Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2015 Patterns of media performance : comparing the contribution of mass media to established democracies worldwide Müller, Lisa Abstract: The notion that mass media are essential for modern democracies is widely accepted, but there is a great deal of controversy regarding how well media play their democratic role. However, neither of the positions within this debate rests on solid empirical and especially comparative evidence. Thus, this thesis aims to contribute to the cross-national research on democratic media performance and its effects on the quality of democracy. Part I develops a theoretical model of media performance, arguing that mass media have two democratic functions: vertically, they need to disseminate information about politics; and hori- zontally, they need to provide a public forum that reflects the diversity of the society. The degree towhich these two functions are fulfilled is analyzed on the level of media structures and media content, comparing up to 47 countries. The results reveal that media performance on both levels varies considerably across countries. While the media in the younger democracies within the sample generally lag behind, different patterns of media performance can be observed with respect to the more mature democracies. In short, the vertical function seems to be better guaranteed in Anglo-Saxon countries, whereas central Western and Northern European states are found to perform better with regard to the horizontal function. Part II of the book explores and reveals important links between media performance and various aspects of a well-functioning democratic regime. Dass moderne Demokratien ohne Massenmedien undenkbar wären, ist weithin unbestritten. Sehr kontrovers wird hingegen diskutiert, wie gut Medien ihre demokratis- che Rolle erfüllen. Dabei mangelt es dieser Debatte jedoch an einer soliden und v.a. vergleichenden empirischen Grundlage. Diese Dissertation möchte deshalb zur ländervergleichenden Forschung über demokratische Medienperformanz und deren Effekte auf die Qualität von Demokratien beitragen. Teil I entwickelt ein theoretisches Medienperformanz-Modell, demzufolge Massenmedien zwei demokratische Funktionen haben: in vertikalem Sinne müssen sie politische Informationen verbreiten; in horizontalem Sinne ein öffentliches Forum bereitstellen, das die Vielfalt der Gesellschaft widerspiegelt. Inwieweit diese Funktionen erfüllt sind, wird auf der Ebene von Medienstrukturen und -inhalten analysiert, wobei bis zu 47 Länder verglichen werden. Die Resultate zeigen, dass Medien in den jüngeren Demokratien im Sample generell schlechter abschneiden, während bei den reiferen Demokratien verschiedene Medienperformanz- Muster zu beobachten sind. Grob gesagt scheint die vertikale Funktion in angelsächsischen Ländern besser garantiert zu sein, während sich die horizontale Funktion in Nord- und in Zentral-Westeuropa als stärker ausgeprägt erweist. Teil II der Studie untersucht das Zusammenspiel zwischen Medienperformanz und verschiedenen Aspekten eines demokratischen Systems. Es werden mehrheitlich positive Beziehungen festgestellt. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-164418 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Müller, Lisa. Patterns of media performance : comparing the contribution of mass media to established democracies worldwide. 2015, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. 2 PATTERNS OF MEDIA PERFORMANCE Comparing the Contribution of Mass Media to Established Democracies Worldwide Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zurich for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Lisa Müller of Schaffhausen SH Accepted in the fall semester 2012 on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Hanspeter Kriesi and Prof. Dr. Frank Esser Zurich, 2015 Acknowledgments Many people have made the completion of this book possible, and they deserve credit for it. First of all, I would like to thank Hanspeter Kriesi for always providing very valuable and constructive feedback to my work and for granting me the permission to reproduce an illustra- tion from one of his publications (see figure 7.1 in this book). Similarly, I thank Frank Esser and Marc Bühlmann for their insightful comments and their support with this project. My special gratitude goes to Bruno Wüest who is not only a wonderful partner but also helped me greatly with the technical implementation of some of the data collection procedures applied in this study. Last but not least, I am thankful to my family and friends for their continuous en- couragement as well as my colleagues for sharing their know-how and for many enjoyable moments in the past years, both in- and outside of the office. Finally, I would like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for generous research funding. ii Note: A revised version of this thesis was published in autumn 2014 by Palgrave Macmillan under the title “Comparing Mass Media in Established Democracies” (see http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/comparing-mass-media-in-established-democracies- lisa-m%FCller/?K=9781137391377) iii Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: The state of comparative research on media and democracy 13 2.1 Delimiting the research field of interest 13 2.2 Comparative assessments of media performance 15 2.2.1 Qualitative studies 15 2.2.2 Quantitative studies 20 2.3 Comparative analyses of media performance effects on democracy and political outco- mes 27 2.4 Summary 38 PART I: ASSESSING DEMOCRATIC MEDIA PERFORMANCE 41 Chapter 3: The functions of the media for democracy 43 3.1 The role of the media in contemporary democracy according to normative theories 43 3.2 Two normative functions of the media for democracy and two levels of analysis 51 3.3 The vertical media function 53 3.3.1 Conceptualizing the vertical media function 54 3.4 The horizontal media function 59 3.4.1 Conceptualizing the horizontal media function 61 3.5 Summary 68 3.6 Preconditions of democratic media performance 70 3.6.1 Media freedom 70 3.6.2 Media regulation 71 Chapter 4: Measuring the vertical and the horizontal media function 75 4.1 Structural analysis 75 4.1.1 Country sample 75 4.1.2 Data and indicators 78 4.2 Content analysis 91 4.2.1 Country sample 91 4.2.2 Methodological approach 92 4.2.3 Indicators 101 4.3 Summary 107 Chapter 5: Comparing the democratic performance of media systems 109 5.1 The dimensions of structural media performance 109 5.1.1 Large country sample 110 5.1.2 Small country sample 112 5.1.3 Summary 116 iv Contents 5.2 Finding country patterns of structural media performance 117 5.2.1 Cross-national differences in structural media performance 118 5.2.2 Patterns of structural media performance 122 5.2.3 Summary 129 5.3 Explaining structural media performance 133 5.3.1 Defining the explanatory variables 133 5.3.2 Predicting media systems’ fulfillment of the vertical function 136 5.3.3 Predicting media systems’ fulfillment of quantitative diversity 138 5.3.4 Predicting media systems’ fulfillment of qualitative diversity 141 5.3.5 Summary 143 5.4 Conclusion 144 Chapter 6: Comparing the democratic performance of media content 147 6.1 The dimensions of media performance on the content level 147 6.2 The variance of media content performance within and across countries 152 6.2.1 Comparing the variance of media content performance within countries 152 6.2.2 Explaining media content performance 153 6.3 Finding country patterns of media content performance 169 6.3.1 Graphical analysis 169 6.3.2 Cluster analysis 178 6.4 Conclusion 182 PART II: THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENCES IN MEDIA PERFORMANCE 187 Chapter 7: The impact of mass media on the quality of established democracies 189 7.1 Defining the quality of democracy 190 7.2 Hypotheses 193 7.2.1 The impact of the vertical media function 194 7.2.2 The impact of the horizontal media function 197 7.3 Data and methods 200 7.3.1 Data 201 7.3.2 Methods 210 7.4 Summary 214 Chapter 8: Testing the relationship between media systems and the quality of demo- cracy 217 8.1 Structural media performance and political participation 218 8.2 Structural media performance and transparency 226 8.3 Structural media performance and the civil society 231 8.4 Structural media performance and political representation 238 8.5 Conclusion 242 v Contents Chapter 9: Conclusion 247 9.1 Assessing democratic media performance 249 9.2 The effects of differences in media performance 261 9.3 Limitations and outlook 264 References 269 Appendix 281 vi vii List of tables and figures Tables 3.1 Conceptualization of the vertical media function 55 3.2 Conceptualization of the horizontal media function 61 4.1 Overview of media function indicators – structural level 79 4.2 Overview of media function indicators – content level 102 5.1 The latent dimensions of structural media performance (large country sample) 111 5.2 The latent dimensions of structural media performance (small country sample) 113 5.3 Country scores for the latent dimensions of structural media performance 119 5.4 Characteristics and composition of the large country sample clusters (overall means factors) 124 5.5 Characteristics and composition of the small country sample clusters (overall means factors) 126 5.6 Explaining vertical media function performance 136 5.7 Explaining horizontal media function performance: quantitative diversity 139 5.8 Explaining horizontal media function performance: qualitative