Page 3 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Comparing Media Systems

This book proposes a framework for comparative analysis of the relation between the
media and the political system. Building on a survey of media institutions in eighteen
West European and North American democracies, Hallin and Mancini identify the
principal dimensions of variation in media systems and the political variables that
have shaped their evolution. They go on to identify three major models of media
system development, the Polarized Pluralist, Democratic Corporatist, and Liberal
models; to explain why the media have played a different role in politics in each of
these systems; and to explore the forces of change that are currently transforming
them. It provides a key theoretical statement about the relation between media and
political systems, a key statement about the methodology of comparative analysis in
politicalcommunication,andaclearoverviewofthevarietyofmediainstitutionsthat
have developed in the West, understood within their political and historical context.

Daniel C. Hallin is a Professor of Communication and an Adjunct Professor of Politi-
cal Science at the University of California, San Diego. He has written widely on media
andpolitics,includingstudiesofmediaandwar,theshrinkingsoundbiteintelevision
news, the history of professionalism in American journalism, and the media and the
process of democratization in Mexico, as well as earlier studies of U.S. and Italian
news with Professor Mancini. His previous books includeThe “Uncensored War”: The
Media and Vietnam and We Keep America on Top of the World: Television Journalism
and the Public Sphere. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Communication,
Political Communication, Media Culture & Society,the Journal of Politics, and the
Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications, and have been translated
into many languages. He has served as editor of The Communication Review and as
an at-large board member of the International Communication Association.

Paolo Mancini is presently a full professor at the Dipartimento Istituzioni e Societ` a,
Facolt` a di Scienze Politiche, Universit` a di Perugia. He is also the Director of Centro
Interuniversitario di Comunicazione Politica (Interuniversity Center of Political
Communication).
He received his Laurea degree from the Facolt` a di Scienze Politiche and his Dea at
theEcoledesHautesEtudesenScienceSocialesofParis.ProfessorManciniwentonto
teachatvariousinstitutionsinItalyandabroadincludingtheUniversityofCalifornia,
San Diego, and Universit` a di Perugia and was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on
the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard University. Professor Mancini is the
author of a number of books including his most recent, Il sistema fragile (2000).
With David Swanson he edited Politics, Media and Modern Democracy. Professor
Mancini is also corresponding editor of many journals including European Journal of
Communication,Press/Politics,TheCommunicationReview,PoliticalCommunication,
and Journalism Studies.