You have downloaded a document from The Central and Eastern European Online Library The joined archive of hundreds of Central-, East- and South-East-European publishers, research institutes, and various content providers Source: CM Komunikacija i mediji CM Communication and Media Location: Serbia Author(s): Hans J. Kleinsteuber, Barbara Thomass Title: Comparing Media Systems: The European Dimension Comparing Media Systems: The European Dimension Issue: 16/2010 Citation Hans J. Kleinsteuber, Barbara Thomass. "Comparing Media Systems: The European style: Dimension". CM Komunikacija i mediji 16:5-20. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=547527 CEEOL copyright 2019 Comparing media systems: The European Dimension Hans J. Kleinsteuber1 Barbara Thomass2 UDC 316.774 : 659.3(4) Summary: Comparative media studies have become a central research area within academic media research. International comparison of media systems has undergone an impressive development in the last five decades. This article is about the classic contri- bution to the study of comparative media systems and what this means for Europe. The authors present short description of the major contributions and after that relate them to the European experience. Starting point of comparative media analysis was the question “Why is the press as it is?” as Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm put it in 1956, when they published their famous comparative study which claimed, not only to explain what the press does and why, but, as the subtitle claimed, What the Press Should Be and Do. Key words: media systems, globalization, internationalization Media systems are embedded in their social environment which is both culturally and nationally shaped environment. Thus, they must be considered in the frame of their territorial borders as they are marked by the states. Media systems of different states differ. Why do they differ, in which aspects do they differ? What are the consequences of these differences? What is the dynamics which make media systems change and develop? These are the questions com- parative media analyses deals with. As a counter trend to the boasting comparative media research which is based on a national perspective we offer analysis of media developments which 1 [email protected] 2 [email protected] CM 16 (2010) © Centar za usmeravanje komunikacija 5 CEEOL copyright 2019 CEEOL copyright 2019 Comparing media systems: The European Dimension Hans J. Kleinsteuber / Barbara Thomass try to seize concepts as internationalization, and globalization. While the first still start from the assumption of national media systems and look for processes of transgressing borders, the latter claims that the national characteristics be- come less and less important. The vision of a globalized media system is at the end point of these arguments. Comparative media studies are meanwhile a central research area within media academic research. International comparison of media systems has undergone an impressive development in the last 50 years. This contribution will try to draw a line from the fruits of 50 years of comparative media system analysis to the discussion of globalization of media systems. It will identify the analytical tools and theoretical concepts of international comparisons of media systems in order to find out the desiderata and perspectives. Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm started efforts of media systems classifica- tion with their Four theories of the press (1956) which is of some influence still today, although it had been criticized for many reasons and overcome by much more refined models. Their central idea was “that the press always takes of the form and coloration of the social and political structures within which it oper- ates” (1956: 1f.). They identified four types of media systems according to their historical appearance. The main categories they found to describe these types are the philosophical foundations, the sort of relationship between state and the individual, the aims media pursue in their performance, the forms of control they are subjected to, and forms of ownership. Based on these categories they found first the authoritarian model, dating from the 16th and 17th century, which is mainly characterized by an understand- ing of media, i.e. at these times the press, which have to promote and support the politics of the authoritarian sovereign. The second model emerging in op- position to the previous one is based on the philosophy of enlightenment. It is the liberal one which mainly turns around the logic of control of its ancestor. Control over the media is now carried out by the market, and the media them- selves have the task to control the government. The concepts of the third and fourth model are strongly influenced by the political conflicts of the 1950’s. Some years before, the Hutchins Commission on the Press in the USA had criticized the performance of mass media and claimed that the media need to show more responsibility. According to these ideas, Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm identified a social responsibility model of the press, with main characteristic being the accountability of the media to 6 CM 16 (2010) © Centar za usmeravanje komunikacija CEEOL copyright 2019 CEEOL copyright 2019 Hans J. Kleinsteuber / Barbara Thomass Comparing media systems: The European Dimension the society and that the state entitled to interfere in case when the media do not fulfil this prerequisite. Interestingly enough, this model was never put into practice in the USA, but European academics claim that it had been imple- mented in Western Europe with the creation of public service broadcasting. The peak of the cold war led to the identification of a fourth model, which is the communist model. It is marked by the media which are firmly in the grip of the state and controlled by it to serve the communist ideology. Classification made so far had a strong normative approach. By looking at the rationales and theories behind the press and describing these norma- tive rationales, the description of the models itself had a normative bias as it is founded on an ethnocentric grounded philosophy of freedom. It wanted to explain differences of media systems and press performance, and it ended up in measuring the performance of media system in other countries against the background of the western dominating philosophical mainstream of liberalism. TheFour theories of the press thus compared ideas behind the press, not the em- pirical state of the press itself, and it confined itself to few countries, namely the USA, the UK and the Soviet Union. A central reference to Europe in this approach is the first, authoritarian model as it describes the early media history of the continent. This makes sense, but has little relevance for the understanding of European situation today. The focus during the days when this classification was developed was on the Cold War and the confrontation between East and West. The East was clearly rep- resented by the Communist model that has disappeared with the transforma- tion processes in Eastern and Central Europe (it might have survived in North Korea). On the Western side, the libertarian and the public service models were located. During the 1950’s the public service model was absolutely predomi- nant in Europe in broadcasting (only in Britain the policy of ITV had started), whereas in the US the commercial model had virtually conquered the country (even the small public radio and TV sector of today did not exist). The Siebert et al. classification reflects the assessment of the time, that the “West” has more in common and differences are minimal. As such, the American authors did not really understand the specifics of Europe. This schematic classification of media systems continued in the concept of Ronneberger (1978), who contrasted North/South and East/West systems. The Western model, located in Europe and North America, follows the liberal model of Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm as well as the Eastern followed the CM 16 (2010) © Centar za usmeravanje komunikacija 7 CEEOL copyright 2019 CEEOL copyright 2019 Comparing media systems: The European Dimension Hans J. Kleinsteuber / Barbara Thomass communist model. He adds two models, located in the South, in the devel- oping countries, stating that there is one version with political active media, which are endowed by the government with a guidance function, and a second version, where the media overtake a developing function out of their own will and autonomy, but still in accordance with the governmental support. Again in this concept the Western liberal model is the straightedge of classification and uses the binary code of free and un-free media (Massmann, 2003: 31). It is Ronneberger’s credit that he added to the hitherto bipolar consideration the view on developing countries – modernizing theories are consequently in the background of this concept. Few years later Martin and Chaudhary (1983) segmented the world into three ideological systems, the Western, the communist and the third world, and described important aspects of the media against this background: the nature and treatment of news, the role of mass media, their signification as vehicles of education, persuasion, opinion making and entertainment and looked at mass media economics and press freedom. Thus, the scope of elements was enlarged and a functionalist view came into consideration. But the approach was a top down one – given the ideological differences of these world systems the media existence was analysed in this frame. Clearly the increased importance of the developing world is reflected in these approaches. It goes together with the fact that the so called Third World became an important independent actor on the global stage, especially in the negotiations of the UNESCO General Assembly that led to the confrontation between the Western position of “free flow of communication” against the “New World Information and Communication Order” with a more controlled and balanced flow, as it was supported by the Second (socialist) and the Third World.