Commentary Comparing Two Media Systems - Literature review Example

Commentary Comparing Two Media Systems Number: Introduction How similar or different are the Media Systems in Europe inthe modern world? are the western systems of journalism emerging in the European journalism systems? Which countries in Europe are using a similar system? In order to answer these questions, there is a pressing need to do a thorough comparative analysis of the media systems used in various countries in Europe. This analysis will involve comparison between the Western Europe countries and the Eastern Europe countries, which in most cases apply different media systems. In order for the final perception to be accurate and be used in making a general population, this commentary study will involve comparing various studies that have been undertaken. The study will involve analyzing other people studies relating to the type of media systems applied in various countries located in Eastern Europe and Western Europe. The researcher has picked Bulgaria to represent countries in the Eastern Europe and Britain to represent countries in the Western Europe. According to the various studies that have been conducted comparing the different media systems applied in the European countries, most of them have ended up grouping the national media systems in western Europe into three models. One of this study that has been proven most accurate is the study done by Mancini and Hallin in the year 2004. These two authors examined the historical, social and political developments of the above two mentioned areas and suggested four dimensions that can be used in differentiating them. The four dimensions that the authors suggested are: a) The shape and the degree of development of media markets with emphasis on newspaper press b) Political parallelism which involves evaluating the degree at which media systems focus on the main political currents in the community c) The development of journalistic professionalism and d) The level and nature of state interventions in the media systems Hallin and Mancini (2004) argues that press freedom and mass-circulation correspondents developed early in countries applying liberal model such as Britain among other Western Europe countries like France and Ireland. However, they continue to argue that the rate of newspaper circulation in such countries has however been moderate in the recent times. They continue to argue that liberal countries have special characteristics such as having a dominant internal pluralism and low political parallelism in the media system. In addition, Hallan and Mancini claim that liberal countries have a high professionalism of journalists with the state having a limited role as far as media is concerned. According to the two authors, journalist autonomy is limited only by commercial pressure unlike in countries using other media models whereby political instrumentation is a major barrier to journalist autonomy. Democratic-corporate model on the other hand comprises of countries which are characterized by early growth of press freedom, strong journalistic professionalization as well as a high level of high newspaper circulation. According to the authors, strong political parallelism has been very dominant in the media to a point of leaving a legacy of commentary-oriented journalism and external pluralism (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). This has been led to an increase in emphasis on information and neutral professionalism. State intervention in this case is introduced primarily to protect freedom of press, a factor that promotes development of press rather than restricting it. However, they claim that dominance of political parallelism has been on a decrease over time especially in the past few decades. The two authors list most of the countries in the Northern and Central Europe like Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. According to Hallan and Mancini, there is a less circulation of elite-oriented press in countries applying the Polarized-pluralist model. They also claim television is the most predominant mode of press in the media market and that press freedom has been growing at a relatively low rate. In such countries, newspapers focus on politics in a great extent and are differentiated by comparatively strong commentary-oriented or advocacy-oriented styles, as well as a strong external diversity (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Hallan and Mancini continues to argue that political parallelism in the media is seen to be moderately strong, with the political instrumentation being common, a factor that leads to limitation of the journalist autonomy and professionalization. Mancini and Hallan classify most of the countries found in the southern Europe to be under this model; countries such as Greece, Italy and Portugal. Nonetheless, there exist numerous weakness of the media system classifications method they applied since there appears to exist some conflicting elements about their argument. One of the conflicting elements is the item of opinion and interpretation of news reports (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). According to their argument, the element of new report interpretation and the element of opinion are likely to be highest in polarized-pluralist states since press is likely to involve judgments that are more political or advocacy in reporting news. On the other hand, interpretation and opinion is likely to be less in news reports for a country applying Democratic-corporatist model. Nonetheless, news report are likely to contain more interpretation and opinion compared to that of the countries applying liberal model simply because of residential element that occurs due to political parallelism. This has not been the case as studies have shown that there are no much differences between the media systems in the Western European countries and in Eastern Europe countries. According to a similar study that was conducted in various countries within the euro zone, some countries like Bulgaria were found not to be having any difference between broadsheets and tabloids with majority of them showing that there is a prevalent mixture between the two. The absence of tabloid was also noticed in other eastern positioned countries like Spain and some western countries like France (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). On the other hand, tabloids were found to be abundant on the British newspapers that are in most cases read in other countries like Ireland. Ireland newspapers were not found to contain many tabloids. Coding and the type of indicators used was another but slight difference that was noticed between the various types of media systems applied by these two regions. Another key weakness of the Mancini and Hallan analysis about the differences between the media systems in Eastern Europe and those in western Europe is the percentage of factual paragraphs in the new reports. According to their analysis, there was supposed to be a high percentage of factual paragraphs in the news reports for newspapers published in the Liberal countries like Britain with newspapers from countries applying Democratic-corporatist model being showing a smaller percentage of facts compared to Polarized-pluralist states. However, this was not the case and as newspapers from Liberal countries did not show any significant percentage of facts in the news report compared to the rest (Dobek-Ostrowska, 2010). It has been concluded that the placement of the online newspaper with respect to the percentage of facts depend on newspaper specifics and not the characteristics of the countries or media system where the paper was printed at. However, the findings of some of the studies cannot completely disqualify Mancini and Hallan classification of media systems applied in different parts of Europe. Their classification can apply in other dimensions only that it cannot apply if the element of factualness of the news report is considered. In general, very few differences were noticed between the type of media systems used in the Western Europe and those countries that are located in the Eastern Europe. Studies have shown that differences exist only amongst various newspapers even if they are from the same region and not necessarily, because they have been published in different countries as Hallan and Mancini argued. However, Mancini and Hallan acknowledges that in the past there has been a homogenization of the media systems applied in the western and the eastern Europe, an aspect that has been prompted by the effects of globalization. Most of these homogenizations have been evident in the commercialization and the secularization in the media systems. In other words, Mancini and Hallan claims that there is not much difference between the various media systems applied by most countries not only in Europe but also in other major parts of the world. According to their analysis, it appeared as if most of the countries were discarding the other unfriendly media system in exchange for the Liberized media model that is accompanied by numerous benefits (Dobek-Ostrowska, 2010). Party press has been radically been declined as a result of commercialization which is in favor is now favoring newspapers making the styles f journalism to focus on personal and popular subjects rather than the political issues it used on covering. As a result, commercialization and secularization has ended up completely changing the social function of journalism. The main motive of the modern media is currently to entertain, and inform individual consumers rather than propagating for ideologies and creating social consensus as it used to be. Moreover, according to the authors, the media systems are functioning independently with at times existing no ties between the media and politics. References Top of Form Dobek-Ostrowska, B. (2010). Comparative media systems: European and global perspectives. Budapest: Central European University Press. Bottom of Form Top of Form Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. 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