Comparing Media Systems A Response to Critics Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini
In the preface to Comparing Media Systems we wrote that we would be satisfied if our book were able to spark a more developed discussion of theory and method in the comparative study of media and politics, and inspire more comparative studies studies in that that area. area. Several years after the the publication of the book, we can “officially” declare that we are satisfied with the results. Comparing Media Systems has been widely discussed, and the framework we propose has been used extensively in both
theoretical reflection and empirical research. Of course, not all the reactions to our book have been positiv pos itive, e, even eve n i f those who have commented on it have almost alm ost alway alw ayss acknow ack nowled ledged ged its importance impor tance and its its role in fostering comparative r esearch ese arch on media and politics. politics. In this this paper pa per w e want w ant to to respond to some o f the the criticisms that have been bee n advanced and some o f the the issues that have aris en as our w ork has been analyzed, applied, and tested. We will be selective: the range of responses is wide and we do not have space to address all the issues that have arisen. Our objective here is not so much to defend ourselve s as to deepen d eepen the the discuss d iscussion ion about the the topics addressed in the book which, as we have said, was our main enterprise to begin with. Actually, many observations about the limitations of our book, which are advanced as criticisms, are points we are happy to to endorse. Our book does have limitations— many o f them them.. Some of o f them we intended, some arose out of the limits of our own knowledge, and some reflected the state of the field. We consider it important to clarify these limits, and in some cases we have been as much troubled by endorsements of our book that push our analysis beyond what it can reasonably be expected to do as by critical comment on its limits. In what is probably the most critical commentary on the book we have seen, Pippa Norris (2009) concludes that “the Hallin and Mancini framework suffers from several major shortcomings that need to be addressed before we can conclude that this provides an appropriate conceptual typology for the subfield” (p. 331). This is a conclusion we can certainly endorse, as we never intended our book to be taken as providing a comprehensive conceptual framework for the comparative analysis o f media systems. systems. This is most obviously so because it de alt only only with a narrow range range o f cases— 18 wealthy capita list democracies demo cracies in North America Am erica and Western Europe. Europe. But also becaus bec ausee that would wo uld be too much for a single work wo rk to pretend, pret end, parti pa rticu cular larly ly in an emerging emergin g field f ield where whe re there is a limited literature, both empirical and theoretical, on which to build. We intended our book to begin a process of developing an adequate framework for comparative analysis in this area, not to end it. We will discuss five main clusters of issues here: (1) problems related to classification of media systems according to our three models; (2) the issue of “media system” as a unit of analysis; (3) the question of omitted variables in our analysis; (4) questions regarding the empirical validation of the typology; and (5) the issue of convergence or “homogenization.”
MODELS AND CLASSIFICATION Starting with the first discussions of Comparing Media Systems (Couldry, 2005; McQuail, 2005; Patterson, 2007) reviewers have raised questions related to the classification of media systems using the typology provided by our three models. Three kinds of criticisms have been raised: the first, and in our view the most important, is related to fundamental question of whether classification of media systems according to such a typology is really a useful way to approach comparative analysis; a second set of criticisms has to do with issues concerning whether we correctly classified particular cases we were wer e analyz analyzing ing;; and a third, with the the applicab ap plicability ility o f our typolog typology y to cases outside the the scope of our original analysis. We will not elaborate on this last point here, which is extensively discussed in a forthcoming edited book (Hallin & Mancini, 2012). We will only underscore the point we make in Comparing Comparing Media Systems , that, although we think the models we propose may be of some use as points o f compari com parison, son, parti pa rticu cular larly ly given give n their thei r influence on other parts par ts o f the world wo rld,, our models mod els are intended to identify particular patterns of media system development in Western Europe and North America, and we do not think they should be “applied” in any direct way to any but perhaps a very few cases1 cases 1 outside the scope of our analysis. In the concluding lines of our book we write: “substantial modifications would need to be made to our models to apply them” beyond their original scope, and that “they would be useful primarily as an inspiration for creating new models based on detailed re search sea rch into into specific media and political systems” systems” (Ha llin & Mancini, Mancini, 2004, p. 306). 306). On the second point too, we can be relatively brief. Our three models were conceived as ideal types: we were well aware that individual cases did not fit them exactly, and that scholars in particu par ticular lar countries count ries might raise ra ise issues issu es about the clas cl assi sific ficat ation ion o f par p artic ticula ularr cases. case s. As N orris or ris notes, the classification was not based on “standardized indicators or a set of explicit decision rules,” since, as we noted in the book, the field has not developed and collected such indicators, nor is there an agreed-upon theoretical basis for weighting them 2 We proposed what we described as “tentative judgments about abo ut the similar sim ilarity ity [of [o f the 18 cases] case s] to the ideal ide al types repres rep resen ented ted by our three mode mo dels” ls” (p. 71). In the absence of the kind of indicators Norris refers to, we sent the manuscript to distinguished colleagues in all countries involved and asked if the classification of the particular cases they studied seemed reasonable. No criticism was raised at this regard. Of course, this is not evidence for the correctness of the analysis; we bring it up only to make clear how conscious we were about the risks involved in this kind of classification. Despite this procedure we fully expected issues to be raised after the publication of the book, both because it is dificult to master the literatures on so many cases and because there are tensions inherent in the kinds of generalizations we were putting forward, which can never do justice to all the specificities of particular cases. We have actually been pleasantly surprised that the objections have been relatively limited. Introducing an edited collection in which scholars from the Nordic countries debate the extent to which our framework can illuminate the media systems of their region, Strõmback, 0rsten, and Aalberg (2008) focus on this tension, arguing that, “while it might be reasonable from a global or international pers pe rspe pect ctiv ive, e,”” our clas cl assif sific icati ation on o f those th ose cases cas es as rela re lativ tively ely pure exemplar exem plarss o f a single Democra Dem ocratic tic Corporatist model “triggered the question as to whether the Nordic countries really are so similar to
each other as suggested suggested by Hallin Hal lin and Mancini. Mancini. Certainly from an everyday Swedish, Finnish or Danish perspective, the differences between one’s own country and the other Nordic countries might often be as prominent as the similar sim ilarities ities ” (p. (p. 14). 14). Neverthele Never theless, ss, they concluded that “the “the individual country chapters suggest that the Nordic countries, including Iceland, in many ways do fit Hallin and Mancini’s Manc ini’s descriptio n of the the democratic corporatist corp oratist model” (p. 268). Others have disag d isagreed reed more strongly strongly.. Some Some o f the criticism s seem to us us to ignore our ple a that the the grouping of cases in relation to models “is not meant to substitute for the more complex discussion” we introduce introduce in the the second half hal f of the the book (Hallin (H allin & Mancini, Mancini, 2004, p. 71). 71). N orris (2009), Curran (2011), and Humphreys (2011), for example, complain that we lump Britain and the U.S. together under the category of the Liberal model despite obvious and important differences like the existence of strong media partisanship and strong public service broadcasting in the UK. In introducing our three models, however, how ever, we w e write w rite “although the United States and Britain Br itain ... are often lumped lumped together together — w ith good justif jus tific icati ation on up to a point— poin t—as as liber lib eral al systems we shall try to show that they are very ver y different in important important ways and that the common idea o f an ‘Anglo-American’ model model o f journalis jour nalism m is in part a myth” (Hallin & Mancini, 2004, p. 69). We reiterate this point in the first paragraph of our chapter on the Liberal model, and go on to describe Britain as a mixed case combining elements of Liberal and Democratic Corporatist models; we considered this point about the heterogeneity of the countries we grouped under the the Liberal Liber al model as a central po int of that section o f our book. book. Still, the the claim cla im of Norris No rris (2009, p. 334) that media med ia systems in Britain Britai n and the United States seem s eem to have “almost nothing in common” seems hyperbolic. As Strombàck, 0rsten, and Aalberg (2008) note, one of the risks that comparative research has to avoid is that of taking one’s own country, or the particu par ticular lar cases cas es one knows, as a sort so rt o f universal univer sal refere ref erence nce,, where wh ere distinct dist inctive ive features featur es o f those cases cas es come to take on exaggerated importance, preventing generalizations that might be more useful in broa br oade derr compar com parativ ativee analysis. analysis . Certainl Certainly, y, however, many many observations o f the the ways in which particular cases deviate from our our ideal types are likely to prove important and to raise interesting theoretical questions. Scholars in Portugal, for example (a country about which we had relatively limited information), have observed that although Portugal may at one time have resembled our Polarized Pluralist model fairly closely, it has in recent years diverged significantly from it, moving away, for example, from the political para pa ralle lle lism lis m that t hat charac cha racter terize izess Spain, Italy, Italy, or Greece. Gre ece. I f this is right, it raise ra isess questions quest ions about abou t how h ow to account for a shift that our relatively path-dependent model would seem not to predict. Humphreys (2011) points to the decentralized television system in Germany as a clear and important difference with other systems we classify under the Democratic Corporatist model and also to the different reasons that gave birth to commercialization in Greece if compared with the other Mediterranean countries (also noted in Kogen, 2010). Hardy points to a number of other issues with our classifications, both in his book (Hardy, 2008) and his his chapter (Chapter 11) 11) in this this Handbo Ha ndbook. ok. Beyond the question of whether we have classified particular cases correctly, there is a more general general question about whether typologies o f the the sort represented by our three three models m odels are really the way forward in comparative analysis of media systems. Humphreys (2011), for example, argues: “rather than expend time and energy on producing neat typologies, it is much more important to
explore in depth a more comprehensive range of variables” that bear on the complex media-politics relationship” (p. 154) 154).. The fact is that that since since Max Weber— as Patterson (2007) notes in a review rev iew of cla ssific ificati ation onss have been be en used to study society. Classi Cla ssific ficati ation onss allow all ow Comparing Media Systems — class generalization: they serve to list and order features that are common to different realities, phenomena, and situations. These observed features can be extended to cases beyond those that are under observation, allowing the generalization that is one of the main aims of scientific observation. We prop pr opos osed ed our three ideal ide al types as a way wa y o f pointing point ing out broad bro ad patterns patter ns in the develop dev elopmen mentt o f the relationship between media and political systems, which seemed to us an essential step in a field in which most scholars were still confined within the the specificity o f particular particu lar system systemss they studied studied.. We suspect that other scholars are likely to follow our example and propose other such ideal types that prove pro ve useful in identifying iden tifying pattern p atternss that char c haracte acterize rize significan sign ificantt numbers o f cases. We must confess, at the same time, that we are not happy in important ways with the use that has been bee n made o f our three models, mod els, and we think that Humphrey Hum phreys‘ s‘ fear fea r about “neat “nea t typolo typ ologie gies” s” substituting for detailed analysis is legitimate. Our three models were intended to illustrate the results that could could be accomplished through through the the applica tion o f the the suggested suggested interpretive schema based on the the prop pr opos osed ed lis t o f var v ariab iables les.. Instead, many scholar sch olarss have taken take n our models mod els to be, in themselv them selves, es, the interpretive framework. We believe this is a reductive reading of our book, and we think it is in part becaus bec ausee o f this “pre “p refe ferr rred ed”” readin rea ding g that many schola sch olars rs have found our class cla ssific ificati ation onss unsatisfa unsa tisfactory ctory and limited. We have noticed, for example, that our typology is often used for selecting cases, that is, scholars will do a study of some phenomenon related to political communication and pick a case correspon corre sponding ding to each of our three three models. To some some extent, extent, this this makes sense— at least it is an advance that the field is more aware now that systems differ, and that one may get different results picking pick ing cases cas es that belong bel ong to differe diff erent nt categorie categ ories. s. Often, however howe ver,, it seems to us that relat re lative ively ly little thought has been devoted to the question of how systems belonging to our different models could be expected to differ with respect to the particular phenomenon in question, or to the ways the specific cases chosen—which after all will not correspond to the ideal type in every detail—might or might not be distinctive with respect to those phenomena. We do not think that classification is an end in itself, and we did not intend our three models to be used mainly as a classification system We intended them to be used to think about patterns and why they exist and, precisely, for comparing how a particular case fits or does not fit a pattern that characterizes other cases, and why? We do not advocate that comparative analysis be built primarily around such typologies. typologies.
COMPARING MEDIA SYSTEMS, OR WHAT? The second issue has to do with the scope of our analysis. The book is called Comparing Media Systems , but, as many have noted, it does not deal with media systems in their entirety. It does not
deal with the film or television or music industries as such, for example. It is concerned with the relationship between media and politics, and therefore focuses on news media and to some extent on media regulation. Many have questioned whether the scope is clearly and properly defined, and those are legitimate questions. Kraidy (2012) has argued that more attention should be paid to entertainment as a factor in the relationship between media and politics, and Hardy makes a similar point in this volume in calling for more attention to the “cultural domain” beyond news and political journalism. Humphreys (2011) argues that if we separated the analysis of media policy specifically from the analysis o f journa jou rnalism lism we would get different results. results. N orris (2009) sugges suggests ts comparing “systems “systems of politi pol itica call communicatio comm unication” n” rathe r atherr than th an “medi “m ediaa systems.” system s.” All o f these are reas re ason onabl ablee suggestions, and to us it seems to be an open question to ask which elements of this domain would make sense to combine within an analysis and for what purposes. Moving to narrow levels of analysis, as Humphreys suggests, is likely to make sense for many purposes, but we are likely to want to ask at some point whether a broader context needs to be taken into account. Whatever system we deal with is also likely to prove complex and heterogeneous. Norris (2009), for example, worries “how we can define a media system across such disparate phenomena” phenomena” (p. (p. 328) as broadsheet broadsh eet newspapers, tabloid newspapers, broadcasting, new media, etc. But would a system of political communication really involve less disparate phenomena? Would we not have to take into account all those same media phenom phe nom ena plu p lu s political parties, election campaigns, social movements, corporate public relations, and, as Kraidy says, entertainment? No doubt comparative analysis will have to proceed using a number of different levels of analysis, with an awareness that no one delimitation of the scope of the field will be adequate for all purposes. A related issue has to do with the concept of system, and the question of whether thinking in terms of media systems involves assumptions of unity, coherence, and stability that distorts the variability of relations between media and politics (McCargo, 2012). We adopted this idea from the tradition of comparative politics and comparative sociology as it seemed to offer the possibility to analyze a whole set of interconnections. As Almond & Powell (1966) state in their seminal work on comparative politics, the concept of systems directs “attention to the entire scope of political activities within a society, society, regardless regar dless o f where in the the society such activities may be be located” lo cated” (p. (p. 17). 7). One reason we consider the comparative method important has to do with the fact that it offers the poss po ssib ibilit ility y to deal dea l with wi th the impact imp act o f institutions and o f culture at the m acro-l acr o-leve evel, l, and in that sense is a correction cor rection to the the dominance o f the the behavior beh aviorist ist tradition, tradition, w ith its its ind ividual-level ividual-lev el focus, focus, in empirical research in communication. We do not mean to bring in the assumptions of structural-functionalism, which we would consider only one of many ways of thinking about social or political systems. Nor do we believe the concept of system needs to imply either stability or unity, but only pattern and interconnection. Bastian B astiansen sen (2008) (2008 ) makes a good case cas e for the use of the concept of o f media med ia systems in historical studies of system change:
The purpose purpo se o f such studies will w ill ... be to investigate the the totality that emerges when wh en one one looks at the various vari ous interconnected interconnecte d mass media ... and focuses on the relations relatio ns betwe be tween en them them.. This approach is usually based on the principle that the totality of such a system is more than the sum of its parts: the interdependence that exists between different mass media is dificult to identify as as long as each eac h medium is investigated investig ated separately. (p. 104) 104) We would add that the relevant system may also include non-media elements which also have relations of interdependence with mass media: political parties, for example, or the state. It is true, however, that other units of comparison are possible and may make sense in many cases, including comparisons comparisons o f particular kinds kinds o f events events (political crises or decisions) or o f processes (Roudako (Roudakova, va, 2011), and we would not argue that all comparative research in media studies or political communication need focus on “media systems.”
a n a l y t ic v a r ia b l e s
The third issue has to do with the question of omitted variables. Our analysis is based on two sets of analytical variab les or dimensions, summarized summarized by Hardy (Chapter 11, in this volume), volume), w hich we use for comparing media systems and for analyzing the political context that affects their development. Critics have raised many issues both about the conceptualization of the variables included in our analysis and about omitted variables. One reason we followed a “most similar systems” design was to limit the number of variables we had to deal with, which we considered important in part because we believed many of the concepts involved had not been thought through very fully in the existing literature and needed extensive reconceptualization. This implies, of course, that the list of variables we consider, and the conceptualization of these variables—the particular values of them we discuss — is tied tie d to the cases cas es we analyzed. As a conse c onsequen quence, ce, scholar sch olarss studying other oth er parts par ts o f the w orld or ld often complain about a “bias toward mature democracies” (Hadland, 2012)—and with good reason, as that is in fact the scope of our analysis. Very clearly, new variables and new conceptualization are required to extend the kind of analysis we carried out beyond the Western democracies that are its focus. A project we carried out together with scholars working on a number of “non-Western” systems deals more fully with some of the issues that have been raised in this context (Hallin & Mancini, 2012). To give one example of the kinds of conclusions that emerge from that project, it is clear that the discussion of political parallelism provided in Comparing Comparing M edia Systems Systems is closely tied to a particular Western history of mass political parties strongly rooted in social and economic interests and competing in a pluralist political order. Once we expand the range of cases we clearly have to deal with other kinds of party systems, including non-competitive ones, with systems in which partie pa rtiess are w eak ea k or non-existent, non-exist ent, and w ith systems in w hich hic h contending contend ing pol p olitic itical, al, social soc ial,, and cultural forces are organized organized outside the framew ork of Western-style Western-style parties and interest groups, groups, according to factions of an authoritarian elite, for example, or around racial or ethnic groups. This underscores Hardy’s call (Chapter 11, in this volume) for more attention to the structure of civil society and for a “broader consideration of social actors and their communications.” Even Eve n within with in the scope o f our analysis, many many legitimate legitimate issues is sues have been bee n raised. raised . One of the most obvious has to do with new media: Hardy (2008, and in this volume), Norris (2009), and a number of other critics have noted the fact that new media are absent from our analysis. The first media system dimension dimension considered in Comparing Media Systems is the structure of media markets, and we focus there primarily on newspaper markets, which differ sharply among the cases we considered, in ways we believe are deeply rooted and strongly connected with differences in the cultural and political roles of the media. There are many other aspects of media markets that might be considered, but the most obvious element missing from our analysis is clearly an engagement with new media. The reason reaso n is simple enoug enough: h: we didn‘t know know o f any significant significant body o f comparative researc res earch h at the the time time that addressed new media. Obviously, however, this has to be a priority for the field. Another issue related to the structure of media markets, raised by numerous scholars including Humphreys (2011), McQuail (2005), and Puppis (2009), has to do with market size. The argument is, in part, that the media systems of small countries are likely to be affected by neighboring or by richer
and bigger countries, countries, which w hich may may penetrate penetrate their media markets markets in various ways. Puppis P uppis (2009) argues argues that this reality has important implications for media policy in small states, and refers to Katzenstein‘s (1985) hypothesis on corporatism in small countries stressing how corporatism may affect also the structure and the regulation of the mass media. McQuail and Humphreys have noted that we did not include regional differences in the structure of media systems in our analysis. Humphreys is specifically pointing out the necessity to include “centralization vs. decentralization” as a variable, referring particularly to the German case. This example illustrates the tension between generalization and specificity that affects much comparative work, and most obviously a broad synthetic analysis of the sort we had undertaken. In both Germany and Spain the television system is organized on a regional basis, but this seemed to us to represent a very specific feature of these two countries, important to understanding those cases, but less relevant to others others we w ere considering. considering. Perhaps, however, this this should be seen as a special case o f the the broa br oade derr point poi nt Hardy Har dy makes (Chapt (C hapter er 11, in this th is volume) volu me) about abou t “geo“g eo-cul cultura tural” l” patterns patter ns which wh ich deviate devi ate from a “nation-centric” framework and which would also include the kinds of transnational flows which, as Puppis and others argue, affect small states, or which are clearly extremely important in the Arab world (e.g., Kraidy, 2012; Lynch, 2006). Norr No rris is (2009; (20 09; see also als o N orris or ris,, Chapter Chap ter 22 , in this volume) volum e) argues that press pr ess freed fre edom om should be foregrounded as a criterion for distinguishing media systems, particularly since cross-national quantitative measures are available from a variety of institutions. In our analysis, press freedom was discussed as a component of the role of the state, as well as in the historical discussion of the development of media markets. But it did not play a major role in distinguishing the three models, since the differences among them in this regard are small. As Norris notes, it would obviously be more important in a wider comparative analysis (Hadland, 2012). It is worth signaling some cautions here, however. In the first place, the quantitative measures Norris refers to, and relies on (in Chapter 22, in this this volume), are not based on systemati systematicc theoretical reflection reflectio n rooted in comparative analysis, analysis, and man many y issues remam to be resolv ed about how to compare pres s freedom across systems. systems. 3 Second, the concept of press freedom has a strong normative inflection and as it has been used in media studies over many years is essentially a measure of distance from a norm rooted in North America and Northern Europe. That doesn’t mean we should avoid it as a tool of comparative analysis, but it does mean that a comparative analysis that foregrounds this dimension too much is likely to produce the kind of dichotomy that characterized the analysis of Four Theories Theories o f the Press , in which nonliberal systems are understood primarily by what they are not. Furthermore, we may never get to the point poin t o f analyzing analyzin g in more detail det ail the full range o f social soc ial roles ro les the state and media me dia actually actu ally play pla y in those systems (Zhao, 2012).
EMPIRICAL VALIDATION The issue of measuring press freedom leads directly to a fourth fundamental issue. One of the most important critiques made by Norris (2009) is the charge that our analysis is “impressionistic” and lacks “empirical validation.” She writes, “it remains unclear whether the concepts proposed by Hallin and Mancini can be clearly related to broader theoretical concerns in mass communications as well as operationalizable when applied to research” (Norris, 2009, p. 335). This is a point that deserves some discussion because it touches a central problem in comparative research in media studies. At one level we can say that Norris is clearly right. We describe our analysis as a “tentative” and “exploratory” (Hallin & Mancini, 2004, p. 302) one that would need to be tested by empirical research, and it remains very much open to question to what extent the tentative generalizations we make will stand up to empirical research or the conceptual framework more generally will prove useful useful for carrying it forward. Some Some elements of o f N or ris ’s (2009) discussion discu ssion are troubling to us, us, however, and seem to suggest differences about how the field is likely to advance. One thing that is worth clarifying at the outset is that because our book was not primarily focused on setting forth hypotheses, with much of our conceptual framework it will make less sense to ask, “Can “Ca n it be be ver v erifie ified? d?”” than to ask, “Is it useful?” As Lakatos (1970, (19 70, p. 137) argues, it often makes sense to appraise what he calls “research programs” not so much on the basis of whether they have been bee n “v erif er ifie ied”— d”— many valuab val uable le ones never nev er w ill be— but on o n the basis ba sis o f their “heuristicpower.'’” “heuristicpower.'’”4- In some cases, this will mean precisely the power of the framework to generate testable hypotheses. In the the case of our framework, this this will w ill probably proba bly be true less o f the the three models than of man many y embedded observations about relationships among variables; we certainly agree with Norris (2009) in the observation that it is important to “test rigorously how far the different dimensions actually cluster together in meaningful ways” (p. 334). For example, in the case of the difference in media partisa par tisansh nship ip betw be twee een n the U.S. and Brita Br itain— in—wh which ich has generated gene rated so much angst among those who feel that if they they are both clas sified as “libe “ liberal ral,” ,” they they shouldn’t shouldn’t differ in such way—we way—w e can put forward forw ard the hypothesis hypothesis that the the degree of media partisanship depends not on the the fact o f commercialization comm ercialization (as has has often been assumed) but on political culture and the nature of the party system, or (more likely, we suspect) on market structure, and in particular on whether there are multiple competitors in the same market (as in the national British market) or few (as in the local U.S. one). In other cases, asking “Is it useful” may mean asking, for example, whether our three models are useful as points of comparison— whether it is useful useful to compare com pare East E ast European media system systemss with Southern European Europe an ones, ones, as a way of beginning to ask, “What is distinctive about the East European pattern and what is not?” Are there common patterns that might be generalizable? Are there differences that suggest new variables to introduce? Or it may mean asking, “Is it useful to think of political parallelism as a defining dimension of a media system?” system?” Does it produce meaning meaningful ful comparisons across systems systems,, or sectors of a media system? Does it help us to conceptualize processes of change or the effects of new media? How far could we w e generalize the the concept beyond the the multiparty multiparty democracies o f Western Europe? Europe? Would we learn something something if we tried tri ed to? The fact that we presented the analysis of Comparing Media Systems for the most part without
empirical validation had to do with two considerations. First, as we argued in the introduction to the book, there is clear cle arly ly a shortage o f data on all the aspects asp ects we consid con sider er essenti ess ential al to compar com parative ative analysis of the relationships between mass media and political institutions. More fundamentally, and lying behind this vacuum of data, is the fact that for the most part comparative research in media studies has been carried out within a theoretical vacuum: data are collected in relationship to different aspects of the structure and the performance of the mass media, but these data are not put within a more comprehensive interpretive framework. In our view, it is this lack of theoretical reflection that ultimately lies behind the “Babelian” experience which Norris (2009) sees in comparative research in media studies and very legitimately would like to rectify, or the frustration that Livingstone (2003) notes as characteristic of many comparative projects, as each member of a research team represents and works on his or her own country, and it is never clear whether they are really working within a common framework. We believed that conceptual clarification and theory buildin buil ding g had to come first, before bef ore empir em pirica icall rese re sear arch ch could coul d advance adva nce further, and that was wa s the emphasis of Comparing Media Systems. Norris’s discussion seems to us to imply a kind of “measurement first, conceptualization after,” approach—a rush to produce standardized measures for hypothesis testing across large numbers of cases before we are really sure what we want to measure, and why, and an impatience with the kinds of interpretive research that would take the first steps in raising these issues—that makes us uncomfortable. Our hesitations about using existing measures of press pr ess freedo fre edom m without wi thout thinking through the conceptual conce ptual basis bas is o f what wha t we w e would wo uld consid con sider er a very v ery tricky concept is one one example example.. Similarly, Similarly, Norris (2009) writes about measuring professionalization profes sionalization of journ jou rnali alism sm through “proxy “pro xy indica ind icator tors” s” such as existence existe nce o f jour jo urna nalis lism m trainin tra ining g departments depar tments and accreditation accred itation procedures. Thinkin Thinking g through through the the concept ofjou of journa rnalistic listic profe ssiona lism more more fully was a principal focus of Comparing Comparing Media Systems , and, although our conceptualization of the concept is of course open to debate, we would consider these very superficial indicators which might or might not be correlated with the things we conceive as defining the concept. (This evidence suggests that accreditation of journalists— which in Western Europe Europe w ould be characteristic characteristic particularly o f Ita Italy ly and France—is negatively correlated with professionalization as we define it.) No N o rr is’s is ’s disc di scus ussio sion n also als o seems to us to identify identif y empir em pirica icall rese re sear arch ch too narro na rrowl wly y with wi th quantification. This is ironic in a way, because Norris spends a lot of time talking about how difficult it is likely to be to quantify the things we care about in the study of media and politics—we make this point poin t also als o in Comparing Media Systems — so much so that she comes close clo se to convincin conv incing g us that if we insist on quantification the field will never be able to advance! We certainly do believe that quantitative data will be important to operationalizing many of the things we want to study in comparative analysis o f media systems systems (see Benson & Hallin, 2007). But we also suspect that that a lot of of the progress in empirical research in our field will have to come from “qualitative” or partly qualitative studies o f various kinds, kinds, using ethnogr ethnographic aphic,, historical, or case-study methods, methods, within which the process of “structured, focused comparison” (George & McKeowan, 1985) could be carried out. There are ersatz forms of quantification that are often used in large-N studies in comparative politics and comparative political sociology, of course, in which specialists on various cases are asked to rate them on particular dimensions (press freedom ratings actually rely heavily on
this kind of procedure). This approach could also be attacked as “impressionistic,” but it has validity in these fields in part because they have long traditions of detailed research on particular cases and, very importantly, common conceptual frameworks that are the result of considerable theoretical reflection. It will be a gradual process to get to that point in the comparative study of media systems.
CRITIQUE OF THE HOMOGENIZAT ION THESIS THESIS The fifth issue concerns convergence. In the last chapter of Comparing Media Systems we observe that “in 1970s the differences among the three groups of countries characterized by our three models were we re quite dramatic; a generation genera tion later, later, by the the beginning o f the 21st century the differences difference s were w ere eroded to the point that it is reasonable to ask whether a single global media model is displacing the national variation of the past, at least among the advanced capitalist democracies discussed in this book” boo k” (H allin al lin & Mancini, Manc ini, 2004, 2004 , p. 251). We went we nt on to offer an analysis anal ysis o f the forces forc es o f change within European societies which had produced significant erosion of the national differences which are the main focus of our book. This shift can be seen roughly as a convergence toward the liberal model in the sense that market forces have become more dominant in European media systems, and media forms rooted in the political world of parties and organized social groups have declined. This chapter has been a focus of criticism, particularly by scholars who study parts of the world beyond Western Europe (Hadland, 2012), and we have sometimes been characterized as putting forward a kind kind o f “end o f history” predic tion o f a global triumph of the the Liberal model (McCargo, (M cCargo, 2012). We were surprised at that that interpretati interpretation, on, in part because that chapter had been added at the the end of our book in response to early criticisms of our unpublished manuscript which took us to task for focusing excessively on differences among Western media systems that may have been very sharp a generation ago, but were less so today. What we stated at the beginning of the chapter—that the differences among the countries we studied had diminished over time—was simple and we really meant it to be taken in that way. This seems to us to clearly be true. At one point in Continental Europe party newspapers were dominant, now commercial newspapers dominate everywhere; at one time time only some o f these countries had commercial broadcasting, now commercial bro adcasting has the largest larg est market share virtually virtuall y all across acr oss the region. Some elements of o f this process proc ess w ill be found found in in other regions; media have become more commercialized in much of the world, for instance, and journ jou rnali alistic stic pract pr actice icess rooted roo ted in the Libera Lib erall model have had important impo rtant influence (e.g., Wa Waisbor isbord, d, 2000). One of the most fundamental premises of our book, though, is the idea that media practices take their meaning within wider structural and cultural contexts; we do not believe that media practic pra ctices es or institutions can simply be transf tra nsferr erred ed acros acr osss contexts without with out being bein g transf tr ansform ormed, ed, and we did not intend the discussion of convergence in Western media systems to be projected onto the rest o f the the w orld any any more than any other part o f our analysis. analysis. Even within the the scope o f our our analysis, we did not mean to be taken as endorsing the idea that a “single global media model” would indeed displace disp lace all national differences. The subtitle of o f the chapter was “The forces and limits of homogenization [emphasis added],” and we concluded that “differences among media systems remain substantial and are likely to prevent complete homogenization of media systems for the foreseeable future” (p. 295). Our own research (Benson & Hallin, 2007) and research by others (Aalberg, van Aelst, & Curran, 2010) has subsequently confirmed the persistence of the kinds of differences that are the main focus of our analysis. We also observed that convergence was not a one-way street, and that the Liberal model was also in a process of flux, with journalistic professionalism declining in the U.S., especially with respect to information-centered journalism giving way to opinion-centered
journ jou rnali alism sm and a rise ris e in politi po litica call para pa ralle llelis lism m . 5 Finally, we offered a critique of straight-line evolutionist conceptions of change in media systems which assume an inevitable movement toward differentiation o f media from other subsyste subsystems. ms. An aside here about differentiation and the Liberal Model in our analysis is worth adding. In a book bo ok publish pub lished ed just ju st as our chapter cha pter was wa s going to press pre ss,, Curran Cur ran (2011) (201 1) argues that we pres pr esen entt an overly rosy view of the history of the Liberal—or, specifically the American media system, which is his real focus— focus— as one of increasing differentiation differentiation of the the media from the the political system His primary prim ary focus is on U.S. media me dia covera cov erage ge o f foreign fore ign policy. He revi re view ewss the extensive extens ive literatu lite rature re (some of it our own!) documenting the history of media deference to political elites as the U.S. has perused an imperial foreign policy in the Post-World war II period. And he concludes (p. 34) “American media may be independent of political parties, but they are tethered to America’s political class (and are sometimes strongly influenced by government). But this is exactly what we argue. Our section on the role o f the state in liberal libera l systems concludes by developing develo ping the the argument that structural limits on the role of the state in Liberal systems do not mean that the state has less influence on the content of news, in part, though not exclusively, because of the imperial histories of the U.S. and Britain. We cite the same literature Curran reviews, and conclude that news content in liberal systems “is powerf pow erfull ully y shaped shap ed by interpr inte rpretiv etivee framew fra meworks orks originatin orig inating g withi wi thin n the institutions o f the state (p. 234).” Later, in our discussion of differentiation theory, we make the argument that although media may have become more differentiated from political parties and social groups, it can be argued they became becam e more integrated integ rated with wi th the state, in diffe d ifferen rentt ways way s in the differen diff erentt systems we discus dis cuss, s, including includ ing the Liberal. Curran goes on to charge us with “exaggerating the way [commercialization] has encouraged media independence from political power (p. 46).” Commercialization has obviously decreased the role of the state in Western Europe in important ways, as funder and regulator, for example, and has increased the centrality of media relative to parties. That does not mean, however, that it increases the the independence independence o f media from structure structuress o f pow er in any any way, way, espec e specially ially economic economic power. power . We try to make this clea cl earr in our critique crit ique o f differe diff erentia ntiation tion theory. theory. We do, o f course, cour se, consi co nsider der the effect of commercialization on media and social power an empirical question, and we would consider this a key area for comparative research. In his discussion of our convergence chapter, Humphreys (2011) contrasts the convergence hypothesis with what he calls a “historical institutionalist perspective” which in the study of media polic po licy y has shown sho wn cons co nside idera rable ble continuity in national nationa l polic po licy y styles. We are very ve ry sympathetic to this approach, and indeed the the main body of our our book relies re lies quite quite heavily on it. it. But it does seem there there is a danger— danger— as critics cr itics of our initial m anuscript had had argued— in advancing an argum argument ent that is is too rigidly path-de path -depen pendent dent and does not offer the poss po ssib ibilit ility y to account acco unt for change. change. There is not a rigid rig id choice choic e betw be twee een n the two perspe per specti ctives ves.. Change does doe s take place pla ce,, both bot h through internal intern al proc pr oces esse sess and through exogenous forces, but it may be modified or take different routes in different systems. Professional practic pra ctices es and attitudes, or legisl leg islati ative ve or structural structura l arrangements arrange ments adopte ado pted d from fro m other countries, countr ies, for example, may be delayed or transformed by the limits that each government may put to this adoption, or by cultural resistance based on past experience, producing not pure continuity or convergence, but hybrid systems systems and multiple routes o f chang change. e.
CONCLUSION We are gratified by the wide use of our analysis, and at the same time well aware that it has many limitations. We have tried here to clarify our intent on several points. First, we want to underscore the point that our analysis is tied to the 18 cases we analyzed, and we did not intend it to be “applied” beyond those cases; cas es; we belie be lieve ve that new theory theor y apply a pplying ing to other media me dia systems w ill have to arise ari se,, as our framewo fram ework rk did, out o f concrete analysis o f those systems. Second, we did not imagine imagine that our analysis provided a fully comprehensive and elaborated framework for comparative analysis of media systems. We saw it as a beginning, and we hope that other scholars will try to build on it and not, once again, simply “apply” it. Third, many commentators have expressed reservations about the use of our three models for classifying media systems, fearing that it leads to overly broad and general (and hence simplistic) analysis. And in truth we share that concern. We believe our models are useful as a starting point for thinking about similarities and differences in patterns of media system development, development, and the the extremely extremely wide use o f those models seems to confirm that we were wer e right right about their heuristic power. But we share the concern that an overemphasis on these models and on classification of media systems as an end in itself is a potential danger. Third, and related to this point, we want wa nt to unders und erscor coree our plea pl ea in the book bo ok that the categ ca tegoriz orizatio ation n o f media me dia systems under one o f the the three models was not intende intended d to substitute substitute for the the more detailed discus sion o f their sim ilarities and differences and the reasons for these. Finally, we want to clarify that our chapter on convergence was not intended to be taken as a claim that in fact we were headed to a complete elimination of differences among media systems. We would like to conclude with some reflections about how we see the route ahead in comparative analysis o f media system systemss or media med ia and politics. The first thing thing to say is simply that that we assume methodological pluralism is legitimate and indeed essential. We expect that there will be many many styles styles o f comparative analysis, with w ith different units units o f analysis, for example, example, or different scopes — ranging rangin g from fro m large N-stu N- studie diess to single case cas e studies, studie s, some quantitative quant itative and some “qua “q ualita litativ tive,” e,” some more focused on hypothesis-testing and some on conceptual clarification or rethinking. This is normal; this is how a field should develop. We have a particula r interest in analysis at the the broad broa d level leve l o f the the system as a whole, and in understanding how the development of media systems can be understood in the context of social, politi po litica cal, l, and cultural develop dev elopme ment nt more generally. In this sense, we would wo uld see our w ork or k as very ver y much much in the the tradition trad ition of o f what Humphrey Humphreyss calls a “historical-in stitutional” approach. Our use o f media system “models”— “models ”—much much imitated and and much much criticized, as we have discussed discus sed above— ab ove— is related to this this concern, and we do think that if approached carefully this can be very valuable. We are particularly interested to see this kind of analysis carried forward on a wider range of systems—not, as we have stressed, by scholars trying to fit other systems into our categories, but by scholars trying to think through what other patterns of media systems exist and what social and historical context explains them At the same time, we are well aware that models can become reified and do not see classification per se as particularly valuable for advancing comparative analysis. We are also sympathetic to those who have argued that constructing typologies should not distract us from going
forward forw ard w ith the the analysis o f relations among among variables. One aspect of our approach we would like to stress is its focus on interdisciplinary theorizing. Journalism and media studies have generally, in our view, remained much too isolated from other branches bran ches o f socia so ciall science, scie nce, and too often w e see scholar sch olarss trying to write wr ite about abou t the role ro le o f jour jo urna nalis lism m in politics in a certain region of the world without any reference to the existing literatures on the nature of the state in that region, the nature of civil society, the development of political culture, or the pattern pat tern o f economic econo mic development. developm ent. To us, this is crucial: cru cial: compar com parativ ativee analysis analy sis o f media me dia systems is about understanding those systems in the context of history, culture, and social and political structure more generally, and this means that scholars of communication need to be in dialogue with other fields, including comparative politics, political sociology, and political anthropology. We are very interested, for example, in rational-legal authority and its relationship to the major variables in our study, especially journalistic professionalism and political parallelism. We suspect that thinking through this relationship would be very useful for understanding democratic transitions (and nontransitions or hybridizations). Rational-legal authority is something that is simultaneously structural and cultural and has been theorized in a number of different branches of social science; addressing this kind of issue requires moving across disciplinary boundaries. The question of quantification, finally, leads us to some important observations about ways forward in comparative analysis. It is clear that better quantitative data, across a wider range of systems, are crucial to advancing the field. They offer possibilities, especially for exploring more prec pr ecis isely ely the relati rel ations onship hip betw be twee een n varia va ria bles, ble s, as for example, example , in Aalber Aal berg, g, van va n Aelst, Ae lst, and Curra Cu rran’s n’s (2010) study of the relationship between media commercialization and political content in the news. It is true, of course, that many of the things political communication and media scholars are interested in are likely to prove difficult to quantify, including our dimensions of political parallelism and journ jou rnali alistic stic profes pro fessio sional naliza ization tion,, which wh ich certain cer tainly ly presen pre sentt challenge chal lengess in operatio ope rationaliz nalization ation.. But in our view, it is often precisely those things that are difficult to quantify that are important and interesting, and we need to figure out ways to study them, quantitatively or not. In the case of political parallelism there are some kinds of quantitative data already available on many systems that are very useful, and there could certainly be more o f this this sort o f data produced on a wide r range o f syst system ems. s. This includes survey data on the partisan affinities of media audiences as well as the very valuable data produced by Donsba Don sbach ch and Patter Pa tterso son n (2004 (20 04)) on such things as the relatio rel ationsh nship ip betw be twee een n partis pa rtisans anship hip and jour jo urna nalis lists ts’’ care ca reer er paths. As N orris or ris (2009, (20 09, pp. 3 35 -33 -3 3 6) obser ob serve ves, s, howeve how ever, r, we can ca n only go so far in studying media partisanship without looking at content, “a massive undertaking,” she worries, and one clearly “open to problems of interpretation.” It is true enough that content analysis across media systems poses many methodological problems, but it can clearly be done, and has been in a number of fine studies (e.g., Semetko et al., 1991; Ferree et al., 2002). Content analysis across systems, guided by compar com parativ ativee theory, is in our o ur vie v iew w one o f the most m ost fundamental needs need s in our field. The undertak u ndertaking ing does not have to be massive: unless we move immediately to the level of large-N studies but we belie be lieve ve a lot can ca n be accom acc omplis plished hed w ith more modest, smallsm all-N N compar com parison isonss (Mancini (Man cini & Hallin, Hal lin, 2012). There will, of course, still be “problems of interpretation” including the subjectivity and context-
dependent natur naturee (Mancini & Hallin, 2012) of assessments o f partisanship in media conte content nt.. To us, us, it is precisely in thinking through these “problems of interpretation” that comparative analysis is interesting and valuable. We would like to see the field directly engage with, among other things, partisa par tisansh nship ip and prof pr ofes essio siona nalis lism m and confront confro nt them both bot h concept con ceptually ually and methodologica method ologically. lly. This may require putting quantitative data in context using other methods, looking not only, for example, at content content but but also at the the interaction inter action of journa lists with other social actors in the the production o f that that conten content, t, or at audience audience reception. In the case of journalistic jour nalistic professionalism, it would m ean not only only looking at things things we might quantify—patterns quantify—patterns o f recruitment o f journa jou rnalists lists,, or attitudes w e might measure in a survey—but also doing field observation and case studies to observe the professional routines and patterns of interaction of reporters and politicians. We believe, in other words, that detailed, multi-method case studies, informed by comparative theory and designed to common issues with other such studies, will be fundamental to the progress of the field.
NOTE NO TES S 1 One might be Australia, as discussed in Jones and Pusey (2010). ( N I
We make this point in relation to the pla cement ceme nt o f points points on our “triangl “trianglee diagram,” Hallin and and Mancini (200 4, p. 71).
r o l
Hallin has served as a ratings reviewer for Freedom House. Lakatos also writes, “A ‘ m o d e l is a set of initial conditions (possibly together with some of the observational theories) which one knows is b o u n d to be replaced during the further development of the [research] program.” Lakatos is thinking about a different kind of model than ours, based in the natural sciences. But we share his view of science in the sense that we believe that a conceptual framework has value as it is used in research, and does not acquire value only after it has been “verified.”
5 Hallin (1992, 20 00, 2006) 20 06) has written a series o f articles articles on the crisis o f the American model o f journalist journalistic ic professionalism, once widely seen as the end-product of the natural evolution of media systems.
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HANDBOOK OF COMPARATIVE COMMUNICATION RESEARCH Edited by Frank Esser Thomas Thomas Hanitzsch Han itzsch
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p. cm. Includes bibliogra bibliographic phical al reference refer ence s. 1. Communication Communication,, Intern Internatio ational. nal. 2. Communication—R Communication—R esearch. esearc h. I. E sser, Frank, Frank, 19 66 - II. Hanitzsch, Thomas, 1969P96.I5.H368 2012 302.2— dc23 dc23 2011034392 ISBN: 978-0-415-80271-0 (hb) ISBN: 978-0-415-80275-8 (pb) ISBN: 978-0-203-14910-2 (eb) Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
