Page 50 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Concepts and Models

in certain forms of community radio in Europe and in German
broadcasting councils, which represent “socially relevant groups”
along with political parties.
Kelly(1983)proposesathree-waydistinction,towhichwewillalsore-
fer. Kelly distinguishes among what she calls politics-over-broadcasting
systems, formally autonomous systems, and politics-in-broadcasting
systems. What we have called the professional model is obviously a
formally autonomous system; the government model is a politics-
over-broadcasting system; and the parliamentary and civic models
are typically politics-in-broadcasting systems, though some power-
sharing systems are further along the spectrum toward politics-over-
broadcasting systems, where the parties are particularly insistent on
maintaining control. It should also be noted that the civic model can
collapse into the parliamentary model where the “socially relevant
groups” have close ties to political parties. The distinctions introduced
by Kelly underline an important difference of philosophy. The profes-
sional,parliamentary,andcivic/corporatistmodelsareall,insomesense,
solutions to the problem of how to keep public broadcasting, or a reg-
ulatory authority, from falling under the control of the most powerful
political force and failing to serve a politically diverse society. The profes-
sional model solves the problem by attempting to insulate broadcasting
from political interests in order to keep the parties and other organized
interests out of the process of producing television and radio. The parlia-
mentary and civic/corporatist models, which, as we shall see are typical
of power-sharing or “consensus” political systems, attempt to solve the
problem by making sure that all the major groups within society are in-
cluded in the process. In terms of political parallelism, the professional
model is obviously toward the low end of the spectrum, the government
model toward the high end, and the other two models – the politics-in-
broadcasting systems – areinbetween.
These models are not mutually exclusive, and in the real world they
are almost always combined. Many systems, for example, combine pro-
portional representation in appointments to the board of directors of
public broadcasting with a culture and often legal norms that grant
substantial autonomy to broadcasting professionals. Most systems in
northern Europe can be understood as combinations of the parlia-
mentary or civic/corporatist and the professional model. All modern
broadcasting systems require professionals to run them and no system
can work adequately if these professionals do not enjoy some degree
of independence. All modern broadcasting systems are also subject to

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