VITTORIO CESCHI’S SUMMARY
CM1008-Media Systems in Comparative Perspective
Book + Lecture Summary
Week 1
Chapter 1 – Introduction
(check pp.17 to see how the book is structured)
The question behind this book, in the simplest terms, is why is the press as it is? Why does it
apparently serve different purposes and appear in widely different forms in different
countries?
We confine ourselves to the developed capitalist democracies of Western Europe and North
America, attempting to identify the major variations that have developed in the structure and
political role of the news media, exploring some ideas accounted for such variations thinking
about their consequences for democratic politics; we place our primary focus on the relation
between media systems and political systems
What qualifies as a system?
• A system is a whole, made up of interconnecting parts (irreducibility)
• There are necessary and dependent relationships between the parts that make up a
system (stability)
• The parts are in motion, if one part changes, so do the others (variety and flexibility)
• There are limits to the amount of change a system can take (constraint)
• Systems are open, they relate to their environment (makes them vulnerable)
Why comparative analysis? – the role of comparative analysis in social theory can be
understood in terms of two basic functions: 1) its role in concept formation and clarification;
2) and its role in causal inference; comparative analysis is valuable in social investigation as:
➢ It sensitizes us to variation and similarity; most media literature is highly
ethnocentric→it refers only to the experience of a single country, yet is written in
general terms (this is true in countries with most-developed media scholarship)
• In other countries there’s a tendency to borrow the literature of other countries
and to treat it as though it could be applied unproblematically everywhere
• Comparison is always done across variables; it forces us to conceptualize
more clearly what aspects of that system actually require explanation; it makes
it possible to notice things we did not notice and therefore had not
conceptualized, forcing us to clarify the scope and applicability of the
concepts we do employ
Comparison can also be ethnocentric, imposing on diverse systems a framework that reflects
the point of view of just one of these
, ➢ The second reason comparison is important in social investigation is that it allows us
in many cases to test hypotheses about the interrelationships among social
phenomena;
• “to demonstrate that one phenomenon is the cause of another we can only
compare the cases that were simultaneously present or absent” (Durkheim);
this has become the standard methodology in much of the social sciences
➢ In the communication field, those who do analysis of the system level often tend to be
sceptical of positivism; positivists tend to be concentrated among people working at
the individual level; empirical research was for many years concerned with the effects
of particular messages on individual attitudes and beliefs, which may be one reason
why systematic use of comparative analysis has developed slowly
The use of comparative analysis for causal inference belongs to a relatively advanced stage in
the process of analysis;
➢ Our purpose here is to develop a framework for comparing media systems and a set
of hypotheses about how they are linked structurally and historically to the
development of the political system, but we do not claim to have tested those
hypotheses here, in part because of severe limitations of data
Scope of the Study – this study covers media systems of the US, Canada and most of
Western Europe, excluding only very small countries; the study is based on a “most similar
systems” design
➢ One advantage of this focus is the fact that the media models that prevail in Western
Europe and North America tend to be the dominant models globally; this means that
understanding their logic and evolution is likely to be of some use to scholars of other
regions as these models have actually influenced the development of other systems
➢ The study is an exploratory one, and the main purpose of the “most similar systems”
is to permit careful development of concepts that can be used for further comparative
analysis, as well as hypothesis about their interrelations
➢ The study is limited to a region on the assumption that this would result in a
reasonably comparable set of cases
• Comparability is not inherent in any given area, but is more likely in an area
than in a randomly selected set of countries
The Legacy of Four Theories of the Press – As we began with Four Theories of the Press, it
makes sense to follow Siebert, Peterson, and Shramm’s argument a bit further; “the thesis of
this volume is that the press always takes on the form and coloration of the social and
political structures within which it operates”
➢ One cannot understand the news media without understanding the nature of the state,
the system of political parties, the pattern of relations between economic and political
interests, and the development of civil society, among other elements of social
structure;
➢ Many scholars, however, have also argued that there is an important trend in the
direction of greater media influence, particularly in relation to the political system
, ➢ The book disregards the material existence of media and their analysis was not
actually comparative, because Four Theories of the Press has little room for the actual
diversity of world media systems
• In tracing the origins of the four theories, they make reference almost
exclusively to three countries: the Us, Britain, and the Soviet Union
Media System Models – We will introduce three media system models in order to, with
great caution, replace the four theories;
- A media system comprises all mass media organized and operating within a given
social and political system (usually a state)
➢ The Liberal Model – prevails across Britain, Ireland and North America; is
characterized by a relative dominance of market mechanisms and of commercial
media
- Britain, United States, Canada, Ireland
➢ The Democratic Corporatist Model – prevails across northern continental Europe;
is tied to organized social and political groups, and is characterized by a relatively
active but legally limited role of the state
- Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden, Switzerland
➢ The Polarized Pluralist Model – prevails in the Mediterranean countries of southern
Europe; is characterized by integration of the media into party politics, weaker
historical development of commercial media, and a strong role of the state
- France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain
They are ideal types, and the media systems of individual countries fit them only roughly;
there is considerable variation among countries that we will be grouping together in our
discussion of these models; their primary purpose is not classification of individual systems,
but the identification of characteristic patterns of relationship between system characteristics,
and the underlying systemic relationships that help us understand changes in media systems
• Media systems are not homogeneous; in most countries media doesn’t
constitute a single system, but are composed of many separate, overlapping,
inconsistent elements
• Our models differ from those of F.T.o.t.P. as it describe not a common
philosophy but an interrelated system that may involve a characteristic
division of labour or even a characteristic conflict between media principles
➢ We will pay considerable attention to history in this analysis; past events and
institutional patterns influence the direction media institutions take→path
dependence where only the past has a powerful influence, but it doesn’t mean that
present or future institutions must essentially resemble those of the past or that change
is absent
Do we need Normative Theories of the Media? – the field of communication, and most
particularly the study of journalism has always been heavily normative in character; this
, implies that it is more important to reflect on what journalism should be rather than what and
why it is
➢ There is a strong tendency for comparative discussions to privilege normative
judgements; however, we’re interested not in measuring media systems against a
normative ideal, but in analysing their historical development as institutions within
particular social settings; our models of journalism are intended as empirical
Limitations of Data - limitations of comparative data impose severe restrictions on our
ability to draw any firm conclusions about the relations between media and social systems; in
some ways, comparative research in communication may be inherently harder than in some
fields;
➢ It could be very difficult to find information on all the countries in a study, and often
we find contradictions in the published literature or between that literature and
scholars we consulted in each country; furthermore, cultural cues are involved in the
study of significance and are hard to study;
➢ Comparative research doesn’t require quantitative data, though it can be useful; what
we need is qualitative case studies carried out with a theoretical focus giving them
broader significance for the comparative understanding of media systems
➢ Our analysis is based primarily on existing published sources and we make only very
limited attempts at new empirical research
Drivers of Globalization of Media – main driving force is economic; central impetus is
corporate profit making (expanding markets, economic growth); 4 aspects:
➢ Communication technologies – personal communication technologies facilitate
international communication; increased availability of foreign content through
advances in television technologies
➢ International travel – allows to get to know the world a bit better, see new things
and meet new people
➢ Global Media Conglomerates – giant parent corporation, that presides over an
amalgamation of wholly and partially owned subsidiaries, companies, and divisions
that are scattered across the world, and that are afforded great local autonomy within
individual countries in terms of product design and distribution
➢ Audience Curiosity: changing consumption patterns – people have become more
interested in foreign cultures and media content; acceleration of consumerism
Globalization and commercialisation of the media has led to considerable convergence of
media systems; differences between media systems, but over time these differences have
become smaller → media systems are converging towards one similar model; content that we
consume has become more homogeneous (more similar)
