Page 273 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Forces and Limits of Homogenization

neoliberalism in the 1980s. We generally associate Americanization to-
day with the conservative influence of neoliberalism, but as a number of
scholars have pointed out (e.g., Gundle 2000) leftist culture in Europe
was also strongly affected by the “American dream.”
The process described by the theory of cultural imperialism is essen-
tially one of outside influence, involving the displacement of one culture
by another imported culture. We will argue that, in fact, the changes
in European media systems are driven above all by processes of change
internal to European society, though certainly connected with the inte-
gration of European countries into a global economy. Outside influences
are clearly an important part of the story, however, and we will begin
with a fuller discussion of American influence and the wider process
by which a global culture of journalism has developed – including the
influence of technology – before going on to the internal processes of
change that are commonly referred to as “modernization.”
As we have seen in the preceding chapters, international influences
havebeenapartofmediahistoryfromthebeginning:SouthernEuropean
media were deeply influenced by the French, and intense interaction
among Northern European countries was central to the formation
of their media culture. The influence has moved in many directions.
German journalism, for example, has had significant influences on the
American media. Josef Pulitzer worked in the large German-language
press in the United States before starting his English-language newspa-
per industry, and German photojournalists moving to the United States
during the 1930s had important influences on American photojour-
nalism (as did European filmmakers in Hollywood at the same time).
American influence on European media, as we have noted, goes back
at least to the late nineteenth century. We saw in Chapter 5, for exam-
ple, that the emerging French mass press was clearly influenced by the
American, with one of the most important papers, Le Matin,owned by
an American who said it would be a “unique newspaper ... that will not
have any political opinions ... a paper of worldwide and accurate tele-
graphic news” (Thogmartin 1998: 93–4). Schudson (1995) shows that
the practice of interviewing was spread to Europe by American reporters.
American influence clearly intensified following World War II, as
the United States became the dominant political and economic power.
It was not something that simply happened. As Blanchard (1986) has
shown it was in part the result of an organized effort led by the American
Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the U.S. Department of
State to promote the U.S. conception of press freedom and journalistic

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