Page 323 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Conclusion

All of the forms of analysis suggested here can of course be combined
in a variety of ways: so for example a case study of the interaction of
the media with a social movement could make use of content analysis
or ethnographic field research. It could also be historical in character,
looking, for instance, at coverage in a period when party papers were still
strong and in a period when commercial media were overwhelmingly
dominant.
We would like to close with a few words about the applicability of the
analysis presented here to media systems outside of Western Europe and
North America. We have deliberately focused here on a limited range
of different media systems. We have rejected the kind of universalistic
approach that characterized Four Theories of the Press, and hope that our
work will not be used as Four Theories was, as a set of categories to be
imposed on systems that developed in very different contexts, in a way
that would actually prevent us from analyzing other systems on their
own terms and understanding their distinctive logics. At the same time,
we hope that our work will be useful to those working on other media
systems as a general example of how to think about the relation of media
and political systems, and as a set of models against which others can be
constructed.
We do have some very tentative ideas about how our three models
might relate to other systems. The Liberal Model, of course, will be rele-
vant to the study of most others in part because its global influence has
been so great and because neoliberalism and globalization continue to
diffuse liberal media structures and ideas. It is probably particularly rele-
vanttounderstandingLatinAmericansystems,whichhavebeenstrongly
influenced by the North American model, and perhaps many Asian sys-
tems, given the strongly capitalist character of their recent development.
In both cases, of course, the Liberal principles are modified in important
ways, among other things by a strong role of the state. The Democratic
CorporatistModel,wesuspect,willhaveparticularlystrongrelevancefor
the analysis of those parts of Eastern and Central Europe that share much
of the same historical development, like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Re-
public, and the Baltic states. It may also be relevant in some ways to the
analysis of Asian systems, which share with the Democratic Corporatist
countries a relatively collectivist political culture. 2

2
German media law, for example, seems to have significant influence on media law
in some Asian countries (e.g., Youm 1993); no doubt there are similarities between
Hegelian and Confucian conceptions of the state.

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