This is a summary of the book Comparing Media Systems by Hallin and Mancini. Written for the course Media Systems in Comparative Perspective part of the IbCom Program at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Why comparative analysis
Two basic functions:
1. Role in concept formation and clarification
2. Role in causal inference
Valuable in social investigation because
1. Sensitizes us to variation and to similarity – contributes to concept formation
and conceptual apparatus
- Protect us from false generalizations and encourage to move from overly
particular explanations to more general ones where this is appropriate
2. Allows in many cases to test hypotheses about the interrelationships among
social phenomena
It has the capacity to render the invisible visible, to draw our atential to aspects of
any media system that may be taken for granted and difficult to detect when the
focus is on only one national case
Ethnocentric literature = refers only to the experience of a single country but is
written in general terms as if the model were universal
Media effects paradigm = concerned with the effects of particular messages on
individual attitudes and beliefs, not with larger media structures
Scope of the study
Most similar systems design – comparable levels of economic development and
much common culture and political history
- Limit the amount of variables
The legacy of four theories of the press
The thesis of volume is that the press always takes on the form and coloration of the
social and political structures within which it operates. It reflects the system of social
control whereby the relations of individuals and institutions are adjusted
- The media will always be the dependent variable in relation to the system of
social control
Media system models
Liberal model – Britain, Ireland and North America
- Relative dominance of market mechanisms and commercial media
Democratic corporatist model – Northern continental Europe
- Historical coexistence of commercial media and media ties to organized social
and political groups
- Relative active but legally limited role of the state
Polarized pluralist mode – Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe
- Integration of the media into party politics, weaker historical development of
commercial media and strong role of the state
, Media systems are not homogeneous – they are often characterized by a complex
coexistence of media operating according to different principles
The models should not be understood as describing static systems – process of
continual change
Path dependence = the past has a powerful influence
Do we need normative theories of the media?
Modernization theory = similarly compared world press systems against the liberal
ideal, only with underdevelopment rather than totalitarianism as the opposing pole
Functionalist relativism = any media institutions that exists must ipso facto be
assumed to perform positive functions for that society as a whole
Limitations of data
No quantitative data acquired
Chapter 2: Comparing media systems
4 Dimensions for comparison
1. The development of media markets
- With particular emphasis on the strong or weak development of a mass
circulation press
2. Political parallelism
- The degree and nature of links between media and political parties
- The extent to which the media system reflects the major political divisions in
society
3. The development of journalistic professionalism
4. The degree and nature of state intervention in the media system
Blumler and Gurevitch – 4 dimensions for comparative analysis
1. Degree of state control over mass media organization
2. Degree of mass media partisanship
3. Degree of media-political elite integration
4. The nature of legitimating creed of media institutions
The structure of media markets: the development of a mass press
Historical difference in mass circulation of newspapers
à Distinction in quantity, nature of the newspaper, relation to audience and its role in
wider process of social and political communication
Newspapers of Southern Europe
à Addressed small elite – mainly urban, well-educated and politically active
à Involved in horizontal process of debate and negotiation among elite factions
à Not historically profitable business enterprises
à Subsidized by political actors – implications for degree of political parallelism and
journalistic professionalism
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