Page 25 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Introduction

it is an exploratory study also means that the geographical definition of
its scope is in some ways arbitrary: we did not already have a theoretical
framework that could provide the basis for selection of cases. Instead we
followed the familiar strategy of limiting the study to a region on the as-
sumption that this would result in a reasonably comparable set of cases.
“Comparability,” as Lijphart (1971: 689) says, “is not inherent in any
given area, but it is more likely in an area than in a randomly selected set
of countries.” The area approach also made the study more manageable
in a practical sense – we were able to visit the countries more easily, for
instance, and to take advantage of the relatively large amount of com-
parable data compiled on European media systems. We could probably
have added Australia and New Zealand – whose historical connections
make them very similar to Western European countries – to our study
without making the conceptual framework significantly more complex.
We suspect, however, that most other cases we might have added would
have introduced important new variables, straining our ability to master
the relevant literatures and present the resultant framework in a coher-
ent way. In Chapter 4 we introduce a triangular drawing on which each
of our cases is represented in relation to three media-system models.
Any significant multiplication of cases would probably have made such
a two-dimensional representation impossible!
The desire to “reduce the property space of the analysis,” in Lijphart’s
terms, is also reflected in our decision to focus primarily on news media
and media regulation. A comparative analysis of media systems certainly
could include much more about cultural industries –film, music, televi-
sion and other entertainment; telecommunication; public relations; and
a number of other areas. But this would involve other literatures and re-
quire very different sets of concepts and we will not try to take it on here.

THE LEGACY OF FOUR THEORIES OF THE PRESS
Since we began with Four Theories of the Press, a work that remains re-
markably influential around the world as an attempt to lay out a broad
framework for comparative analysis of the news media, it makes sense
to follow Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm’s argument a bit further. 4

4 Many variations of the Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm schema have been proposed
over the years, for example by Altschull (1995), Hachten (1996), Mundt (1991), and
Picard (1985), who proposes to add a model that corresponds more or less to what
we will call the Democratic Corporatist Model. McQuail (1994: 131–2) summarizes a
number of the revisions of Four Theories.

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