Page 48 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini

law have undercut the earlier multiplicity of communication policies
and patterns of relationship between the media and national political
systems. Closely related is a strong trend toward internationalization of
media ownership. The search for ever greater amounts of capital to invest
in new technologies and to compete in liberalized international markets
has produced a strong trend toward the development of multinational
media corporations (Herman and McChesney 1997). In order to achieve
economiesofscaleandscopeandtotakeadvantageofmarketintegration,
suchcorporationstendtointernationalizebothproductsandproduction
and distribution processes, contributing further to the homogenization
of strategies and professional practices. The extranational circulation of
professionals, the integration of company management within the same
groupandtheuniversalcirculationofthesameproductscanonlyweaken
those national characteristics that, at least in part, had made economic
and entrepreneurial systems of individual countries different from each
other.

MODERNIZATION AND SECULARIZATION

The term modernization has often been proposed as an alternative to
Americanization in an effort to stress that changes in political commu-
nication in Europe are not created purely by exogenous forces, but are
rooted in a process of social change endogenous to European society.
The term modernization is problematic. It carries an evolutionist conno-
tation, for one thing, an implicit assumption that change is to be seen as
“progress,” necessary and unilinear. It also lumps together many dimen-
sions of change – technological, cultural, political, and economic – that
need to be distinguished analytically if we are to be clear about the forces
at work, even if we conclude in the end that these different dimensions
are interrelated.
One important component of the modernization perspective is the
idea that the importance of group solidarity and the centrality of orga-
nized social groups is giving way to greater individualism. The European
political order, according to this view, was at one time organized around
social institutions – political parties, trade unions, and churches, among
others – rooted in ideological commitments and group loyalties related
to broad social divisions, especially those of social class and religion. The
ties of individuals to these groups were central both to their identity and
to their material well-being, and the institutions connected with these
groups were central to the organization of the public sphere. If political

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