Page 74 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Concepts and Models

rule-governed regulatory system in which dynamic modern capitalism
could develop. In addition to bureaucracy, the other principal institu-
tion of a rational-legal order is an autonomous judicial system. There are
also important cultural components to rational-legal authority, mani-
fest, for example, in the degree to which citizens, businesses, and other
actors are willing to follow rules, or alternatively seek to evade them,
and whether public officials, technical experts, and other authorities
are seen as serving a general “public interest” transcending particular
interests.
As with other elements of political structure the most obvious and
direct implication of the development of rational-legal authority for the
media system can be found in public broadcasting systems and in the
agencies that regulate private broadcasting, allocate press subsidies, and
so forth. Where rational-legal authority is strongly developed, these in-
stitutions, similar to other public agencies, are likely to be relatively
autonomous from control by government, parties, and particular politi-
cians, and to be governed by clear rules and procedures. This does
not necessarily mean broadcasting governance will follow the formally
autonomous, professional model. As we shall see, many of the demo-
cratic corporatist countries of Northern and Central Europe have strong
rational-legal authority, but follow broadcasting-in-politics models of
media regulation. Bureaucracies of course are not intended to be en-
tirely autonomous, but to be responsive to elected political leadership;
the negative connotations of the term bureaucracy have their origins
in complaints about administrative apparatuses losing accountability.
All bureaucracies therefore have some degree of political control and
penetration, particularly at the top levels (Suleiman 1984). But where
rational-legal authority is strong, this will always be balanced more or
less strongly by the professional autonomy of civil servants, including, in
the case of public broadcasting, journalists. In countries where rational-
legal authority is less strongly developed – principally, as we shall see, in
Southern Europe – party control and penetration of public broadcasting
and regulatory institutions tends to be stronger and deeper.
The development of rational-legal authority also affects media sys-
tems in broader though more indirect ways. Systems of rational-legal
authority, for one thing, require formal codification of procedures and
information,andtheirpublicaccessibility,andthusproviderelativelyfer-
tile ground for the development of journalism. Habermas, in his account
of the origins of the public sphere, notes that the institution of formal-
ized public administration along with a need to address ordinances and

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