Page 75 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Political Context of Media Systems

announcements to a large body of citizens, played an important role in
the origin of the press (1989: 21–2).
Instrumentalization of the media, as defined in the previous chapter,
islesslikelyinsystemswithstrongrational-legalauthority:mediaowners
are less likely to have strong and stable alliances with particular political
parties, and less likely to use their media properties as instruments to
intervene in political affairs. The independence of administrative and
judicial institutions and the rule-governed character of public policy
means that in systems where rational-legal authority is strong businesses
do not depend too heavily on arbitrary decisions of particular officials,
who may, for example, favor an enterprise with which they are allied
politically, nor are their fates affected too dramatically by which party
happens to be in power at the moment. This does not mean that business
will lack influence on public policy in a system with strong rational-legal
authority, nor that their interests will be disfavored: on the contrary, a
system of rational-legal authority will often institutionalize this influ-
ence, though depending on the balance of political forces in society it
may also provide other interests with access to the policy process. But
it does mean that business owners will have less need for particularistic
political alliances, and this implies that media owners will find it easier
to keep their distance from party politics.
Professionalization of journalism is also more common where
rational-legal authority is strong. In fact, the development of journalistic
professionalismarisestoalargeextentfromthesamehistoricalforcesthat
produced autonomous administrative and legal systems – particularly in
thephaseof“bourgeoisrationalization”–andthesedevelopmentshistor-
ically influenced one another in many ways. Journalistic professionalism
began to develop in Europe and North America in the second half of the
nineteenth century, as there was a general shift toward professionalism
as a model of social organization in many areas of social life, including
public administration. Journalistic and administrative professionalism
involve similar world views, including the notion of an autonomous in-
stitution serving the common good, and an emphasis on rational and
fact-centered discourses. “Bureaucracy has a ‘rational’ character,” Weber
wrote, “rules, means, ends and matter-of-factness dominate its bearing”
(GerthandMills1946:244).Thesamecanclearlybesaidofthenewforms
of information-oriented journalism. In many cases journalists, who also
tended to come from the progressive middle class, were deeply involved
in the reform movements that established modern administrative sys-
tems. Those systems in turn provided the kinds of politically “neutral”

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