Page 98 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Concepts and Models

degree of external pluralism is incompatible with differentiation of the
media system. The fact that media make judgments independently does
not necessarily mean that they must all make the same judgments, and
cannot have distinct ideological orientations. Similarly some, though
not all, of our analysis of the role of the state can be understood in terms
of the differentiation or lack of differentiation between media and state.
How active the state is in relation to other social institutions is a differ-
ent question from whether it is structurally differentiated from them; a
strongly differentiated state is often a very active one, and the fact that it
is active does not necessarily threaten the differentiation of other social
subsystems, any more than an active media system necessarily threatens
differentiation. Press subsidies, for example, could threaten the auton-
omy of media from the state, but in societies with strong rational-legal
authority, where the allocation of subsidies is governed by clearly stated
criteria, they do not generally have this effect.
In terms of the three models, the Liberal Model is characterized by a
high degree of differentiation of the media from “other social bodies,”
particularly those historically active in the political sphere – parties, in-
terest groups, and in some cases religious groups. The Polarized Pluralist
and Democratic Corporatist systems, on the other hand, are character-
ized by lower levels of differentiation of media from such organized so-
cial and political groups, with a more recent trend toward differentiation
particularly in the Democratic Corporatist countries. This trend toward
differentiation from the political system, as we shall see in Chapter 8, is
present in all the countries of our study to varying degrees and is indeed
connected with the three forces Alexander identifies: demands for more
universalistic information put forward by new social groups, the growth
of professional norms and autonomy, and development of universalistic
political cultures.
Atthesametime,therearemanyproblemswithdifferentiationtheory,
and particularly with the notion that media history can be understood
as a unilinear movement toward greater differentiation. Here it will be
useful to introduce two contrasting perspectives on the role of the media
in the social system, those of the Critical Theory, particularly that of
Habermas, and of Bourdieu and French media sociologists drawing on
Bourdieu. In each case we introduce these perspectives relatively briefly
and return in Chapter 8 to assess them more systematically against dif-
ferentiation theory.
CRITIQUES OF DIFFERENTIATION THEORY: HABERMAS AND BOURDIEU. For
Habermas, the history of the public sphere is characterized not

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