c

22
Media and
Political Systems

In this chapter
y o u w i l l l e a rn :
Media systems are shaped by
political systems.
Censorship and licensing are
practiced in authoritarian
systems.

VIGNETTE: John Twyn

Four Theories Model
Political Systems Siebert, Peterson and
Schramm
Authoritarian Media
Henry VIII Authoritarian Control Effectiveness of Controls Nature of Truth
Communist Media
Marxist Underpinnings Marxist Notion of
Truth Media Unified with Government
Libertarian Model
Optimism About the Human Mind Marketplace of Ideas First Amendment Libertarians and Religion
Social Responsibility Model
Challenges to Libertarianism Hutchins
Commission

Freedom and Responsibility

Responsibility versus Profitability Exceptions to Social Responsibility
Media Future: Political and Media Systems
Chapter Wrap-Up
Questions for Review
Questions for Critical Thinking

Communist media work to

hasten the arrival of a perfect
state.

BOXES

U.S. media are adapting a

greater sense of responsibility.

MEDIA ABROAD: Distinguishing

Media Systems
MEDIA TIMELINE: Political Media Models
MEDIA ABROAD: Greece and
Libertarianism
MEDIA PEOPLE: Elijah Lovejoy

Libertarians are optimistic

about human intellectual
capabilities.

Reconciling media freedom and

responsibility has difficulties.
Libertarianism influence is
growing.

MEDIA ABROAD: Ombuds

22-1

ohn Twyn died a particularly gruesome death. In 1663 Twyn, a printer,

published a book that held that the monarch should be accountable to the people.
While hardly a radical concept today, the idea was heretical in 17th-century England,
where kings considered themselves divinely appointed. Twyn, who had not even written the book but merely printed it, was arrested and convicted of seditious libel. His
sentence: You shall be hanged by the neck, and being alive, shall be cut down and
your privy members shall be cut off, your entrails shall be taken from your body and
you living, the same to be burnt before your eyes.
The political climate in England and the other modern Western democracies has
changed dramatically since John Twyns time, but the authoritarian intellectual
environment in which he lived remains in many parts of the world today. In this chapter you will examine fundamental philosophical notions that underline authoritarianism, as well as those underlying libertarianism and communism. Each system has
a media system that dovetails into the larger philosophy in which the society operates.

Four Theories Model

STUDY PREVIEW

Political Systems
In our egocentric way, we in democratic societies see our political system as the
best ever devised. The fact, however, is that other systems make just as much sense
to many of the people living with them. How can this be? Every political system rests
on premises that lead to different conclusions. Dictatorship flows logically from certain premises. So does theocracy. So too does democracy. We can evaluate competing political systems only if we understand the assumptions on which they are based.
This understanding is important in studying mass media because the worlds diverse
media systems all are outgrowths of the political systems within which they operate.
The U.S. media system, for example, would be a bad transplant in Iraq. Zimbabwes
would never work in Finland.

Siebert, Peterson and Schramm

A sophisticated model for understanding media systems was introduced in 1956
by three University of Illinois scholars. Frederick Siebert, Theodore Peterson and
Wilbur Schramm scanned the worlds media systems to identify distinguishing characteristics that flowed from philosophical assumptions. They called the result the
four theories of the press. Their new model went beyond casting the media as either free or not free and went to root questions like the role that different cultures
place on human beings and the nature of the human experience.
Some cultures, for example, view human intelligence as incapable of recognizing
fundamental truths without divine or authoritarian assistance. Other cultures see

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FOUR THEORIES MODEL

Media Abroad
Distinguishing Media Systems
Scholars Fred Siebert, Theodore
Peterson and Wilbur Schramm
created models for looking at
national media systems in a pioneering work, Four Theories of the Press.
Their book, published in 1956,
helped many later scholars to make
sense of the roles that mass media
play in vastly different political systems.
Siebert, Peterson and Schramm
identified authoritarian, communist
and libertarian models and also a
latter-day adaptation of libertarianism that they called social responsibility. There is quibbling about

Who Owns the Mass Media?

Is Criticism of Government
Allowed?
Who Decides What the
Media Will Say?
Who Decides What the
Media Will Not Say?
Who Enforces Decisions
on Media Content?

whether social responsibility should

be a separate model, but the point
really is how these models offer a systematic picture of the mass media in
different nations.
Review the characteristics of media in different systems in the following table, and then see where a national media system that you or your
classmates know about fits in. A
good starting point would be England in the latter years of Henry VIIIs
reign. How about the United States?
Classmates who have lived abroad or
studied foreign political systems can
help with other countries.

Remember, a model is never perfect, and no national media system

fits into a Siebert, Peterson and
Schramm pigeonhole exactly. Some
relatively stable, developed countries,
like the United States, are better fits
than countries in the developing
world that are still working out their
political systems. A special challenge
is where to plug in Mexico: The country has privately owned media, but
criticism of government, while allowed, can bring indirect sanctions
from the government.

Authoritarian

Communist

Libertarian

Social Responsibility

Privately owned
No

Privately owned
Yes, even encouraged

Privately owned
Yes, as long as it is
responsible

The media

State owned
Yes, but ideology
is off limits
The state

The media

Experts

The state

The state

The media

Experts

The state

The state

Nobody

Ideally the media,

perhaps the state

human intellectual capabilities as boundless. In all, Siebert, Peterson and Schramm

identified four media systems:
Authoritarianism. Found in dictatorships and old-style kingdoms. Henry VIIIs
England was a prototype in the 1500s, when printing was taking hold.
Communist. Found in the former Soviet Union. Variations are still practiced in
communist China and Cuba.
Libertarian. Found in democracies like the United States, Japan, Europe and
many parts of the world.
Social Responsibility. A modern variant of libertarian systems in modern
democracies, including the United States.
It was a comprehensive analysis that shaped a generation of scholarship. As with
all scholarship, however, critics emerged. Some quibbled that the theories that
Siebert, Peterson and Schramm devised were not theories at all but media systems.
It was a relatively small point. As the Soviet Union crumbled in the late 1980s, new

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CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

critics saw the models as being hopelessly mired in Cold War assumptions and outdated rhetoric. Other critics noted that not every media system could be pigeonholed
easily into one of the four Siebert, Peterson and Schramm systems.
Even so, the work of Siebert, Peterson and Schramm had created a framework
for making sense of the complexity of the mass media worldwide. They had broken
important new ground.

Authoritarian Media
STUDY PREVIEW

media online
Henry VIII: You can
view a profile of Henry VIII on
the British monarchys web site.
www.royal.gov.uk/history/
henry.htm

Henry VIII
When Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in the 1400s, making mass
production of the written word possible, authorities were enthusiastic. Early printers produced Bibles and religious tracts, which were consistent with the values of the
intertwined institutions of state and church. It did not occur to anybody that the new
invention might be used for heretical or traitorous purposes. Later, occasional tracts
appeared that challenged the authorities, but their threat was easily dismissed because, even in the early 1500s, printing was still mostly in Latin, which could be read
only by the ruling elite. Most common people were unable to read even their native
language, let alone Latin. The printed word seemed an unlikely vehicle for the foment
of popular revolution.
Within two generations, however, the comfortable relationship between the authorities and the fast-growing printing industry changed, and authorities clamped
down. What happened in England was typical. In 1529, after Dutch tracts that challenged royal authority began showing up in England, King Henry VIII outlawed imported publications. He also decreed that every English printer must be licensed.
Printers caught producing anything objectionable to the Crown lost their licenses, in
effect being put out of business. Remaining in the governments good graces brought
favors. A license guaranteed a local monopoly and a lock on government and church
printing jobs. Henry VIIIs clampdown, a turnabout in official attitudes toward
the press, was triggered by major social and political changes that were occurring in
England:
Literacy was increasing. More common people were learning to read. It became
apparent that wider literacy increased the possible effect of seditious and heretical ideas on the general population.
A mercantile class was emerging. Merchants and tradespeople were accumulating modest wealth, which permitted discretionary time in their lives and the lives
of their families. This mercantile class, not needing to work from dawn to dusk
to survive, had sufficient time to contemplate matters of state and religion and
things in general. These were people who read, and a sense was developing
among them that their interests as a group did not always coincide with the
Crowns.
Parliament was developing as an expression of popular will. Mercantilists found
Parliament could be a powerful forum for challenging the Crowns policies, and
they began using it to those ends.
Printers were becoming bolder. The growing volume of material produced by the
young printing industry included more political books and tracts, some disturb-

A U T H O R I TA R I A N M E D I A

Media Timeline
Political Media Models
1529 Henry VIII bans imported publications.
1529 Henry VIII uses the Stationers Company
to license printers.
1591 James I articulates the divine right of kings theory.
1644 John Milton lays out libertarianism in
Areopagetica.
1791 The United States is reconstituted as a libertarian
nation.

1947 The Hutchins Commission urges media to

be socially responsible.
1965 Columbia University founds the Columbia
Journalism Review.
1970 New York Times expands commentary with
a daily op-ed page.

ing to the Crown. The Crown perceived the threat as being all the worse because
printed words were more frequently in English, not Latin, which dramatically
increased their potential to stir up the masses.
Frederick Siebert, a scholar on the authoritarian English press, describes the
main function of the mass media in an authoritarian system this way: To support
and advance the policies of government as determined by the political machinery then
in operation. Sieberts phrase then in operation points out how fickle an authoritarian system can be. In 1530, when England under Henry VIII was still a Catholic
state, a man was executed for selling a book by a Protestant author. Only 50 years
later, after the government had rejected Catholicism, a printer was executed for printing a Catholic pamphlet. In an authoritarian system the media are subservient to government and adjust their content to coincide with changes in government policy.
Through human history, more people have lived in authoritarian political systems
than any other.

Authoritarian Control
Censorship is usually thought of as an authoritarian method to control the mass
media, but censorship is labor intensive and inefficient. Other methods include licensing, bribery and repression.
C E N S O R S H I P. Authoritarian regimes have found numerous ways, both blatant
and subtle, to control the mass media. Censorship is one. The most thorough censoring requires that manuscripts be read by government agents before being printed
or broadcast. To work, prepublication censorship requires a government agent in
every newsroom and everywhere else that mass media messages are produced. This
is hardly practicable, although governments sometimes establish elaborate censorship
bureaucracies during wartime to protect sensitive military information and to ban information that runs counter to their propaganda. Even democracies like the United
States and Israel have required reporters to run battlefield stories past censors.
L I C E N S I N G . Authoritarian governments generally favor less obtrusive methods
of control than censorship. Henry VIII introduced licensing that limited the printing

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22-6

media online
Joseph Goebbels: A
biography of Goebbels is available on Thinkquest.
http://library.thinkquest.org/
10294/data/text/goebbels.html
Francisco Franco: Geocities
offers a collection of links to
sites on Franco.
www.gcty.com/CapitolHill/9820/
franco.html
Otto von Bismarck: View a
thumbnail biography of
Bismarck at this site.
www.worldwar1.com/
biogbis.htm
The Conviction of Murray
Hiebert: Amnesty Internationals web site documents the
trial and imprisonment of Canadian Murray Hiebert, whose
case illustrates a disturbing lack
of media freedom in Malaysia.
www.amnesty-usa.org/news/
1999/32801299.htm

CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

trade to people who held royal patents. The mechanism for bestowing these licenses
rested with the Stationers Company, a printers trade association. Royal patents were
available only to association members, and membership was tightly controlled. To
stay in the Crowns favor, the Stationers Company expelled members who produced
forbidden materials, in effect putting them out of business.
Four hundred years later, Nazi Germany used a more complex system. Under the
guise of improving the quality of news, entertainment and culture, Joseph Goebbels,
the minister of propaganda and public enlightenment, established guilds to which
cultural workers were required to belong. There were chambers, as these guilds
were called, for advertising, film, literature, music, the press, radio and theater. The
chambers could deny membership to cultural workers whose work did not qualify.
As Nazi anti-Semitism became frenzied, the chambers shifted their membership criteria to exclude Jews. Membership in the press chamber, for example, was limited to
third-generation Aryans.
The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who came to power in 1936, employed
rigid licensing. News organizations could hire only people listed on an official register of journalists. To be on the list required graduation from one of Francos threeyear journalism schools, which wove political indoctrination into the curriculum. The
success of the schools, from Francos perspective, was further assured because admission was limited to students who were sympathetic to him.
B R I B E RY.
Germanys Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, maintained an
immense fund for bribery of editors, which kept much of the German press of the
1860s on his side. The practice is institutionalized today in much of the impoverished
Third World, where journalists, earning barely subsistence salaries, accept gratuities
on the side for putting certain stories in the paper and on the air.
Bribery can also occur when a government controls supplies that are necessary
for the media to function. Franco cut newsprint deliveries to a Spanish newspaper in
the early 1960s after several pro-monarchist articles appeared. In Mexico, a country
with no newsprint manufacturing plants, PIPSA, a quasi-governmental agency, allocates imported newsprint. The goal, purportedly, is to ensure an even stream of paper to newspapers and magazines. In practice, however, a correlation exists between
articles unfavorable to the regime and either interruptions in paper delivery or the delivery of inferior paper. The publisher of a slick magazine gets the message quickly
when PIPSA claims that it can supply only rough pulp. This is subtle bribery: Publications that play ball with the regime receive a payoff in supplies essential for doing
business.
R E P R E S S I O N . Authoritarian rulers are at their most obvious when they arrest
media people who challenge their authority. Execution is the ultimate sanction. Although such extreme action usually comes only after, not before, an article critical of
the regime appears, it still has a chilling effect on other journalists. To learn that a
fellow journalist was dragged away in the middle of the night for writing a critical
article is mighty intimidating to other journalists who are considering similar pieces.

Effectiveness of Controls
Authoritarian controls have short-term effectiveness, but the truth is impossible
to suppress for very long. In Francos Spain, which was allied with Germany in World

A U T H O R I TA R I A N M E D I A

22-7

War II, the news media were silent for years about Nazi atrocities against Jews.
Despite the media blackout, the Spanish people were aware of the Holocaust. People
do not receive all their information from the mass media, and if they tend to doubt
the accuracy or thoroughness of an authoritarian medium, they pay special attention
to alternative sources of information, such as talking to travelers, reading contraband
publications and listening secretly to transborder newscasts. The web has further
opened access to alternative sources of information from beyond a countrys borders.
Not even prepublication censorship can stop truth. If censors purge parts of a foreign correspondents story, editors indicate in notes inserted in the truncated story that
it was subject to censorship. When reporters are denied access to censor-controlled
satellite uplinks, telephones and other ways to transmit their stories, they hitch a ride
elsewhere to file their stories, albeit later. Even when an authoritarian government expels journalists, stories get out. During the apartheid violence in South Africa in the
late 1980s, the government monitored foreign publications and newscasts for stories
it did not like and then ousted the foreign correspondents who produced them. The
result was that news gathering in South Africa was more difficult, but the reporting
of government abuses did not stop. Journalists instead relied on travelers to get information out of South Africa about what was happening.
In some authoritarian countries, the mass media are so compliant with the regime
that the government seldom needs to crack down. In Mexico, for example, former
President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado once suggested that publishers increase reporters salaries so that they would be less susceptible to bribes to write favorable stories. Respectfully but forcefully, the publishers said that they would not. Later, de la
Madrids successor, President Carlos Salinas de Gortar, proposed that the newsprint
distribution agency PIPSA be done away with, but the publishers objected strenuously. PIPSA remained. In another example of media commitment to authoritarianism, the operator of the private Mexican television network has proclaimed himself
a soldier of the PRI. The PRI had long been Mexicos controlling political party,
and the network executive was saying that he would do nothing to disrupt the status quo. With that sort of attitude expressed at the top, the troops in the newsroom
were not even threatened by external censorship. In short, in some countries, control
of the media by government is a joint operation of the media and the government.
Media owners willingly, even eagerly, acquiesce.

Nature of Truth
Authoritarian media systems make sense to anyone who accepts the premise that
the government, whether embodied in a king or a dictator, is right in all that it says
and does. Such a premise is anathema to most Americans, but a mere 400 years ago
it was mainstream Western thought. King James VI of Scotland, who later became
King James I of England, made an eloquent argument for the divine right of kings in
1598. He claimed that legitimate kings were anointed by the Almighty and thereby
were better able to express righteousness and truth than anyone else. By definition,
therefore, anybody who differed with the king was embracing falsity and probably
heresy.
The authoritarian line of reasoning justifies suppression on numerous grounds:
Truth. Truth is a monopoly of the regime. Commoners can come to know it only
through the ruler, who, to King Jamess thinking, has an exclusive pipeline to the
Almighty. Advocates of authoritarianism have little confidence in individuals.

media online
James VI and I: Luminarium provides a sampling of
the writings of this king.
www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/
james/index.html
The Divine Right of Kings:
You can see extracts from a
1609 speech to Parliament by
James VI and I at this site.
www.jesus-is-lord.com/
kjdivine.htm

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CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Falsity. Challenges to the government are based on falsity. It could not be otherwise, considering the premise that government is infallible.
Stability. Without strong government, the stability necessary for society to function may be disrupted. Because challenges to government tend to undermine stability and because the challenges are presumed to be false to begin with, they must
be suppressed.
To the authoritarian mind, mass communicators who support the government are
purveying truth and should be rewarded. The unfaithful who criticize are spreading
falsity and should be banished. It all makes sense if King James divine right theory
is correct. It was no wonder that sedition was a high crime.
An inherent contradiction in authoritarianism is the premise that a ruler is
uniquely equipped to know truth. Experience over the centuries makes it clear that
monarchs and dictators come in many stripes. Regimes have been known to change
in midstream, as in Henry VIIIs change of heart on Roman Catholicism. A fair question to put to authoritarian advocates is whether Henry was right when he was a
Catholic or later, after he had rejected Catholicism.

Communist Media
STUDY PREVIEW

media online
Karl Marx: You can
read Karl Marxs views on the
media at these two web sites.
www.Lucidcafe.com/library/
96may/marx.html
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/
Tumark.htm

Marxist Underpinnings
The German philosopher Karl Marx, who wrote in the mid-1800s, had the idea
that humankind was evolving toward a perfect state. As Marx saw it, people would
eventually be living in such perfect social harmony that they would not even need government to maintain social order. The process, he said, might take a long timecenturies perhapsbut the evolution was inevitable. In the interim, Marx called for
governments to recognize the inevitability of history and adopt policies to hasten the
evolution toward the perfect state. The mass media, he said, should be governments
partners in facilitating these undeniable historical processes.
In the early years of the 20th century, many Russian revolutionaries, intent on
overthrowing the authoritarian regime of the czars and modernizing their country,
espoused Marxs ideas.
In 1917, when the Bolsheviks replaced the provisional government set up after
the abdication of Czar Nicholas II, they established a political system inspired by
Marxism, and it became the prototypical communist state until the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991. Although the Soviet Unions successor states have moved away
from the communist model, the media system of the former Soviet Union remains the
best way to understand how the media are designed to work in China and other remaining communist states, such as Cuba.

Marxist Notion of Truth

The Bolshevik-created Soviet government had many earmarks of brutal authoritarianism, but its philosophical underpinnings were different. The Marxist notion of
truth, for example, was radically different from that of authoritarian monarchs. The

COMMUNIST MEDIA

pre-communist Russian czars, like Henry VIII and most other monarchs, had claimed
an inherited superiority based on divine sanction. Coming to know truth was a matter of tapping into revelation, a kind of communion with God. Only by heeding their
divinely anointed ruler could the common people approach such perfect understanding. Marxists, by contrast, said that coming to know truth was simply a matter of recognizing the inevitability of history: Historical process was truth, and truth
was historical process. In short, people need not look beyond ideology for truth.
Marxisms implications for the mass media were profound.
Marxist Vladimir Lenin, who founded the Soviet state as well as the Communist
Party newspaper Pravda, called for the media to be collective propagandists, agitators and organizers. The 1925 Soviet constitution was clear: The fundamental purpose of the press was to strengthen Communist social order.

Media Unified with Government

Authoritarian and communist media are structured differently. Most authoritarian systems are rooted in capitalism. The mass media are owned by people whose
business is to make money, and the profit motive is a major factor in deciding what
goes to print and what is put on the air. In general, authoritarian governments interfere only on issues that directly affect the governments ability to stay in power and
maintain social order. Most of the time, the media in authoritarian states operate independently of government.
In communist countries, the economic structure is socialist. Unconcerned about
profit, communist media people choose to provide coverage that furthers the governments ideological goals. In fact, media decision makers usually are government
officials chosen because they are in tune with Marxs central idea on the inevitability of historical processes. When the Soviet Union was in full flower as a communist
state, for example, the editors of the leading publications all were high officials in the
Communist Party. One media scholar called this system akin to having the vice president of the United States editing the Washington Post.
In practice, communist governments and media often fall short of their ideological mandate and appear authoritarian. Still, Marxist roots show through. A Polish
journalist who defected to the United States when Poland was still a communist state
gave this account of a gang rape he covered: The story did not appear in its original form. The details of the incident were heavily toned down, as they would have
marred the image of happy and idealistic youngsters building socialism. In an authoritarian system, by contrast, ideology would not be a factor in deciding how to
report such a story.
Also unlike authoritarian systems, communist media criticize government.
Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, the media were loaded with stories on
official bungling and inefficiency, though usually at a low level, such as a factory commissar who was looking the other way at warehouse thievery. Typical was Bring the
Parasites to Account, a Pravda story on chronic production shortages, which were
blamed on bad managers. Soviet newspapers and magazines invited readers to be
whistle-blowers. The accusations were investigated, and the resulting stories were intended to discourage practices that were retarding the arrival of a perfect state.
Off-limits in the communist media, however, was criticism of Marxist ideology,
which was accorded the sacred respect that ultimate truth deserves.

22-9

media online
Vladimir Lenin: Both
of these web sites offer comprehensive links to archives, museums and organizations devoted
to the founder of the modern
Soviet state and the Communist
newspaper Pravda.
http://csf.colorado.edu/mirrors/
marxists.org/archive/lenin
www.cfcsc.dnd.ca/links/bio/
leninv.html
Capitalism: Capitalism Magazine features discussions on
capitalism as in the U.S. governments antitrust case against
Microsoft.
www.capitalismmagazine.com

Socialism: The World

Socialist Web Site chronicles
global workers disputes in its
effort to unite humanity into the
proletariat imagined by Marx.
http://wsws.org

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CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Libertarian Model
STUDY PREVIEW

Optimism About the Human Mind

media online
Isaac Newton: Both
Treasure-Troves.com and Newtons alma mater, Cambridge
University, feature sites on Isaac
Newton, who defined many
principles of modern physics
and invented his own scientific
method.
www.treasure-troves.com/bios/
Newton.html
www.newton.cam.ac.uk/
newton.html

media online
John Milton: Luminariums web site offers a host of
links to information on the life
and works of this author, who
wrote glowingly on the subject
of freedom of intellectual
choice.
www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/
milton/index.html

Areopagitica: Octavo offers

John Miltons landmark pamphlet in defense of any books
right to publication for sale to
the modern reader.
www.octavo.com/collection/
mltare.html

Elementary-grade teachers love to tell young science pupils the story of an English lad, Isaac Newton, who, while sitting in an orchard one late-summer day, was
struck on the head by a falling apple. At that moment the law of gravity was instantly
clear to Isaac Newton. It is a good story, though not true. Deriving the law of gravitation was a much more sophisticated matter for Newton, the leading 17th-century
physicist, but the orchard story lives on.
It is a story that is also told to pupils in their first world history class to illustrate
a period in intellectual history called the Enlightenment. In this history class version,
young Newton not only discovered gravity at the very instant that he was bumped
on the head, but also realized that he could come to know great truths such as the
law of gravity by using his own mind. He did not need to rely on a priest, a monarch
or anyone else claiming a special relationship with God. He could do it on his own.
This revelation, say the history teachers, was a profound challenge to authoritarian
premises and ushered in the era of rationalist thinking that marks the modern age.
Individually and together, people were capable of learning the great truths, called
natural law, unassisted by governing authorities. The insight of the Enlightenment
was that human beings are rational beings. It marked the beginning of quantum
progress in the sciences. The insight also contributed to the development of libertarianism, which held the intellectual roots of modern democracy.

Marketplace of Ideas
An English writer, John Milton, was the pioneer libertarian. In his 1644 pamphlet
Areopagitica, Milton made a case for free expression based on the idea that individual human beings were capable of discovering truth if given the opportunity. Milton
called for a marketplace of ideas in which people could choose from the whole range
of human ideas and values, just as shoppers feel and examine a lot of fruits and vegetables at the produce market until they find the best. Miltons marketplace of ideas
was not a place but a concept. It existed whenever people exchanged ideas, whether
in conversation, letters or the printed word.
Milton was eloquent in his call for free expression. He saw no reason to fear any
ideas, no matter how subversive, because human beings would inevitably choose the
best ideas and values. Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple: whoever knew Truth put
to the worse in a free and open encounter? he wrote. Milton reasoned that people
would gain confidence in their own ideas and values if they tested them continually
against alternative views. It was an argument against censorship. People need to
have the fullest possible selection in the marketplace if they are going to go home with
the best product, whether vegetables or ideas. Also, bad ideas should never be excluded from the marketplace because, no matter how obnoxious, they might contain
a grain of truth that makes them worth considering.
Milton acknowledged that people sometimes err in sorting out alternatives, but
these mistakes are corrected as people continually reassess their values against com-

L I B E R TA R I A N M O D E L

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Media Abroad
Greece and Libertarianism
For 400 years, beginning in the
1600s, Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire and missed the intellectual development occurring in
western Europe. A respect for public
opinion, which emerged elsewhere
with the Enlightenment, was not part
of the Greek way. Instead, Greek society operated through patronage
and so too did the countrys mass

media. Newspapers, for example,

were zealously partisan into the late
20th century. This partisanship contributed to political and economic
power struggles that did nothing to
foster a better life for most Greeks.
The media, it can be argued, contributed to factionalism and vicious,
sometimes murderous power
struggles.

The extreme partisanship began

to weaken late in the 20th century as
the media became more dependent
on meeting audience needs and interests to attract advertisingand less
reliant on political and economic
patrons. Also, privatization was
making the broadcasting media
more audience-driven.

peting values in the marketplace. Milton saw this truth-seeking as a never-ending, lifelong human pursuit, which meant that people would shed flawed ideas and values
for better ones over time. Later libertarians called this a self-righting process.

First Amendment
Libertarian ideas took strong root in Englands North American colonies in the
1700s. Pamphleteer Thomas Paine stirred people against British authoritarianism
and incited them to revolution. The rhetoric of the Enlightenment was clear in the
Declaration of Independence, which was drafted by the libertarian philosopher
Thomas Jefferson. His document declared that people possessed natural rights and
were capable of deciding their own destiny. No king was needed. The Declaration emphasized liberty and individual rights. Libertarianism spread rapidly as
colonists rallied against Britain in the Revolutionary War. Not everyone who favored
independence was a firm libertarian, however, and when it came time to write a
constitution for the new republic, there was a struggle between libertarian and
authoritarian principles. The libertarians had the greater influence, but sitting there
prominently were Alexander Hamilton and a coterie of individuals who would
have severely restricted the liberties of the common people. The Constitution that
resulted was a compromise. Throughout, an implicit trust of the people vies with an
implicit distrust. Even so, the government that emerged was the first so influenced by
libertarian principles, and the great experiment in democracy, as it has been called,
began.
In 1791 the U.S. Constitution was expanded to include the First Amendment,
which barred government interference in the exchange of ideas. The First Amendment
declares that Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press. . . . In practice, there have been limits on both free speech and free expression since the beginning of the republic. Legal scholars debate where to draw the
line when the First Amendment comes into conflict with other rights, such as the right
not to be slandered and the right to privacy. Even so, for more than 200 years the
First Amendment has embodied the ideals of the Enlightenment. The United States is

media online
Thomas Paine: The
following two links provide indepth coverage of the life and
works of the most celebrated
pamphleteer of the Age of Enlightenment.
www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/
paine.htm
www.deism.com/paine.htm

22-12

CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Media People
Elijah Lovejoy
Presbyterian social reformers
founded the St. Louis Observer as a
reform newspaper in 1833. They
asked Elijah Lovejoy to be editor. It
made sense. Lovejoy was a minister
who was sympathetic to reform, including the abolition of slavery, and
he was an experienced printer. He
accepted.
Over the next three years Lovejoy
became increasingly opposed to
slaverya controversial position
in Missouri before the Civil War.
The fervor of his editorials grew.
Although Lovejoys followers were
abolitionists, most residents of
St. Louis either favored slavery or
hated seeing the issue split their city.
Hostile public meetings were called
to protest Lovejoys abolitionist
crusade. At one meeting it was
decided that the free press provision
of the U.S. Constitution should be

ignored if the peace of the community was threatened. The resolution

was aimed at Lovejoy.
At first Lovejoy refused to yield.
However, after his print shop was
vandalized and he heard that that a
mob was intent on beating him up or
killing him, he decided to move the
Observer a few miles upriver to Alton,
Illinois. While the steamboat carrying
the press sat at the Alton dock, a
mob showed up with sledgehammers
and crowbars, uncrated the press
and dumped it in the river.
Undeterred, Lovejoy appealed to
abolitionists nationally to help him
replace his press. Three weeks later,
with a new press, he published the
first Alton Observer. Still undeterred
in his crusade, Lovejoy called on
readers to help create a state abolitionist society. Within a few days, the
mob responded by destroying Love-

joys new press. Again, with financial

support from the national abolitionist movement, Lovejoy ordered another press. On arrival, it was locked
up in a warehouse, but the mob
broke in and dumped it in the river.
At a public meeting Lovejoy declared
that he would not give in to any
mob, and he ordered yet another
press. The mob destroyed this fourth
press too, and this time they shot
and killed Elijah Lovejoy.
Elijah Lovejoy stands today as
testimony to the importance of the
mass media as a way for people of
strong opinions to persuade others
to their point of view. Although
Lovejoy did not prevail against the
mob, his murder made him a martyr.
Other abolitionist editors invoked his
memory as a battle cry, and eventually their view became public policy.
Black slavery was over.

clearly in the libertarian tradition, as are the other Western-style democracies that
followed.

Libertarians and Religion

media online
Carl Becker: Geocities
offers a concise biography of
this American historian who became known as a 20th-century
expert on the Enlightenment.
www.geocities.com/Athens/
Acropolis/5148/beckercarlbio.
html

Early libertarian headiness over the potential of the human mind created conflicts
with religious authorities. Early clerics were authoritarian, with an essentially negative view of human nature. According to some theologians, people were incapable of
fulfilling their human nature on their own. Libertarians, on the other hand, were intoxicated with the belief that human beings could fulfill their nature and come to
know ultimate truths by applying reason alone. Implicit in libertarianism, it seemed,
was that traditional religion was an extraneous vestige of less-enlightened times.
The conflict has not been entirely resolved, but many modern libertarians note
that the natural law, which they claim can be learned through human analytical
processes, coincides with the ultimate truths to which churches in an authoritarian
period sought to bring the faithful. The reconciliation equates the libertarians notion
of natural law with the religious notion of Gods will. The American thinker Carl
Becker addressed the conflict in 1945 when he updated John Milton with this

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MODEL

22-13

summation of libertarianism: If men were free to inquire about all things, to form
opinions on the basis of knowledge and evidence, and to utter their opinions freely,
the competition of knowledge and opinion in the marketplace of rational discourse
would ultimately banish ignorance and superstition and enable men to shape their
conduct and their institutions in conformity with the fundamental and invariable laws
of nature and the will of God.

Social Responsibility Model

STUDY PREVIEW

Challenges to Libertarianism
The novelist and muckraker Upton Sinclair raised questions about the integrity
of newspapers in his novel The Brass Check, published in 1919. Sinclair offered a
look inside an imaginary newsroom in which powerful interests could bribe their way
into print. He outlined how newspapers could abuse their freedom.
The doubts that Sinclair planted about the news media grew. Many Americans
were bothered about one-sidedness in newspapers, especially as consolidations reduced the number of competing newspapers. Orson Welles 1941 movie Citizen
Kane, based on newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, further undermined
public confidence in the people who controlled newspapers. So did the quirkiness of
other prominent publishers, such as Robert McCormick, who turned the Chicago
Tribune into a campaign vehicle for simplified spellings such as thru for through,
frate for freight and buro for bureau. McCormick was always quick to
defend his eccentricities, as well as the Tribunes blatantly right-wing news coverage,
in the name of a free press. Americans, imbued with libertarian idealism, were
hesitant to challenge McCormick and other media barons, but there were growing doubts by the late 1940s about whether modern society provided a proper
environment for the marketplace of ideas. These doubts concerned basic libertarian
assumptions:
Truth. Are people capable of distinguishing truth? In their enthusiasm about human nature, libertarians assumed that people are all involved in a lifelong quest
for knowledge, truth and wisdom. There was evidence aplenty, however, that
many people couldnt care less about the great questions of human existence.
People might be capable of sorting truth from falsity in the marketplace of ideas,
but many do not work at it.
Diversity. Are media diverse enough? Libertarians imagined a world of so many
diverse publications that there would be room for every outlook. In the mid-20th
century, however, some people saw a reduction in media diversity. In a shrinking
of the marketplace, U.S. cities with several newspapers lost papers one by one to
the point that in the 1940s, few cities had more than two newspapers. Only three
broadcast networks dominated radio coverage of national and international
affairs.
Independence. Libertarianism assumed that truth-seeking individuals exchange
ideas in an unstructured, freewheeling marketplace. As governments, corporations and other institutions picked up public relations skills, however, the media
experienced varying degrees of manipulation, which detracted from their role

media online
Upton Sinclair: Encarta
offers a biography of muckraker
Upton Sinclair, whose works,
including The Jungle, helped
breed a general skepticism towards the press.
http://encarta.msn.com/index/
conciseindex/42/0426B000.htm

Citizen Kane: Roger Eberts

thoughtful review of Orson
Welles masterpiece, Citizen
Kane, is posted on the Chicago
Sun Times web site.
www.suntimes.com/ebert/
greatmovies/kane.html

22-14

CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

as the vehicles of the marketplace of ideas. Also, the reliance of U.S. media on
advertising means that media whose coverage was not attractive to advertisers
were squeezed out of existence.
Access. The libertarian notion of all citizens engaging in great dialogues through
the media seemed nave to some people. Few U.S. newspapers published more
than a half a dozen readers letters a day, and the reduction in the number of cities
with multiple newspapers had further devalued newspapers as a vehicle for citizen exchange.

Hutchins Commission
media online
Robert Hutchins: The
links below provide biographical information on Robert
Hutchins as well as samplings
of his ideas on the importance
of a liberal arts education.
www.english.upenn.edu/
~afilreis/50s/hutchins-bio.html
www.bayarea.net/~kins/
AboutMe/Hutchins_orig.html
The Hutchins Commission:
Northwestern Universitys site
includes the landmark findings
of Robert Hutchins and his colleagues, who ruled that mass
media in the 1940s were already
showing signs of conglomeration and manipulation of the
facts.
www.annenberg.nwu.edu/
press/htchns27.htm

Doubts about some libertarian assumptions took firm shape in 1947. U.S. magazine tycoon Henry Luce had given a grant of $200,000 to an old college friend,
Robert Hutchins, to study the U.S. mass media. Hutchins, chancellor of the University of Chicago, assembled a group of scholars. The Hutchins Commission, as it was
called, issued a bombshell report that expressed concern that the news media were
becoming too powerful. The commission cited the growth of newspaper chains. To
Luces dismay, the commission also seemed concerned about the power of magazine
groups like his own Time, Life and Fortune. The commission said the news media
needed to be more responsible and specifically called on the press to provide:
A truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the days events in a context that makes them meaningful.
A forum for exchange of comment and criticism, including contrary ideas.
A representative picture of societys constituent groups, including blacks and
other minorities.
Coverage that challenges societys goals and values and helps clarify them.
Luce was livid. He had established the commission to blunt criticism that his own
magazines were one-sided and too powerful. His plan backfired. The commission
raised serious questions about U.S. news media practices that Luce and other media
barons had defended in the name of freedom of the press.
Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, mounted a tirade and
commissioned a book to rip the commissions report apart. Newspaper trade associations went on record that the republic was best served when nobody was looking
over shoulders of media people. Freedom of the press, they argued, was at stake when
government or anybody else, including a private group of eggheads under Robert
Hutchins direction, tried to prescribe what the press should do.
Despite the negative initial reception, the Hutchins Commissions recommendations have shaped how the most respected U.S. news organizations go about their
work today.
L O C A L AU TO N O M Y.
One Hutchins Commission concern was that consolidated ownership resulted in one-minded coverage and commentary. At the time,
Hearsts newspapers coast to coast carried mandatory editorials from the chains
headquarters, including Hearsts own quirky editorials, which were sent to his editors with the order must run front page. U.S. newspaper chains today, with rare
exceptions, do not issue directives on content to their individual newspapers, and it
is the same with most other media organizations. Chain ideology seldom extends
beyond a commitment to exploiting opportunities for profit.

22-15

FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

BA L A N C E D C OV E R AG E A N D C O M M E N TA RY.
At the time of the Hutchins report, many U.S. newspapers blatantly used their whole editorial page, and sometimes
their news columns, to advance one point of view to the exclusion of others. Front-page
political coverage in McCormicks Chicago Tribune might as well have been written by
the Republican National Committee. Today, almost all U.S. newspapers, magazines and
radio and television stations label opinion articles clearly. Most newspapers carry a
greater variety of views on their editorial pages. Many solicit contrary views. Larger
newspapers have added a page opposite the editorial page to accommodate more views.
These op-ed pages also provide room for more letters from readers. The increased space
for commentary and the greater diversity would please the Hutchins Commission.
MEDIA CRITICS.
Today, the U.S. news media face more external pressure to
be responsible than they did before the Hutchins report. Leading media monitors include the Pulitzer School of Journalisms Columbia Journalism Review, the Society
of Professional Journalists Quill magazine, the University of Marylands American
Journalism Review and Brills Content.
Since the 1947 Hutchins Commission recommendations, several news councils,
comprising disinterested people who review complaints against news media performance and issue verdicts, have come and gone. The news councils dont have any legal authority, but their reports, which are usually reported widely, encourage
accuracy, fairness and balance through moral suasion.
Also, numerous media critics and advocates have established media watchdog organizations whose diversity spans the ideological spectrum. Among them are Accuracy in
Media, Fairness and Accuracy in Media, Media Watch and Project Censored. These groups
issue newsletters, maintain web sites, write letters of protest and testify at public hearings.
OMBUDS.
In 1967 Norman Isaacs, executive editor of the Louisville CourierJournal and Times, created a new position, called ombudsman, to solicit readers reactions to the papers coverage, to confer with newspaper decision makers on
problems and to write corrections and commentaries on newsroom practices as an
independent voice. Establishing such autonomous in-house critics was unthinkable
before the Hutchins report. Today ombuds, as theyre coming to be called, are not
uncommon at major newspapers whose newsroom budgets can accommodate freeing a seasoned journalist to represent reader interests. About three dozen U.S. newspapers, about 2.3 percent of the total, have full-time ombuds.

Freedom and Responsibility

STUDY PREVIEW

Responsibility versus Profitability

In capitalistic countries, mass medias concern for social responsibility is sometimes at odds with the imperative placed on media managers to turn profits, which
is understandable in a profit-oriented system. However, profitability can be damaged
by the kind of socially responsible journalism that the Hutchins Commission had in
mind. For example:
The Hutchins Commission called for comprehensive news coverage, but newspapers can keep costs down by printing fewer pages and increasing the percentage of ads, both of which squeeze out news.

media online
Columbia Journalism
Review: Published by the distinguished Pulitzer School of
Journalism, the Columbia Journalism Review is a pioneer in
monitoring mass media.
www.ijr.org

Quill Magazine: The national

magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists, Quill examines the future of journalism
in the face of multimedia as well
as its current state.
http://spj.org/quill

American Journalism Review: The AJR provides a

wealth of information for journalists and editors, including
links to other journalism-related
sites and articles on job performance and management tips.
http://ajr.newslink.org

Accuracy in Media: One of

the many watchdog organizations established to monitor the
ethics spectrum, this is an
equal-opportunist critic.
www.aim.org/main.htm
Fairness and Accuracy
in Reporting: FAIR comments
on the political and economic
reportage of such newspapers
as the New York Times and the
Washington Post.
www.fair.org/index.html
Project Censored: This
organizations self-proclaimed
mission is to expose the
stories behind the iron curtain
of corporate media.
www.projectcensored.org/
intro.htm
Norman Isaacs: Columbia
University posted a tribute to
the innovative former executive
editor of the Louisville CourierJournal and Times and Columbia University School of
Journalism professor.
www.columbia.edu/cu/record/
23/18/30.html

22-16

CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Media Abroad
Ombuds
The ombud concept had a global
record of accomplishment before the
first one was appointed in the United
States. The concept began in Sweden in
1809 when people with the authority to
cut government red tape were appointed to help frustrated citizens get
through. The word ombudsman is, in

fact, Swedish. The non-gender-denoting

ombud is a recent U.S. invention.
The first application in the mass
media came in 1922. The Tokyo
newspaper Asahi Shunbun created a
committee to listen to readers complaints, check them out and correct
shortcomings.

The concept spread slowly. Today, newspapers in Europe, North

America, South America, Asia and
the Middle East have ombuds.
The first ombud in the United
States was at the Louisville, Kentucky,
Times and Courier Journal in 1967.

A major grocery chain threatens to discontinue advertising if a television station

proceeds with a story about unsanitary practices in the chains delicatessens.
The Hutchins Commission called for coverage of all of societys constituent
groups, including minorities and the poor, but most advertisers buy space and
time in media that are aimed at upscale audiences with buying power.
A reporter proposes a significant investigative project that is journalistically
promising, but the time and expenses and the possible legal costs would undercut the stations profitability.
The fact is that the mass media in the United States today, particularly the news
media, are pursuing divergent policies. Doing what is right journalistically does not
always coincide with doing what will enhance profits, and doing what is profitable
can work against good journalism.
The New York Times, whose journalistic reputation is among the most solid in
the world, has pursued significant stories despite advertiser and even political pressure. In the long term, the newspapers priorities have created great reader respect and
secured the Times as a profitable enterprise.
Not all news organizations, can take such a long view, however, especially if
shareholders are pressuring for higher returns on their investments every quarter. In
a not atypical situation, Newell Grant, publisher of the Wahpeton, North Dakota,
Daily Herald, thought that it was important for his readers to know the salaries of
faculty at the local state-funded technical college, so he published them. By law, the
salaries were public information that was available to any citizen. Incredible as it
might seem, the faculty objected and then pressured local merchants to withdraw
their advertising unless Grant ceased publishing the salaries. Grant knew that an advertiser boycott could hurt the Heralds profitability, perhaps even put the newspaper out of business. Also, he was mindful of his responsibility to turn a profit for the
Wick chain, which owned the paper. Grant gave up publishing the salaries, despite
the journalistic rationale for doing so.
In short, good journalism and good profits are not always easy partners. Financially strong newspapers like the New York Times are in better positions to resist
forces that can work against good journalism, but there are some news organizations
that bow to powerful influences and dilute their journalistic aggressiveness.

22-17

MEDIA FUTURE: POLITICAL AND MEDIA SYSTEMS

Exceptions to Social Responsibility

Despite the evidence that the news media operate in a more socially responsible
framework today than they did before the Hutchins Commission, there are exceptions. Some media companies, particularly absentee chain owners of many smaller
papers, begrudge newsroom expenditures. Some newspapers find it cheaper to print
news-service stories from remote parts of the globe than to send a reporter to the
courthouse every day. Many chain newspapers do not even run local editorials
regularly.
A notorious throwback to the period before social responsibility was the late
William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Leader. In 1972
Loeb decided that Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty should be the next president of the
United States. Yorty was an obscure candidate, yet during the important New Hampshire primary season, Loeb published 53 stories and 17 photos on Yorty, compared
to 40 stories and four photographs on George McGovern, who eventually won the
Democratic nomination. Adding to the lopsided coverage were anonymous letters to
the editor, smearing another leading candidate. Many suspect that Loeb himself
wrote the letters. He reduced one stumping candidate to tears with a false front page
attack on the mans wife. Loeb defended his irresponsibility by saying that the First
Amendment guaranteed him freedom to print what he wanted.
Other media owners, though not many, hold the same view today. Few, however,
interject themselves as flamboyantly and recklessly into national politics. The Union
Leader, as the only statewide newspaper, was in a position to influence the presidential selection process significantly because the early New Hampshire primary was so
closely watched.
Overall, the social responsibility model is one increasingly embraced by the mass
media in the United States.

media online
The New Hampshire
Union Leader: An important
newspaper in the first state to
hold a presidential primary, the
Union Leader is known for
endorsing the underdog or
flat-out independent.
www.theunionleader.com

Media Future: Political and Media Systems

Libertarianism appears to be on a roll worldwide. For most practical purposes the
evaporation of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the communist experiment. All the
old Soviet empire and almost all of its satellite countries began a transition to democratic forms of government based on libertarian principles. Libertarianism has also
taken root in many former dictatorships, notably in Latin America.
To be sure, authoritarianism will not disappear everywhere overnight. But even
in developing countries with autocratic governments, people see the fruits of free societies and economies through the mass media that come inwhether bootlegged or
from orbiting satellites. This will continue fomenting dissatisfaction with authoritarianism.
The transition from authoritarian and communist systems is a rocky path. In the
former Soviet Union, for example, many career media people, rewarded for years as
loyal Leninists, found themselves suddenly in a strange transitional political environment. A new infrastructure wasnt in place, and had it been it probably wouldnt
have worked.
The medias transition is no less difficult than that of the political system. In 2000
the head of Russias largest media chain, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested after
months of Kremlin harassment that was linked to his NTV networks critical coverage

22-18

CHAPTER 22

MEDIA AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

of Kremlin policies. Gusinsky was dumped into one of Moscows filthiest jails. It all
smacked of authoritarianismhardly the new Russia that touted a free press. Embarrassed at the worldwide media attention to the heavy-handedness, the president
of Russia, Vladimir Putin, distanced himself from the arrest and called it excessive.
The fact, however, was that Putins Kremlin bureaucrats were still operating in the
same old ways. They couldnt shift easily to a libertarian mode that accepted criticism of government as the way things should be.
Such setbacks in democratization are to be expected, not only in Russia but also
in other transitional parts of the world. Overall, though, we will have more political
and media systems in the libertarian tradition.

c h a p t e r

w r a p - u p

The oldest political-media system is authoritarian, epitomized by dictatorships in

which the masses are subservient to government. Communist systems, although
sometimes seen as authoritarian, have different premises. In communist systems,
government and media are partners in working toward a common ideological goal.
Libertarian systems place great confidence in the ability of human beings to come to
know great truths by applying reason. Libertarians emphasize freedom and a robust,
open exchange of ideas. An uneasiness developed in the 20th century in the United
States over the validity of the libertarian premises. As a result, the libertarian emphasis
on freedom has shifted to social responsibility.

Questions for Review

Questions for Critical Thinking

1. Name the four media systems identified by Theodore

Peterson, Fred Siebert and Wilbur Schramm. Where
are they practiced?
2. What are philosophical root assumptions to justify censorship and licensing under authoritarianism?
3. What is the role of the mass media in a communist
political system?
4. How do libertarians regard human intellectual
capabilities?
5. Why are U.S. media shifting away from a pure libertarian emphasis on freedom including the freedom
to be irresponsible?
6. In a social responsibility media system, who ensures
that the media are responsible?
7. What changes in the world are contributing to the
growth of libertarianism?

1. The Four Theories of the Press offered by scholars

Siebert, Peterson and Schramm has been criticized as
being three, not four; as not being theories but
models or systems; and as being broader than just the
press. What do you think?
2. Describe the mass media in an authoritarian country.
3. Describe the mass media in communist Cuba.
4. What limitations preclude the United States from
being fully libertarian?
5. Would John Milton be favorably impressed by the
role of the mass media today in the United States?
6. Cite a case in which a mass media operation sacrificed content in the interest of profits.
7. Why do media have a difficult time in countries that
have abandoned communism for democracy?
8. Will libertarianism ever replace authoritarianism
everywhere on the earth?