Page 301 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Forces and Limits of Homogenization

is possible to imagine a complete convergence of media systems in the
United States and Western Europe toward something close to the Liberal
Model. History does not usually move in straight lines, however, and
there are many reasons to doubt whether it makes sense to project the
trend toward homogenization of the past couple of decades indefinitely
into the future.
There are, for one thing, important variations in the political sys-
tems of the countries considered here that seem likely to persist despite
the changes in political institutions and culture that have clearly taken
place. It is common to say that European politics has been to some
degree “presidentialized.” But parliamentary systems remain different
from presidential ones. As Blumler, Kavanaugh, and Nossiter (1996: 59)
observe:

separation of powers in the U.S. government has imposed a con-
tinual pressure on the President to court mass opinion through
the mass media in order to keep the heat of popular support for
his measures. ... In Britain’s parliamentary system, however, the
Prime Minister and his or her Cabinet can count on party disci-
pline to ensure passage of almost all proposed legislation....
Proportional representation also remains different from a first-past-the-
post electoral system and produces a different kind of party system. Con-
stitutional changes could of course lead to homogenization here too –
Italy,inparticularhasbeendebatingsuchchanges.ButinmostofEurope
there is no sign that any such changes are in the offing. The structure
of the political systems does not, of course, affect the media system as
deeply as it once did, because the mass media have become more differ-
entiated from it. But the news media still interact intensively with the
political system. The flow of information and structural organization of
news sources seems inevitably different in contrasting systems, and so
too the narrative conventions of reporting politics. It seems unlikely that
media systems could entirely converge while party and electoral systems
remain sharply different.
Legal systems also remain different in important ways. There is
no reason to assume, in particular, the “first amendment absolutism”
that characterizes the U.S. legal system would ever spread to Europe.
And this difference seems likely to have continuing consequences for
media systems. It seems likely, for example, that electoral communica-
tion will continue to be more regulated in Europe, with much televi-
sion time allocated according to political criteria and paid advertising

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