Page 65 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Political Context of Media Systems

are actually relevant to understanding the media, and how they have to
be adapted conceptually for this purpose.
In some sense, the political system variables discussed here could be
called the “independent variables” in our analysis of the relation between
media and political systems, as many are more general and deeply rooted
aspects of social structure and culture than are the media-system char-
acteristics outlined previously. As we noted in Chapter 1, however, we
see the relation between media and political systems more in terms of
coevolution than of strict causal ordering. Indeed, the relative influence
of the media system on political institutions and vice versa may vary
historically, with political forces dominating the media system in some
periods, while in other periods the media system is more independent
(or more determined by economic forces), and may exercise greater au-
tonomous influence on the political world. This issue we will take up in
detail in Chapter 8.

INTERACTION WITH ECONOMIC VARIABLES
Weintroduceinthischapteranumberofhypothesesaboutthewaypolit-
ical variables are connected with media system variables. It is important
to keep in mind, however, that the relationships are only rough, and
we are not proposing any kind of one-to-one correspondence between
political and media-system characteristics. This is true both because of
the complexity of real political systems and because political variables
interact with a number of other influences on media systems. The media
are in a very important sense a political institution, but they are also (in-
creasingly often) businesses and are shaped by many economic factors. 1
We have already mentioned, in the previous chapter, some important
characteristics of media market structure that will play a role in our
analysis: we noted, for example, that national newspaper markets are
more likely than local markets to be compatible with external pluralism
in the press. Relatively little work has been done to develop conceptual
frameworks for understanding these factors in comparative perspective,

1 Media are also cultural institutions. Because our focus in this book is primarily on
the news media and the relation of media to the political system, it is political culture,
specifically, something that is intimately connected with the kinds of structural factors
consideredinthischapter,thatisrelevanttoouranalysis.Ifweweredoingacomparative
analysis that focused more fully on cultural industries, other kinds of cultural factors
would also need to be taken into account.

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