Page 55 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Americanization, Globalization, and Secularization

The exact form of governance of broadcasting varied considerably from
one system to another, but certainly in many systems political parties
had considerable influence on broadcasting systems, as did, in certain
cases, what German media law (whichgives them a particularly impor-
tant place) refers to as “socially relevant groups.” One might, therefore,
have expected electronic media to reinforce rather than to undercut the
traditional role of political parties and organized social groups.
OneaccountoftheimpactoftelevisionisprovidedbyWigbold(1979),
focusing on the particularly interesting Dutch case. Broadcasting was or-
ganized in the Netherlands following the pillarized model that applied to
the press, education, and other cultural institutions. Each of the different
communities of Dutch society had a separate broadcasting organization,
just as they had traditionally had separate schools and newspapers. One
might have thought that by extending their reach to a powerful new
medium, the pillars would have become even more entrenched in Dutch
society.Nevertheless,depillarizationclearlydidcoincidehistoricallywith
the rise of television. And Wigbold makes the argument that Dutch tele-
vision “destroyed its own foundations, rooted as they were in the society
[it] helped to change” (230).
His argument has three parts. First, he argues that despite the exis-
tence of separate broadcasting organizations, television broke down the
separateness of the pillars:

Television was bound to have a tremendous influence in a coun-
trywhere not only the doors of the living room were closed to
strangersbutalsothedoorsofschoolrooms,unionmeetings,youth
hostels, football grounds and dancing schools. ... It confronted the
masses with views, ideas and opinions from which they had been
isolated. ... [T]here was no way out, no hiding place, except by
the difficult expedient of switching the set off. Television viewers
could not even switch to a second channel, because there wasn’t
one. ... Catholics discovered that Socialists were not the dangerous
atheists they had been warned about, Liberals had to conclude that
orthodox Protestants were not the bigots they were supposed to
be (201).

Second, he argues that television journalists shifted substantially in the
early 1960s toward a more independent and critical attitude toward the
leaders of established institutions, toward whom they had previously
deferred.

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