Page 254 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

P1: GCV/KAA P2: kaf
0521835356c07.xml Hallin 0 521 83535 6 January 21, 2004 16:24

The Three Models

BBC coverage of its handling of intelligence on Iraq. In comparative
perspective, however, professionals at the BBC, and indeed at ITV as
well, enjoy a high level of autonomy, and the most important political
limits on broadcasting are to be found not in political intervention from
outside,butwithinthecommunityofbroadcastingprofessionals,intheir
commitment a centrist, consensualist view of “responsible” professional
broadcasting.
The Canadian and Irish public broadcasting systems are essentially
modeled after the BBC, though in the Irish case broadcasting was under
the control of a government department until 1961, and was “essentially
a government mouthpiece” (Horgan 2001: 70) from about 1932 to 1948.
Public broadcasting in the United States has a complicated structure be-
cause of its decentralized character and its reliance on private donations
as well as public funding. But the main national body, the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, is similar in its institutional form to the British,
Canadian, or Irish systems – an independent public corporation, with
directors appointed by the president, and a norm that they should be
politicallyindependent.NobodyhasstudiedAmericanpublicbroadcast-
ing in comparative perspective, but it has probably been more subject
to pressures from politicians (see e.g., Twentieth Century Fund 1993:
36) than the BBC, as it is a much more marginal institution without
comparable prestige or a dedicated source of funding such as the license
fee (various proposals to give it a source of funding apart from general
tax revenues have been rejected). It is also subject to pressure from its
other funders, including both local and state governments and corporate
donors (Hoynes 1994).
In the United States, of course, most broadcasting is commercial. But
the American commercial networks are ultimately not dramatically dif-
ferentintheirrelationtothepoliticalsystemthanthepublicbroadcasting
of Britain, Ireland, or Canada. They of course have autonomy from po-
litical control, but they are not completely free from political pressures. 17
The latter result in part from the fact that broadcasting – like the related
telecommunication businesses in which the broadcast networks are in-
creasingly involved – is government regulated and the network owners

17 Many examples of such pressures can be given over the years. Some are recounted for
the Nixon period in Porter (1976) and for the Reagan period in Herstgaard (1988).
Recently the networks went along with pressures from the Bush administration not
to show videotapes released by Osama bin Laden. The BBC rebuffed similar pres-
sures and said it would make its own decision on the newsworthiness of bin Laden
videotapes.

236