Western Media Systems

Jonathan Hardy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415396912
• eBook ISBN: 9781135253691
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Western Media Systems offers a critical introduction to media systems in North America and Western Europe. The book offers a wide-ranging survey of comparative media analysis addressing the economic, social, political, regulatory and cultural aspects of Western media systems.

Jonathan Hardy takes a thematic approach, guiding the reader through critical issues and debates, introducing key concepts and specialist literature. Western Media Systems is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying comparative and global media.

1
Explaining Western media systems

This study examines the media systems of sixteen Western European countries (excluding some very small countries), together with the United States of America (hereafter ‘US’) and Canada. These all are developed countries, with capitalist market economies and formally democratic political structures. Our focus is on the shared characteristics and variations in their media systems. These systems are comparable in their overall patterns of economic development, and in their political history. We might go further and speak of common cultural attributes, but here the historical and the mythic can become dangerously fused. In order to understand what is meant by ‘Western media systems’ (WMS) we need to examine how the relevant ideas and concepts have been developed and disputed. This chapter begins by introducing some key terms and then examines how media systems have been characterised and compared.

PART 1: MEANINGS

West and Western

The classification ‘Western’ has deep historical roots and provenance but its various dimensions and patterns of inclusion and exclusion are complex, deeply contested, dynamic and changing. ‘Western’ is a historically sedimented term (Williams 1983) which has accumulated a complex range of meanings and associations over centuries. Divisions between Western and Eastern can be traced back to the expansion of the Roman Empire, while the post-1945 division of Europe into a capitalist West and communist East added further layers of sedimentation to the term. Its most straightforward meaning appears to be geographic, but the location of ‘the West’ is ambiguous, changeable and a matter of ‘imaginary’ as well as real geography. Even in geographic terms the boundaries are ambiguous and changing, as Central and Eastern Europe joins the political, economic and, to a lesser degree, cultural association of the European Union. Israel is, for some, considered a Western country, while Turkey is Eastern. Latin America, in the Western hemisphere, has historically been excluded from the ‘West’.

The ‘West’ argues Stuart Hall (1992: 277) is a ‘historical, not a geographical, construct’: ‘By “western” we mean [a] type of society … that is developed, industrialized, urbanized, capitalist, secular, and modern.’ This type of society began to emerge in Western Europe in the sixteenth century, but the term ‘Western’ now generally denotes all such developed societies, including predominantly white, English-speaking Australia and New Zealand, and even economically advanced ‘Eastern’ countries such as Japan. For Hall (1992) the concept of the West has served to classify societies into different categories used to explain difference and to support ideological constructions that have historically served to contrast the qualities and achievements of the West with ‘the rest’, the non-West.

The formation of the modern West can be traced to a period of European expansion that occurred, unevenly, between the late Middle Ages and the period known as the Renaissance which saw rapid changes in social and economic life, scientific knowledge and invention. Through this European expansion the centres of regional power gradually shifted towards Western Europe from its Byzantine centre at the eastern end of the Mediterranean basin (Amin 1988: 10–11). During the Middle Ages, the countries of Western Europe, despite internal differences, ‘began to conceive of themselves as part of a single family or civilization’ (Hall 1992: 289). An important factor here was the constitution of a Judeo-Christian culture and self-identity in the West, later distinguished in the nineteenth century from an East, an ‘Orient’, made up of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. From the nineteenth century European culture was (self-)conceived as a community of nations with an ‘inherited civilization whose important sources are: The Judao-Christian religion; the Greek-Hellenistic ideas in the field of Government, philosophy, art and science and finally the Roman views concerning law’ (Pieterse 1991: 3 cited in Williams 2005). These attributes form part of what Pieterse describes as ‘mythic Europeanism’.

Cultural theorists (Said 1978, 1993; Amin 1988; Shohat and Stam 1994) have examined how a Western-centred, or Eurocentric, discourse of ‘the west and the rest’ (Hall 1992) came to be constituted historically and how it continues to influence perceptions and attitudes in the present. Such a discourse tends to represent the West as unified and homogeneous in its characteristics and establishes a bi-polar view generally based on simplistic distinctions and binary oppositions. The West is associated with science, technology, rationalism, secularism, individualism, development and progress. Through such terms and values the West is privileged against its ‘others’, the ‘rest’ associated with spiritualism (and primitivism). Drawing on concepts of ideology, discourse and psychoanalysis, Hall argues the ‘other’ is the repressed and denied ‘dark’ side of the discourse of ‘civilization, refinement, modernity and development in the West’. Amin (1988: 10) traces Eurocentrism to the cultural reconstruction of Europe around a mythic opposition between ‘an alleged European geographical continuity and the world to the south of the Mediterranean, which forms the new center/periphery boundary’. This Eurocentric vision produced a well-established version of Western history as one of progression from ancient Greece to Rome, to feudal Christian Europe, to capitalist Europe, based on arbitrary selection (annexing Christianity to Europe), exclusions (removing ancient Greece from the Orient in which it developed) and retaining the marks of racism, for Amin the fundamental basis on which European cultural unity was erected. The divisions on which Eurocentrism is constructed are essentialist, binary oppositions. But these reduce or ignore the complex patterns of interaction, fusions and formation with non-Western societies. Cultural theorists usefully highlight the discursive constructions through which global cultures are mapped, the ideological ordering of values and the investments, psychic and political in the constitution of difference. The selection and analysis of Western media systems cannot be pursued without regard to these insights.

The ‘West’ generally refers to the nation-states of North America and Western Europe. These are advanced, industrialised capitalist economies. All these states currently have parliamentary systems based on representative democracy and the rule of law. The nature of the political system in which they operate fundamentally shapes the operation of media firms. Historically and ideologically, these range from systems exercising tight government control over the media (forms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism) to ‘laissez-faire’ capitalist systems espousing no government interference. All WMS today fall between these extremes. All are ‘mixed’ capitalist political economies, ‘in which both private individuals and government exercise their economic influence in the marketplace’ (Albarran and Chan-Olmsted 1998: 5).

Europe

Europe comprises a huge range of historical, political, social, cultural, linguistic and geographical differences. Geographically, Europe is a diverse collection of ‘nations, sub-nations, regions and cities’ with diverse political and cultural influences and affiliations. In common is a history of ‘conflict, competition and dislike’ (Williams 2005: 2). The European continent stretches from the Atlantic coast to the Urals with various islands, several of which are very small states but two of which are large – the United Kingdom (comprising England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and the Republic of Ireland. The territorial shape of the 16 has remained relatively stable since the Second World War, but there have been radical changes in some political systems, notably from authoritarianism towards multi-party democracy. Culturally, there is ongoing dynamic change, in particular as old cultural minorities and ‘nations without states’ (such as the Catalans, Scots and Bretons) have re-emerged to challenge European nation-states. The migration of peoples into Europe, notably from former colonies of now defunct empires of France, Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal and other powers, has also increased cultural and political diversity.

Nation

There is a complex range of terms and meanings clustered around ‘nation’ and ‘state’. A state is a self-governing political entity. For US writers ‘nation-state’ is generally preferred, since its helps to distinguish the United States of America from states such as Texas, which are divisions of the federal state. However, in Europe ‘state’ is preferred, since nation and state do not easily coexist. There are nations without states (such as Scotland and Catalonia) and states such as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that contain more than one nation. There are also states that do not contain within their borders the whole nation (such as the Republic of Ireland). We are concerned with both legal-jurisdictional meanings of states, tracing the powers and capacity of states to influence media, and with questions of culture, and so will touch on the increasingly complex issues of the interrelationships between nations, media systems, media cultures and cultural identities.

Media and mass communications

Communications media have played a major role in the development of modern societies, in the formation of nation-states and cultural identities. People have studied communication since at least the birth of writing in 5000 BC. But it was only in the 1920s that people began to talk about ‘the media’, during the period when mass-circulation newspapers, films, and radio broadcasting were becoming established in their recognisably modern forms. The term ‘media’ came into common use when television broadcasting became commonly available in the West in the 1950s. It came to refer to technical forms of communication that provide a link between many people, in particular the ‘mass media’ of print (newspapers and magazines) and broadcasting (radio and television). Mass media has recently been defined as media ‘intended for reception by, and which could have a clear impact on, a significant proportion of the general public’ (European Commission 2007a: 6).

There are three main connected meanings of media (Williams 1983). The term refers to the technological means of communication, the technical ‘medium’ through which a message is sent and received. Media can thus refer to print, recorded sound, broadcasting, photography and film. A medium can be distinguished from delivery technologies, not least in becoming an established and enduring part of media ecosystems (Jenkins 2001: 93), even though delivery technologies may and do change rapidly. ‘Media’ is used in a second sense to refer to the institutional and organisational forms through which media content is produced and distributed. This refers, at its simplest, to media industries. The third main sense of ‘media’ is ‘the informational and symbolic content that is received and consumed by readers, audiences, users’ (Flew 2007: 3). John B. Thompson (1990: 219; see also 1995: 18–31) defines mass communication as: ‘the institutionalized production and generalized diffusion of symbolic goods via the transmission and storage of information/communication’.

The early study of mass communication focused on the public, mass-produced media of print (especially newspapers) and electronic media, in particular radio and television broadcasting, but also encompassed the wider cultural industries of film, publishing, music, advertising and public relations. Processes of technological development and convergence of media forms, firms and markets have greatly expanded the range and rapid transformations of contemporary media. The ongoing convergence of broadcasting, telecommunications, computing and the wider entertainment/leisure sectors has generated new media forms and integration of formerly distinct forms. In addition, the claims for what constitutes media or indeed warrants study as forms of mediated communications also lead to a lengthening, and contested, list. Today, such a list would include radio, television (analogue and digital; terrestrial, satellite, cable and other distribution systems); practices of journalism and content production for print (newspapers, magazines and other forms), electronic and internet; publishing; film and allied industries. It would include telecommunications and computing, including mobile telephony and wireless technologies, computer games and consumer media electronics, marketing communications, public relations and aspects of corporate communications and lobbying. All these may be said to constitute ‘the media’ today. Any omission has implications if we are to understand and appreciate the transformation of media. No media form can be properly understood in isolation, since everything from its production to consumption is affected by the influence and availability of other media. However, that does not mean that we cannot justify exclusions, but rather that the consequences of omission should be reflected upon and incorporated into analysis.

This book focuses on the public media of press and broadcasting. It seeks to follow the development paths of these media and the transformation of the markets and environments in which they operate. To this end it examines the transformation of these old media, their changing forms and patterns of production, diffusion and consumption and their relationship, including integration, with other media. It follows these media in order to trace as well a series of arguments and analyses predicated on their influence and importance for societies.

Media system

What is meant by a ‘media system’? In general usage, a media system comprises all mass media organised or operating within a given social and political system (usually a state). McQuail (1992) situates media systems within different levels of media structure that may be selected for study. He differentiates a micro-level, referring to a single media channel such as a newspaper title or television station; a meso-level, referring to a particular industry ‘sector’ such as local radio or daily newspapers; and a macro-level. The latter refers to ‘an entire (usually national) media system (or simply all relevant media)’ (1992: 96). McQuail notes that macrolevel analysis is an ‘unusual choice’, given the size and complexity of most media systems, but that such analysis can be adopted to make comparisons between national systems or within different time periods within a national system.

The concept of a ‘media system’ became widely used in the post-Second World War period, when states regulated nationally based broadcasting services. Historically, ‘media system’ was used to refer to the major mass media organised at national level, namely print media (newspapers mainly), broadcasting (radio and television), in some cases film, and occasionally allied media/industries, including advertising. In this period there was a dominant set of relationships that enhanced the heuristic value of the concept. In all Western states there were clear ‘vertical’ links between national governments and the organisation and regulation of the major media of public communication. Second, there were clearly dominant national media produced by large national firms in most Western states. Third, the major public media, whether national, regional or local, were predominantly organised and oriented within the boundaries of the nation-state.

The term ‘methodological nationalism’ is used to describe the use of concepts and tools of analysis that are bounded by a nation-state framework and to critique the ways in which social sciences remain caught up in power relations and traditions that are confined by national boundaries (Beck 2003; see also Livingstone 2003). Is it any longer appropriate ...

Table of contents

• Communication and Society
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Introduction
• 1 Explaining Western media systems
• 2 Media system evolution
• 3 Transformations and continuities in media systems (late 1970s to 2000s)
• 4 Media theory
• 5 Media and politics
• 6 Media policy and regulation Introduction
• 7 Media markets
• 8 Western media and globalisation
• 9 Assessing Western media systems
• Appendix: Comparative country data
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index