Page 258 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

“report the facts”; it must give meaning to events, and this can be done
with “due impartiality,” to use the British phrase, only when the major
political actors in society do not have sharply divergent world views.
Britain, by contrast, did have both feudalism and a strong social-
ist movement. Its political parties are traditionally more unified and
more ideologically coherent than American parties. The Labour party
was clearly identified with the social interests of the working class and,
until the shift to New Labour in the 1990s, remained officially socialist
in ideology. According to Lane and Ersson’s (1991: 185) index of ideo-
logical polarization, Britain was close to the European average for the
whole of the 1955–85 period, though higher in the 1950s than later. This
greaterideologicaldiversity,orgreater“thematization”ofideology,touse
Luhmann’s term, is no doubt part of the reason that political parallelism
is traditionally higher in the British press, though it should be noted that
difference is overdetermined: The fact that the British newspaper market
is national and competitive rather than local and monopolistic also may
encourage external pluralism in the press. At the same time, compared
with many continental European countries, Britain is characterized by
moderate pluralism: antisystem parties are marginal and the degree of
common ground among the major parties and other political actors – on
parliamentary democracy, a market economy combined with a relatively
strong welfare state, British nationalism, and so on – is very extensive.
The political independence of British broadcasting is clearly rooted in
this common ground. And the British press, though it is characterized by
partisan differentiation, does tend to present itself as representing “the
people” in general.
Canada would seem to lie between the United States and Britain,
with greater ideological diversity than the United States. It clearly did
have a tradition of Tory conservatism and socialism has been stronger
in Canada than in the United States, though less than Britain (Horwitz
1966). In Ireland a strong liberal tradition combines with the central
role of nationalism to produce a consensual political culture: The di-
visions between Irish political parties have their origins in the split
over the Treaty with Britain in 1922 and are more symbolic than sub-
stantive in character. Lane and Ersson’s polarization index is lower for
Ireland than for any other European country (indeed it approaches
zero).Thesemoderate-to-lowlevelsofpoliticalpolarization,again,com-
bine with media market conditions (perhaps particularly decisive in
the case of Canada) to encourage a journalistic tradition of political
neutrality.

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