Page 251 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The North Atlantic or Liberal Model

in part to restrict imported publications (Horgan 2001: 12–13). About
20 percent of daily newspaper circulation today represents British titles.
The Censorship of Publications Act, which lasted until 1967, resulted
from the political conflicts of the civil war of the 1920s, and Ireland,
like Britain, has restrictions on media related to the conflict in Northern
Ireland.
The relation between the state and the media is not solely a matter
of regulation, subsidy, and state ownership. It also involves the flow of
information – including images, symbols, and interpretive frames. And
in this sphere, it is not at all clear that the media and the state are more
separate in Liberal countries than in the other two systems studied here:
though the rhetoric of the Liberal countries tends to stress an adversary
relation between the media and the state, and though the state’s formal
roleasregulator,funder,andownerismorelimitedthaninothersystems,
it is important to stress that this does not necessarily mean the state has
less influence on the news-making process. Here there is clearly a need
for more extensive comparative research.
An adversary attitude toward state officials is certainly part of the cul-
tureofjournalismintheAnglo-Americancountries.Itismanifestamong
other things in the strong development of techniques of investigative re-
porting and the strong emphasis on scandal (not always the same thing)
that have been legendary since Watergate, particularly in the U.S. where
access to government information is relatively easy. At the same time,
the notion of the state as the “primary definer”– the idea that the pro-
duction of news is structured around information and interpretation
provided by state officials – originated in Anglo-American media stud-
ies (Hall et al. 1978), and there are large bodies of research showing the
strongly institutionalized relationship in Liberal systems between jour-
nalists and government officials, perhaps most clearly exemplified by
the Westminster Lobby system in Britain. Mutual dependence between
state and media institutions means that the structure of each reflects
its relation with the other: news organizations are structured to a large
extent around the “beat” system that connects reporters to their sources
in the state, and state agencies are organized to a large extent around
the needs of the media. According to some estimates, more than half the
personnel in the White House are involved in public relations activities,
a large proportion of which involve dealing with the media (Grossman
and Kumar 1981: 83–4). In the Liberal system (and to some degree also in
the Democratic Corporatist system, in recent years) both state officials
and journalists claim a kind of neutral authority as representatives of

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