The media is an important matter in the terms of European Union since it is a link between the citizens of Europe and politics. It is considered as a powerful element of social life in order to gain information on world affairs, EU and national and local news. It is a kind of tie which creates a unity in diversity in EU and to create a discursive construction of Europe. But the question is how strong and tight the is the tie. According to many people, there is a disparity between EU institutions and people of EU feels feeling out of EU affair decided by EU institutions. There is also a part which might be related with the loss of public interest towards to EU matters since it seems complicated and abstract for many. This claim certainly throws new question marks about how EU journalism should be done in order to reach wider audiences and create awareness and interest in people on EU matters. Distrust in politicians and their institutions and also how media operates on European level with all the similarities and differences are ought to be dealt in a critical context to for understanding the current relation media-state-people of EU.
Comparison of Media Systems
The compassion can be handled in four categories; Newspaper Industry, Political Parallelism, Professionalism of journalism, role of state in media systems. Newspaper industry is a measure in order to see the difference among media systems. Existence of a mass circulation press or absence of it might create on of the major difference in EU. According to this, targeted audience might also vary from sensational press as in UK, elite targeted press as in Italy to the press which serves to both at the same time as in most of the Nordic countries. Share of local and national newspapers in the national press is also important in the sense of variety of voices presented. For example, UK, Australia, Italy and Spain are considered among the ones who are dominated by national press and Switzerland is considered among the ones dominated as local newspapers. Hybrid version of these two examples exists in Germany, France and Scandinavia in general.
Political Parallelism is another important aspect which varies from country to country and according to media structure in different parts of Europe. While in some countries it is quite common to see strong relation between media and political parties, in some countries media does not have distinct political orientations. Media content might be very much dominated by some distinct political orientations while the others are not.
Professionalism is considered also important dimension of the media and it's interdependency or dependency in its' content and coverage. Autonomy from outside pressures is a necessity for the media in order to make the right news based on facts, representing all sides of the matter with an objective eye in investigative journalistic approach. But this is not always the case and that is why sometimes autonomy of the media is sacrificed with the concern of political pressure or financial concerns of the media. Another two dimension of media are distinct professional norms and public service orientation which both requires the ethical concerns of the media organization. Unwritten rules which defines journalist's responsibility towards public service but so often it is violated easily since they are not binding for some as they are not rules or regulations but just ethical concerns.
Role of the State in Media Systems
Extent of the state intervention as well as forms it takes might differ easily from country to country. Public Service Broadcasting is often considered as the major intervention of the state in Western Europe such as BCC in United Kingdom. In some countries the intervention of the state into media might be through the state owned media or media owned by politicians which can see easily in Italy with Berlisconi. News agencies, newspapers, or other media related enterprises are owned by some states or by the important politicians. This certainly leaves question marks in the minds of some of the followers of the media about its independence. The question is how much the media might be independent to what extend.
Forms of State Intervention
State intervention into media can be seen in different forms such as, press subsides, defamation, privacy, right of reply laws, hate-speech laws, and various laws. The laws are mainly; Professional secrecy laws, laws regulating access to government information, laws regulating media concentration, ownership, political communication (during election campaigns) and broadcasting licensing laws. While we look at the forms of intervention, we see that the main intervention way done by the state is generally through the laws. As it is binding for every medium that the laws might be changed according to limit the freedom of media or journalist access to various information. This is always the case for investigative journalists since they are so often taken to the courts because of the news that they are covering. For example, Hrant Dink who was an editor in chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos and he was prosecuted three times for denigrating Turkishness, while receiving numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists.
Media Systems: Three Model of Daniel Hallin
Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini in “Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics” makes a distinction in model of media by their considering difference in political history, structure and culture. This makes it easy to understand variety of media with this categorization. Even though this categorization makes it easier to understand the diversity in media, there are also examples that does not fit in any of the categories with their unique characteristics. This is why I strongly think that Daniel C. Hallin and Paola Mancini should have had also a 4th category named as Hybrid Model which has some characteristics of the first three categories.
Mediterranean Model: Greece, Italy, Portugal are knows the typical examples of Mediterranean model. Newspaper industry is mainly based on low newspaper circulation and it is generally elite politically oriented. Newspapers allocate considerably bigger place for commentary then investigative journalism and state intervention into press is quite high.
Northern European Model: Denmark, Finland, Germany. Fatherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland are the mainly in this category. They do have high circulation rates and newspapers are historically pressed parties and political powers. Even though the professionalism is high and institutionalized, the roles of the state in media is still high. But there is also freedom of press which is secured by the laws.
North Atlantic Model: UK, Ireland, US and Canada are the main representing countries of North Atlantic Model. Generally newspaper circulation is high in these countries and there strong professionalism but not institutionalized and self regulated. Media is market dominated except the public broadcasting in UK (BBC) and Ireland.
New EU countries
Newly joining European Union has created a new category which has unique characteristics some are derived from their times under the communist rule. In circulation they are heterogeneous, while the circulation is considerably low in Poland, Slovakia, Baltic countries, it is quite high in Hungary. Newspapers generally have retained a decidedly partisan with politicized orientation or highly commercial. Public broadcasting is generally easily manipulated by the political powers. Commercial broadcast is based on entertainment and politically biased.
Media Regulations: Three Categories (Baldi Paolo 2007)
Media regulation is categorized in thee groups by Baldi Paola as Homogeneous countries, Inhomogeneous countries and Countries in progress. Homogeneous countries are UK, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Inhomogeneous countries are listed as The Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Greece,Luxenbourg, Cyprus, Malta, and Portugal. Countries in progress are also listed as Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Latvia.
On-line Media
%40 in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Turkey
40-50 % in Cyprus, Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia, Poland
50-60 % in Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain
60-70 % in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Slovenia, UK, Switzerland
70-80 % in Luxembourg and Sweden
80-90 % in Netherlands, Norway and Iceland
Gokhan KURTARAN
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