and consultation process, and cannot, for example, be excluded
from the process or systematically discriminated against if they lack ties
to the particular politicians or factions in power. It should be added
that the economics of the newspaper industry in Democratic Corpo-
ratist countries also works against instrumentalization: newspapers have
been either profitable commercial enterprises or have been supported by
representative institutions such as parties, churches, and trade unions,
and thus are less susceptible to falling under the control of particular
patrons.
Finally, a high level of journalistic professionalism is more likely to
develop in societies with a tradition of rational-legal authority. In part,
this is a matter of homology among social institutions, of cultural reso-
nance and mutual influence: in a society where the idea of professional
communities with special qualifications, rules of practice, social func-
tions, systems of ethics, and claims to autonomy flowing from these is
widely diffused, it is more likely that journalists, too will seek to adapt to
this model. In Germany the idea of journalism as a profession developed
in the late nineteenth century as other occupations were also redefining

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