Page 26 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Comparing Media Systems

“The thesis of this volume,” they continue, “is that the press always
takes on the form and coloration of the social and political structures
within which it operates. Especially, it reflects the system of social con-
trol whereby the relations of individuals and institutions are adjusted.
We believe that an understanding of these aspects of society is basic
to any systematic understanding of the press” (1–2). Here again, we
think the problem is well posed. We shall follow the agenda set out by
Siebert,Peterson,andSchramminattemptingtoshowhowdifferentme-
dia models are rooted in broader differences of political and economic
structure. We will argue that one cannot understand the news media
without understanding the nature of the state, the system of political par-
ties, the pattern of relations between economic and political interests,
and the development of civil society, among other elements of social
structure.
On one point, we will leave matters a bit more open than the authors
of Four Theories of the Press. Note that Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm
seem to assume that the media will always be the “dependent variable”
in relation to the “system of social control,” which it “reflects.” In this
sense, their formulation is ironically similar to a traditional Marxist base
and superstructure theory (though as we shall see in a moment they
quickly stand Marx on his head). In many cases it may be reasonable to
assume that the media system essentially “reflects” other aspects of social
structure – the party system, for example. But there is good evidence
that media institutions have an impact of their own on other social
structures.
There is also historical variation in the degree to which media are re-
flective or independently influential, and many scholars have argued that
there is an important trend in the direction of greater media influence,
particularly in relation to the political system. The belief that the media
have become an important “exogenous” variable affecting other political
institutions is one reason scholars in comparative politics have begun to
pay attention to media institutions they previously ignored. It is worth
noting that, just as communication scholars have paid little attention
to comparative analysis, scholars of comparative politics have paid little
attention to the media. One can search the index of the classic works on
political parties and find virtually nothing on the press or media, even
though politicians have certainly been preoccupied by – and occupied
in – the latter as long as political parties have existed, and even though
those classic works often define parties as communicative institutions
(Deutsch 1966; Sartori 1976), a theoretical perspective that would seem

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