Page 49 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Comparing Media Systems

(2) The professional model is exemplified above all by the British Broad-
casting Corporation (BBC), where a strong tradition developed that
broadcasting should be largely insulated from political control and
run by broadcasting professionals. As we shall see, this model is
alsocharacteristicoftheCanadianBroadcastingCorporation(CBC),
Irish public broadcasting, some Scandinavian countries, and public
broadcasting in the United States.
(3) In the parliamentary or proportional representation model control
over public broadcasting is divided among the political parties by
proportional representation, as part of what is known in Italy as the
lottizzazione or in German-speaking countries as the proporz prin-
ciple. The classic example here would be Radiotelevisione Italiana
(RAI) in the 1980s, where not only was the board of directors
appointed by proportional representation, but the three channels
were also divided among the parties: RAI 1 under the control of
the Christian Democrats, RAI 2 under the control of the “secular”
parties, and RAI 3 under the control of the Communist Party.
Lower-level appointments within RAI also largely followed the prin-
ciple of proportional representation. The parliamentary model is
only really distinct from the government model in systems where
coalition government and power sharing are typical – a distinc-
tion that will be explained further in the following text. In a ma-
joritarian political system, even if public broadcasting is formally
under the authority of parliament and not directly supervised by
the government, appointment of the governing board by propor-
tional representation results in control by the political majority, as in
Spain. 2
(4) The “civic” or “corporatist” model is similar to the parliamentary
model in the sense that control of public service broadcasting is dis-
tributed among various social and political groups, but differs in that
representation is extended beyond political parties to other kinds of
“socially relevant groups”– trade unions, business associations, re-
ligious organizations, ethnic associations, and the like. The Dutch
“pillarized” system, in which broadcasting was run directly by as-
sociations rooted in diverse religious and ideological subgroups, is
the purest example of such a system. This model can also be seen
2
In fact, as we shall see, the government parties in Italy had the predominant position; in
thissenseItaly,likeotherSouthernEuropeancountries,shadedtowardthegovernment
model.

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