Three Models of Media/Journalism and Political Culture

Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini It has long been an ambition of media studies to understand the connections between media systems and broader patterns of social, political and cultural development. One of the most influential early statements of this question was that of Siebert, Peterson and Schramm's Four Theories of the Press (1956); "the question behind this book, they wrote, "is, why is the press as it is? Why does it apparently serve different purposes and appear in widely different forms in different countries? Why, for example, is the press of the Soviet Union so different from our own, and the press of Argentina, so different from that of Great Britain?" They then continue, "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. Especially, it reflects the system of social control whereby the relations of individuals and institutions are adjusted. We believe that an understanding of these aspects of society is basic to any systematic understanding of the press" (pp. 1-2). The kind of comparative analysis suggested by Siebert, Peterson and Schramm almost half a century ago has been very slow to develop in media studies. Four Theories of the Press itself, which for years served as the main framework for comparative analysis in the field and still has surprisingly strong influence, never went very far in answering the kinds of questions it posed. It was more a normative discussion than an empirical analysis: it outlined four philosophies of what the press ought to be, but didn't examine the development of actual media systems, or their relations with their systemic and historical contexts. It was heavily dominated by the cold war dichotomy between totalitarian and "free" media, and, like a photo with too much contrast, obscured most of the subtler details. And it referred almost exclusively to the experience of three nations, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union. The two models of democratic media systems, the libertarian and social responsibility models, were essentially abstracted from two historical phases in the development of American news media, and are far from capturing the variety of forms of journalism that have existed in democratic systems. Attempts to move toward systematic comparative research on media systems basically date from the 1970s. Probably the most interesting theoretical statement from that period is Blumler and Gurevitch's "Towards a Comparative Framework for Political Communication Research" (1975[1995]). Blumler and Gurevitch proposed four "dimensions of linkage" between media institutions and political institutions by which systems could be distinguished: 1. Degree of state control of media institutions; here they criticized the dichotomous character of Four Theories of the Press, with its assumption that media systems could either be classified as state-controlled or "free"; 2. Degree of mass media partisanship, a dimension related to the important concept of party-press parallelism developed by Seymour-Ure (1974);

3. Degree of media-political elite integration, also related to the concept of party-press parallelism, focusing on the "degree of political affinity and social-cultural proximity that obtains between these two sets of structurally differentiated lites"; and 4. The nature of the legitimizing creed of media institutions. The concept was the closes in Blumler and Gurevitch's analysis to the old framework of Four Theories of the Press, in its focus on normative principles. Blumler and Gurevitch emphasized the presence or absence of a creed of media professionalism which "requires media professionals to behave as if above the political battle," a distinction which corresponds more or less to that between the Libertarian and Social Responsibility theories--and also leaves journalistic cultures which don't correspond to the ideal of neutral professionalism as a kind of residual category. The Blumler-Gurevitch framework was clearly a move in the right direction, and is very close to many of the dimensions we propose for comparative analysis. But it was also very preliminary and lacked elaboration on the different "values" media systems might have on these dimensions (the role of the state, for example, is not only a matter of degree but also of kind--states intervene in many different ways), as well as on the relations between different dimensions, and the ways they were connected with wider social structures. In the seventies and eighties there was also some empirical comparative research. One of the more interesting studies of this period, still little known outside of France, was Padioleau's (1985) ethnographic study of Le Monde and the Washington Post. It was also in this period that the first large-scale cooperations among political communication scholars in Europe took place, with, for example, the large-scale study of the first election for the European Parliament (Blumler 1983). It is really only in the last decade or so, however, that a critical mass of comparative research on European media--or on media in any part of the world--has begun to emerge, mostly in the form of edited volumes and comparative studies of pairs of countries (e.g. Esser 1998; Chalaby 1996; Gunther and Mugham 2000; Curran & Park 2000), plus a few works that include, for example, surveys of journalists in several countries (e.g. Donsbach 1995). It is fair to say that the task of giving some conceptual coherence to this enterprise has just begun. While the field of communication has been slow to develop a tradition of comparative research, political science, which has always had a strong tradition of comparative analysis, has been slow to turn attention to the media. In some ways this is curious, since much of the classic work in the field of comparative politics makes prominent reference to communication issues. Sartori (1976) and Deutsch (1963), for example, defined political parties as essentially institutions of communication, but subsequent scholarship never developed this insight systematically. In the 1980s, political scientists who study public opinion and voting behavior began returning to the study of media effects, after a long hiatus. But it is only very recently that the field of comparative politics has begun to show some interest in the media as political institutions which might have distinctive patterns of relationship with other social and political institutions. Recent works on the transformation of European party systems, for example, almost always mention changes in the media system as a central influence; but while other central influences are analyzed in detail, what is said about the media is left essentially at the level of generality and speculation (Hallin &

Mancini, in press). Only a very few works include more systematic comparative analysis of the media (e.g. Swanson & Mancini 1996; Humphries 1996). We have been working to complete a book that will propose a framework for comparative analysis of the relation between media and political systems in Western Europe and North America. We hope in this work to take a step forward in comparative analysis in several ways. First, we hope to take a step forward in identifying the most important dimensions of variation among media systems--with emphasis on journalism, the news media and the relation of the media with the state and the world of politics. Second, we hope to identify some of the most important elements of political culture and structure which influence the development of media systems. In part this is a matter of mining the literature on comparative politics to extract those concepts that seem most likely to be useful in understanding the media as political institutions. Third, we hope to put forward some hypotheses about what have been the principle patterns of development of the media-politics relationship, and how we can explain the fact that different patterns have prevailed in different countries or regions. For us, the Dortmund seminar on was an opportunity to hear the reflections of distinguished scholars from a number of countries on these issues. To begin the discussion in Dortmund, we sent to participants a list of questions that grew out of our research, and the papers that follow in this volume are based in part on the authors' responses to those questions. The questions were the following: What would you say are the main features of the political structure of your country-understood in comparative perspective--that affect or are affected by the mass media system? Does the form of democracy affect the structure and function of the media system? We would like to consider, for instance, Ljiphart's (1999) distinction between consensual and majoritarian democracy. Does this distinction have anything to do with the way in which the media system is organized in your country? Is the level of political participation (of party membership, participation in other intermediate organizations, vote turn-out, etc) linked to the way in which mass media system is organized? What about the traditional role of the state in your country; how does the role of the state affect the media system? Does your country have a tradition of strong state intervention economic and social life? Does the philosophy of the welfare state affect the media system? How would you describe and interpret the level of journalistic professionalism and the culture of journalism of your country? What role did party journalism play in the media system, and what influence has it had on the current media system? Is media professionalism as it is understood in your country compatible with media advocacy?

How would you judge the system of ethical regulation of journalism in your country--the status of ethical codes, press councils, etc.? What about the disappearance or weakening of the party press? When did it start? How was it related to the development of the mass press and television in your country? Do important functional distinctions exist in your country between press and television: do they have different relations to the political system?

The Three Models of Media/Journalism and Political Culture We are proposing that three distinctive patterns can be observed in the relation of media and political systems in North America and Western Europe, each prevailing in a distinct geographical region, and rooted in a distinct pattern of historical development and cultural influence. These we call the Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist model, which prevails across Southern Europe, in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, with France as a mixed case lying between this and what we call the North/Central European or Democratic Corporatist Model; the latter prevails across the Nordic and low countries as well as in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The third model we call the North Atlantic or Liberal Model: the U.S. is the most characteristic case, with Canada relatively similar to the U.S., and Ireland and Britain sharing many characteristics with the two North American countries, and others with the Democratic Corporatist model. This framework is still in development, and it would be in any case be impossible to summarize in a comprehensive way here either the argument about the development of media systems in these three sets of countries or the conceptual framework on which the analysis is based. But we will try in this chapter at least to give a sense of the kind of argument we are trying to make. The classification of individual countries requires immediate qualification, since we are not at all making the argument that the three groups of countries are homogeneous, or that every country can be fit neatly into one of these patterns. We do think that the three clusters of countries we have identified share many important characteristics, but there are also clearly important differences within each group of countries, and many countries--as we have noted in the case of Britain and France--which can be seen as mixed cases. To some extent we hope to use the conceptual framework of these three models precisely as a point of departure for understanding the more subtle differences among individual countries. It is also important to add the qualification that there are many characteristics which are common to the media systems of all three groups of countries. In focusing on Western Europe and North America, certainly, we are following a "most similar systems" design for comparative analysis: we are looking only at industrialized liberal democratic regimes, and there is much that is common to all three groups of countries. The differences among the three groups of countries are also clearly diminishing; this of course is the process often referred to as "homogenization" or "Americanization," and it is related to globalization, to the commercialization of European broadcasting and to the "secularization" of European

society, which has weakened the contending political subcultures which once were a central influence on European media systems (we discuss these forces in some detail in Hallin and Mancini [in press]). Whether the differences among media systems which we emphasize here will someday disappear, and the three models we have identified will pass into the realm of pure history, it is too early to know. We do think significant differences persist among the three groups of countries, and we hope that the models will be useful among other things to help analyze how the forces of globalization and homogenization interact with the particular structural conditions and historical traditions of individual countries. One question which may arise is why the models have the particular regional character they do, why similar media systems are grouped in these particular regional configurations. Basically there are two--not unrelated reasons. First, there are important historical and structural similarities among the groups of countries which fall under our three models. Southern Europe, for example, is generally characterized by later industrialization than the rest of Western Europe; as Malefakis (1995: 41) points out--in the course of making an argument it makes sense to think of Southern Europe as a distinct region for historical purposes--47% of the working population of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece was still engaged in agriculture in 1930, as compared with 20% in Germany. France stood in between, at 29% agricultural. Second, strong patterns of cultural influence have shaped the media history of these regional groupings. Ireland, the U.S. and Canada were British colonies, and British economic and political institutions--including British traditions of journalism--were exported to all three. In Italy and the Iberian peninsula press freedom and liberal institutions generally were first introduced as a result of the Napoleonic invasion, and French journalistic traditions had continuing influence. In northern and north-central Europe, meanwhile, there is a complex pattern of mutual historical influences, many related to the Protestant reformation and the religious wars which followed it. This does not mean that cultural influences have not run in other directions as well. German and central European journalism has had significant influence on American journalism, for example: Josef Pulitzer was a Hungarian immigrant who started out working in the German-language press in St. Louis, and American photojournalism was heavily influenced by German exiles during the1930s. The BBC has had important influence on many European broadcasting systems; and of course American models of journalism have had global influence since the19th century. Nevertheless, patterns of cultural influence have been particularly within the three groupings identified by our models. The Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model In Northern Europe and North America, the rise of the newspaper was closely associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the expansion of capitalism and the market. In Southern Europe the bourgeoisie was much weaker and capitalism was slow to develop. Newspapers were more associated with the aristocracy and in some cases the clergy; freedom of the press developed late and was often interrupted, and newspapers did not become profitable independent businesses until very late--indeed many are not to this day. Literacy rates remained low until after the Second World War, and newspapers have always been addressed to a relatively small, educated elite: a mass circulation press has never existed in Greece, Italy, Spain or Portugal, and those four countries still have the lowest newspaper circulations in Europe. France has a history of sharp ups and downs in newspaper circulation, with a very high rate of newspaper circulation early in the twentieth century but a

decline later, leaving France midway between the four Southern European countries and the rest of Western Europe in newspaper readership. Journalism in the Mediterranean countries was much more closely associated with the worlds of literature and of politics than that of commerce. It was a journalism of ideas, primarily, and often a journalism of political struggle: a newspaper was a means of intervening in the political world, more than a profit-making business. The "AngloAmerican" tradition of information-oriented journalism did have important influence, starting in the late 19th century, and modified the literary and political traditions, but did not displace them: to this day, journalism in the Mediterranean countries is more commentaryoriented than in the other regions. Political parallelism has historically been strong in the Mediterranean countries, in the sense that newspapers have been aligned with political parties and fractions. Often newspapers in the region have been owned by industrialists who have used them to intervene in politics and who have alliances with parties or factions of parties. In France and Italy, party papers have been strong in certain periods, particularly in the period immediately following the defeat of Fascism, though they have declined as in other parts of Europe. Greece, Spain and Portugal are a bit different here, Greece because mass parties developed late, politics remaining more personalized and elite-centered, and Spain and Portugal because long periods of dictatorship choked off the development of mass parties. The Mediterranean countries are still characterized by a significant degree of "external pluralism" in the press, in the sense that newspapers are often identified with distinct political tendencies. The press is generally highly pluralistic ideologically, and newspapers tend to serve as a means of negotiation among political elites more than as a source of information for the mass public. Public broadcasting institutions have also been relatively politicized in the Mediterranean countries; in terms of the distinction of Kelly (1983) among "formally autonomous," "politics in broadcasting, and "politics over broadcasting" systems, the Mediterranean countries have historically had the latter, with broadcasting either under the control of the political majority--France until the 80s, and Spain, Greece and Portugal currently--or in the Italian case subject to the lottizazione which divides political power among the parties. Because of the close relation between media and politics, journalistic professionalism has been relatively slow to develop in the Mediterranean countries. The concept of journalist professionalism is complex, and we cannot fully explain our approach to this concept here. We define it primarily in terms of three elements: the development of a culture of journalism distinct from that of other social institutions--particularly political parties and social groups; the existence of an ethic of public service; and the degree of autonomy of journalists and of self-organization of the journalistic community. The manifestations of lower levels of professionalism in the Mediterranean countries include surveys which show more frequent intervention by media owners and other actors outside the profession in news decisions, relatively late development of codes of ethics, weaker development of professional organizations, especially compared with the democratic corporatist countries, and the absence of press councils and similar self-regulatory institutions (the only one in Southern Europe is in Catalonia). The state has traditionally played a large role in the Mediterranean countries, in part because the market and bourgeois class were relatively undeveloped, and the state had to substitute as the organizer of economic development. Media enterprises have likewise often depended on state support and been subject to state intervention. In periods of dictatorship

this has taken the form of censorship and authoritarian control. But in democratic periods too state intervention has often been important, with the state, for example, sometimes intervening in the sale of a newspaper or television station, or investing in media enterprises, as the French state did in the priferiques, radio stations which broadcast to France from outside its borders. France and Italy have the highest levels of state subsidy to the newspaper industry in Western Europe. At the same time, states in Southern Europe have often lacked the capacity to regulate effectively. In the media sphere, this general tendency has been manifested in what Traquina (1995) has called "savage deregulation": a particularly abrupt and uncontrolled shift toward commercial broadcasting. The "commercial deluge" in European broadcasting began in Italy in the 1970s, when the constitutional court invalidated RAIs monopoly on broadcasting and the Italian state was unable to establish a new regulatory system. Greece, to take another example, has seen the audience share of public broadcasting fall below 10%. Only France, which has a strong regulatory body in the Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel, is an exception here. The term "polarized pluralism," which we use to identify the political context in which this model developed, comes from Sartori (1976). Sartori defined polarized pluralist political systems as those characterized by relatively large numbers of contending political parties with wide ideological differences, including significant anti-system parties. This pattern of political structure is rooted in a history of extended conflict over the consolidation of liberal institutions, and we believe it is crucial to understanding the continued politicization of the media and the relative weakness of conceptions of a public interest transcending particular group and ideological interests. Another important element of political structure in Southern Europe is the relatively long persistence of clientelist relationships and the relative weakness--again with the exception of France--or rational-legal authority (Hallin & Papathanassopoulos, in press). This contributes, among other things, to the pattern of instrumentalization of the media, as state policies and resource allocation depend on particularistic relationships and negotiations rather than abstract rules, and business interests find it essential to have access to media as means of political pressure. The North-Central European or Democratic Corporatist Model The Democratic Corporatist countries of Northern and North-Central Europe had strong merchant classes, as well as high literacy rates resulting from both the influence of the Protestant reformation and from industrialization. Newspapers developed early, and circulation rates continue to be higher than anywhere else in the world except Japan, which has a similar rate of newspaper readership. The media history of the Democratic Corporatist countries is characterized by a coexistence of strong commercial newspapers with an important party press and other kinds of media connected to political and social groups. The party press was in decline by the 1950s, but in many countries it remained important into the 1970s. In the mid-seventies, over half of Austria's papers were still linked to political parties, and the Socialist Party organ, Arbeiter Zeitung, was fourth in circulation, at 100,000 copies daily. When the party press was strong, the press was characterized by strong external pluralism, illustrated for example by the Danish "four paper" system, in which each significant Danish city had newspapers supporting the four major parties. External pluralism has declined as neutral/centrist commercial papers increasingly prevail, though in a looser form it does still exist. The journalism of the Democratic Corporatist papers has traditionally combined an information-oriented tradition similar to Anglo-American journalism with a more commentary-oriented tradition. Many studies of German journalists,

for example, have emphasized that they have a tendency to see themselves as missionaries guiding public opinion (Donsabach 1995; Kocher 1986). Again, there is an important shift toward information-oriented journalism, without displacing the commentary-oriented tradition entirely. Public broadcasting systems in the Democratic Corporatist countries have been organized in a variety of different ways, ranging from the relatively party-politicized Belgian system, to the Swedish system which is more like the BBC in its strong insulation from political control. The general pattern is to combine significant autonomy from the government of the day--protected in Germany, for example, by the Constitutional Court-with some system for the representation of diverse social or political interests in the governance of broadcasting. Two particularly unusual examples are the "pillarized" Dutch system in which broadcasting organizations have been controlled by the separate religious and ideological communities--as newspapers, schools and many other civic institutions once were--and the German system which includes representatives of "socially relevant groups" in the Broadcasting Councils organized in the Lander. The welfare state tends to be strong in the Democratic Corporatist countries and this is reflected in the media system in a number of ways. In general, the media have been seen as social institutions with responsibilities to the society as a whole, not purely as private businesses. Public broadcasting has been strong, and often more purely non-commercial in character than in the Mediterranean countries, where advertising has played a larger role in its support. Regulation of commercial broadcasting is relatively strong. And the state has often intervened in the press market, principally through subsidies intended to support a greater diversity of newspapers than would survive in a purely market-based system. Germany has been the principle exception as far as press subsidies are concerned. Journalistic professionalism is generally strong in the Democratic Corporatist countries. In contrast to the American case, it has not been tied so strongly to the principles of neutrality and "objectivity," but has coexisted with external pluralism and with a greater emphasis on role of the journalist as commentator. Nevertheless, journalists in the Democratic Corporate countries tend to have a high degree of autonomy, and standards of journalistic practice separate from party politics are strong. Journalists, like other social groups, have strong, unified "peak organizations," often with membership exceeding 90%-far higher than the membership figures for journalists' unions or professional associations in the Mediterranean or Liberal countries. Press councils are also much stronger in the Democratic Corporatist countries, reflecting the strong common culture of journalism and the strength of the cultural norm that the media serve society as a whole. We argue that the development of the media system in Northern and North-Central Europe has been strongly shaped by the shift toward democratic corporatism which took place in most of these countries in the 1920s and 1930s. Katzenstein (1985) defines democratic corporatism in terms of three characteristics: an "ideology of social partnership," according to which conflicting social interests must be compromised in the interest of the solidarity of the society as whole; a strong system of organized social groups; and a traditional of "voluntary and informal coordination of conflicting objectives through continuous political bargaining between interest groups, state bureaucracies, and political parties." Democratic corporatism in most cases moderated the kinds of ideological conflicts that in Southern Europe led to breakdowns of the democratic system in the early twentieth century (Germany and Austria are obviously exceptions here, though they adopted important elements of democratic corporatism--in Austria quite strongly--after the Second

World War). It is rooted historically in the fact that feudal and patrimonial institutions, and the social interests connected with them, were weaker in this region than in Southern Europe. In terms of Lijphart's distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy, the democratic corporatist countries tend to be consensus systems. Rational-legal authority is strong in the democratic corporatist countries, and the kinds of clientelist relationships that have been strong in Southern Europe are displaced in these countries by the much more open, institutionalized process of bargaining among formally-organized social groups. The distinctive characteristics of the media system in this region are closely tied to these elements of political structure and culture: newspapers and to some degree broadcasting have historically been tied to the organized social groups that play such a central role in democratic corporatism, and the ideology of social partnership has been reflected in the strong public broadcasting system, professional self-regulation and state support for media pluralism. The North Atlantic or Liberal Model As in the Democratic Corporatist countries, the market, liberal political institutions and mass literacy developed early in the North Atlantic countries, and so too did the commercial mass circulation press, particularly in the United States, where it began to develop with the Penny Press in the 1830s. Party-affiliated papers played an important role in the early history of the press, but through most of the twentieth century commercial papers have been overwhelmingly dominant, and newspapers connected to organized social groups much less important than in the Democratic Corporatist countries. It is common to speak of "Anglo-American" journalism as a unitary model, which indeed is often taken as the normative model by both journalists and scholars in much of the world. And there are important similarities in U.S. and British journalism--shared with Canada and Ireland as well--which no doubt are rooted in their commercial press history and liberal political culture. In all these countries, journalism is more oriented toward information and narrative than toward ideas or doctrines: the journalist's primary role is to tell stories about particular events, often with an emphasis on "human interest," that is, the experience of particular individuals like the readers themselves. To some extent however, the notion of a unitary "Anglo-American" model is a myth: American and British journalism are very different, with Canadian and Irish journalism falling in between, the Canadian particularly similar to the American. American journalism is built around the principle of "objectivity," and all the important papers are "neutral" papers without clear political tendencies--or, one could say, all sharing the same centrist tendency. The British press is often highly partisan--probably more so today than in most continental European countries; it is no coincidence that the concept of "party-press parallelism" was developed in Britain. This is probably due both to the stronger parties which characterize the Westminster system and to the fact that the British newspaper market is a national market with competing papers, while the American and Canadian markets are mainly local, monopoly markets. Broadcasting is a different matter: the BBC is characterized by a strong insulation from political control and a strong ethic of political neutrality, as are public broadcasters in Canada and Ireland. We use the term "liberal" to characterize the North Atlantic media systems because all slant significantly in the direction of relatively unregulated market systems. The press is affected by minimal regulation and there are no state subsidies. The U.S. was the only

major industrial country to set up a primarily commercial broadcasting system--a relatively marginal public system being set up only in 1967; Canada has always had a mixed system with strong commercial broadcasting; and Britain established a mixed public and commercial system long before commercial television was introduced in most of the European continent. Again, however, there are significant differences among these countries. The U.S. is a much more pure case of a liberal system than the other three countries. Its legal system, for one thing, uniquely privileges press freedom over other social interests. So, for example, many forms of regulation of electoral campaigns that are routine in the rest of the world are not permitted in the United States. Britain has a much more substantial welfare state than the U.S., and in its media system also stands between liberalism and democratic corporatism. It has, most importantly, a strong public broadcasting system and relatively strong regulatory control of commercial broadcasting. In the case of Canada and Ireland, nationalism has led to important modifications of liberalism: public broadcasting has been an important institution in part as a counterweight to U.S. or British cultural influence, and in the Canadian case the state has also protected other media industries from U.S. competition. Journalistic professionalism is relatively strong in the Liberal system. It is not, as in the Democratic Corporatist countries, reflected in a strong formal organization of the profession. Journalists' unions and professional associations are not particularly strong, and press councils are nonexistent in the U.S. and Ireland, and weak in Canada and Britain, in comparison with those of the Democratic Corporatist countries (the one exception being the press council of Qubec). A common journalistic culture, a system of self-regulation within media enterprises, and relative autonomy of journalists within the news organization, however, are strongly developed. The U.S. also has a particularly long history of formal journalistic education. Journalistic autonomy is probably weaker in the British than the American press, as owners tend to intervene more strongly in the political line of newspapers. In broadcasting, on the other hand, professionalization is particularly strong in Britain; in the U.S. it has receded some in recent years as commercial considerations have become increasingly dominant over journalistic ones. As suggested above, this pattern of media developpment is connected with the early consolidation of liberal capitalism in North American, Britain and Ireland. Economic, legal and cultural conditions were favorable for the development of a strong commercial press, and newspapers connected to religious communities, political parties, trade unions and other non-market actors either never developed or were eclipsed relatively early, especially in North America. The press has addressed its audience primarily as individual consumers, not as members of social groups. Stronger tradtions of traditional conservatism, of liberal corporatism and of social democracy have modified the free-market ideology in Britian and are manifested in the strong public sector in broadcasting. But in general, the North Atlantic countries are characterized by strong market-based media industries. Rational-legal authority also was consolidated relatively early in the Liberal countries, as market institutions worked best with a predictable legal framework and neutral system of public administration. The development of journalistic professionalism was connected with the transition from more clientelistic and party-politicized sytems, particularly in the United States, where the ideology of the journalist as a neutral professional began to develop in the Progressive era, and was closely intertwined with the establishment of rational-legal authority. The distinctive emphasis in U.S. journalism on the principle of "objectivity" is probably also connected with the particularly strong hegemony of liberal ideology in a country that had no feudal past, and the consequent low level of

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ideological diversity (Hartz 1955). The Liberal countries are also characterized by majoritarian systems (modified by federalism in the U.S. and Canada) with catch-all political parties; the prevalence of "catch-all" media not tied to particular social groups makes sense in this context of political culture. Conclusion The media system and the journalism of any society, as Siebert, Patterson and Schramm correctly observed, is an integral part of the wider social system, and cannot be understood apart from that system. It is also the product of a specific historical development, of structural forms and ways of thinking that reflect the social conflicts that have characterized a system's development. It is extremely important that media and journalism studies broaden its focus to address the historical patterns of development and structural conditions which form the context for the evolution of the media system and the specific journalism culture. And because these are system-level characteristics, which do not vary, or do so only incrementallly, within a particular system, a broad comparative focus can be extremely helpful in identifying kinds of relationships which exist between political culture, broadly understood, and media systems and journalism. What we have presented here is a highly schematic summary of the arguments we are trying to develop, and those arguments are themselves very preliminary, since the comparative study of media and political culture is so new. We hope nevertheless that it will provide a useful comparative context for the more detailed analysies of particular media systems and journalism cultures in the essays that follow.

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