Page 91 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Media and Political Systems and Differentiation

groups of countries: British political, economic, and media institutions
were exported to Ireland, Canada, and the United States; France had
enormous influence on Italy and the Iberian Peninsula resulting from
the Napoleonic invasion, which introduced journalism to this region;
and a dense web of interactions also connected the countries of Northern
and Central Europe. If the eighteen countries covered here were eighteen
independent “cases” it would be statistically unlikely that we would have
observedthegeographicalpatternofsimilaritythatwedid–butofcourse
they are not really independent cases; their development was deeply in-
tertwined, and the relations among them did clearly follow geographical
patterns.
With those qualifications, here are summaries of the principal char-
acteristics of the three models, focusing first on media system character-
istics and second on the political context in which they developed.
The Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model is characterized by
anelite-orientedpresswithrelativelysmallcirculationandacorrespond-
ing centrality of electronic media. Freedom of the press and the develop-
ment of commercial media industries generally came late; newspapers
have often been economically marginal and in need of subsidy. Political
parallelism tends to be high; the press is marked by a strong focus on
political life, external pluralism, and a tradition of commentary-oriented
or advocacy journalism persists more strongly than in other parts of
Europe.Instrumentalizationofthemediabythegovernment,bypolitical
parties, and by industrialists with political ties is common. Public broad-
castingtendstofollowthegovernmentorparliamentarymodelsoutlined
in Chapter 3. Professionalization of journalism is not as strongly devel-
oped as in the other models: journalism is not as strongly differentiated
from political activism and the autonomy of journalism is often limited,
though, as we shall see, the Mediterranean countries are characterized by
particularly explicit conflicts over the autonomy of journalists – power
andauthoritywithinnewsorganizationshasbeenmoreopenlycontested
in the Polarized Pluralist systems. The state plays a large role as an owner,
regulator, and funder of media, though its capacity to regulate effectively
is often limited. Many Mediterranean countries are characterized by a
particularly rapid and uncontrolled transition from state controlled to
commercial broadcasting. Or as Traquina says, they are characterized by
“savage deregulation.”
We have chosen to refer to this as the Polarized Pluralist Model be-
cause we believe that these patterns are rooted to a large extent in the
high degree of ideological diversity and conflict that characterizes these

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