Page 76 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

P1: GLB/kaf/KAA P2: kaf
0521835356c03.xml Hallin 0 521 83535 6 January 20, 2004 15:21

Concepts and Models

information sources on which new forms of information-based journal-
ism would be built, and relied to a large extent on publicly accessible
proceedings and documents that became the subject matter for much of
the news.
A contrasting form of organization is political clientelism, which re-
mained strong in Southern Europe through much of the twentieth cen-
tury, and whose legacy, we will argue, is still important to understanding
media systems in that region. Clientelism refers to a pattern of social
organization in which access to social resources is controlled by patrons
and delivered to clients in exchange for deference and various forms
of support (Mouzelis 1980, Eisenstadt and Lemarchand 1981, Roniger
and G¨ unes-Ayata 1994, Piattoni 2001, Hallin and Papathanassopoulos
2002). It is a particularistic form of social organization, in which for-
mal rules are less important relative to personal connections or, in later
forms of clientelism, connections mediated through political parties, the
Church, and other organizations. While rational-legal authority tends
to be associated with a political culture that enshrines the notion of the
“common good” or “public interest” (we leave aside here the question
of whether policies pursued in the name of the “common good” really
are in the interest of all), in a clientelist system commitment to partic-
ular interests is stronger and the notion of the “common good” weaker.
All societies saw the development of clientelism at some point in their
history, and clientelist relationships continue to exist to some degree ev-
erywhere (Legg 1975). These relationships, however, were the target of
the reform movements that sought to strengthen rational-legal author-
ity, and where those movements were successful clientelism receded in
importance.
Clientelism tends to be associated with instrumentalization of both
public and private media. In the case of public media, appointments
tend to be made more on the basis of political loyalty than purely profes-
sional criteria. Private business owners also will typically have political
connections, which are essential to obtaining government contracts and
concessions (including broadcast licenses) and in many other ways nec-
essary for the successful operation of a business. These owners will often
use their media properties as a vehicle for negotiation with other elites
and for intervention in the political world; indeed in many cases this will
be the primary purpose of media ownership. For these reasons political
parallelism tends to be high where the tradition of clientelism is strong.
Adherence to legal norms is generally weaker where clientelism is
strong; actors will expect to be able to use their connections to avoid

58