Page 32 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Comparing Media Systems

greater in countries such as Italy or Spain where journalists will express
allegiance to the Liberal Model of neutrality and objectivity, while the
actual practice of journalism is deeply rooted in partisan advocacy tradi-
tions. In scholarship, too, the Anglo-American Liberal Model has been
conceptualized much more fully – even by its critics – than other media
system models. And there is a strong tendency for comparative discus-
sions to privilege normative judgments, often in a rather Manichaean
mode (like Four Theories of the Press). Again, this is true of defenders
of the Liberal Model, Alexander (1981), for example, and critics such
as Chalaby (1998), who recounts French and British media history as a
shift toward what for him is the anti-ideal of depoliticized commercial
media.
We are interested here not in measuring media systems against a nor-
mative ideal, but in analyzing their historical development as institutions
within particular social settings. We want to understand why they devel-
oped in the particular ways that they did; what roles they actually play
in political, social, and economic life; and what patterns of relationship
they have with other social institutions. Our models of journalism are
intended as empirical, not normative models.
This does not mean that we are uninterested in normative questions,
nor, certainly, that we mean to adopt an attitude of functionalist rela-
tivism, assuming that any media institutions that exist must ipso facto
be assumed to perform positive functions for the society as a whole.
We will try to show, in fact, that comparative analysis can be extremely
useful in addressing the kinds of normative questions that legitimately
concern communication scholars. Does commercialization support or
undercut the independence of the media? Is the diversity of voices in
a plural society better represented in a media system with external or
internal pluralism – that is, news media that represent distinct political
orientations or news media that seek to report the news in a “balanced”
way? Which is more responsive to new voices emerging in society: a pro-
fessionalized commercial press or one more closely tied to the political
system? Comparative analysis can help us to address these kinds of ques-
tions, first, by giving us a clearer sense of the range of different kinds of
institutional arrangements that have evolved to deal with the problems
of communication in a democratic society and, second, by allowing us
to assess the actual consequences of these institutional structures for the
values we consider important – diversity; openness and responsiveness;
independence; and accuracy and completeness of information.

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