Media, democracy and globalization: A comparative perspective

Social change and media roles are interdependent (Jakubowicz, 1995). While media roles are predicated on the existence of favorable social conditions, social change can give rise to media actions to influence society. By the same token, democratization and media constitute a chicken and egg relationship. On the one hand, the extent to which a society is democratized defines the mode of media control and the roles they perform. On the other hand, the media are neither totally autonomous from, nor totally subservient to, the established power. They can play an instrumental role in effecting democratization or de-democratization as the case may be. Media and democratization are mutually reinforcing, one being constituted by the other.

Democratization is a political struggle among and within the ruling elites and various socio-political forces. In the developing word, democratization is also a process by which democracy is transculturated. As a rule, all the parties concerned in democratization will try to seek the endorsement of the media in order to strengthen their positions at the expense of the opponents’. The ways the media frame the issues and render their sympathy will affect the balance of power in a public debate. Essentially, the media represent resources that can be mobilized to demote or promote democracy. The democratic cause will be served if they can help spread democratic ideals, reflect the voices of contending parties, provide the public with quality and relevant information, articulate the social choices, and facilitate public deliberation. Failing all these functions, democracy will be undermined. In such a case, the media will be maintaining the status quo by legitimating the power center, marginalizing the contending voices, diluting critical information, precluding genuine options, shortening public debates, and demobilizing collective behaviors.
What contributions mass media can make towards democratization varies with a host of determinants such as the power structure, political culture, media configuration, market pressure, organizational constraints, press ideology and personal inclinations. It is beyond the scope of this paper to give a comprehensive review of how all these determinants may interact in defining the roles of media. I would rather concentrate on how they are shaped by the mode of media control that, in turn, is determined by the pattern of power distribution in a given society. It is my contention that the power structure and the location of the media in it are the most important variables that account for various democratic media roles.

Modes of media control
In an attempt to typify the democratic roles of media, Curran (2000) uses the locus by which the political elite relates to other elites and the media in a society as the classificatory criteria. Four ideal types are subsequently identified: The first model, as illustrated by contemporary Russia, represents the domination by the economic elite who exerts its political influence through its power base in the economy, control of private media, funding of political candidates and informal channels of access to the state. In the second model, as broadly represented by Malaysia and South Korea and Taiwan before recent democratizations, the leading group is the political elite who exercises its influence through the media system to other groups in society. Corresponding to some Latin American countries, the third ideal type marks an alliance between the political and economic elites who try to win the popular acceptance of their consensus through the media. The fourth model, typified by liberal corporatism in contemporary Sweden and until the 1980s by Britain, is based on a system of power sharing between organized capital, labor and the state that largely defines discourses in the media.

In another context, Chan and Lee (1991) propose a typology of state-press relationships which deserves an explication here as it has more direct implications for the analysis of the democratic roles of mass media.1 This typology views the application of power as the exercise of rewards and punishments, as reflected Gamson’s (1968) formulation of ‘inducement-constraints’. Based on how different levels of inducement and constraints are combined to form varying modes of media control, the typology is indicated in Table 1. I shall briefly explicate each ideal type and the accompanying media roles.

The first type, laissez faire, is characterized by a low level of state inducements and a low level of constraints, as commonly found in liberal democracies such as the United States whose power structure is in general more decentralized and pluralistic. With minimal government intervention, the media are primarily left to the regulation of the market. The journalists working in this system often adopt a form of media professionalism that values objectivity, accuracy and balanced reporting. In practice, this media professionalism represents a general unarticulated commitment to the established authority (Bennett, et al, 1985; Tuchman, 1978). The privately and sometimes publicly own media tend to reproduce the existing order, by cultivating value consensus rather than resorting to state coercion. Within the boundaries of capitalism and liberal democracy, the press amplifies diverse voices, especially those of legitimated elite dissent. The media render their ultimate support for the existing social system as long as it shows flexibility in adapting to new challenges. They may play a role in the redistribution of political power, but always among the already powerful.

Opposite to laissez faire is repression that is practiced in systems with a centralized power structure, as represented by China and other Central and Eastern European countries before the collapse of communism around 1990. In a totalitarian or authoritarian system, the state intrudes into every domain of the civil society and levies strict constraints on the press without delivering a corresponding level of inducements. Outright press control is imposed. A repressed press tends to exist on state subsidy and have little autonomy, especially in the political sphere. Under these circumstances, the mainstream media in general will serve as the mouthpieces of the governing elite, legitimating the status quo, demoting democracy and blocking out dissenting voices. There is little room for the survival of an alternative media. If there is one, it is usually run as the propaganda tool of an underground democratic movement.

Epitomized by Taiwan and South Korea until recent democratization, state incorporation is marked by a simultaneous or intermittent interplay of repression (high constraints) and cooptation (high inducements) in a system where political power is centralized in the hands of the state. The press is politically kept as a weak, auxiliary, and dependent organ of the state but not strictly as its mouthpiece. Press lords amass huge amounts of wealth before – but, in some cases, because – they are incorporated. But press owners are invariably too imbued with vested interests and dominant ideology to challenge the established power. An incorporated press often garners huge profits from crass commercialism or state favoritism; while politically subservient to the state, the press has a substantial room to maneuver in nonpolitical areas. Those who willingly accede to state inducements relish vast economic benefits and political status, but those who contest the power structure would undoubtedly suffer from coercion or suppression. In some ways, it resembles laissez faire.

Colonial Hong Kong is characteristic of yet another type of press control – state cooptation – where a high level of inducements is accompanied by a low level of constraints. Cooptation is the process of bringing outsiders inside so that the outsiders’ views can be in line with those of the central authority. Providing the press with a variety of symbolic and financial inducements such as exclusive information, honors, and government advertising, the state induces the press to be neutral or supportive of the government. The press is not directly penalized for keeping a distance from the government. The cost, if any, is that it will not be rewarded by the state. State cooptation is most common in systems where the press is privately owned and the power checks are not very strong.

Like many ideal types, the boundaries between these models are sometimes not as distinct as they should be. There is a chance for a given country to share the traits of more than one type. It should be understood that the above ideal types are meant for analytical purpose and are made with the modes of media control as the major demarcating line. It should also be recognized that the ideal types are not static and can be transformed as a result of power reconfiguration or democratization. At this juncture, I shall turn to how media roles may shift with power change.
The shifting of media roles

The above typology assumes (Chan and Lee, 1991) that the configuration of media is primarily a function of the pattern of power distribution. Media roles are embedded in, and elaborated by, the underpinning processes of social formations. From this vintage, mass media reflect the perspectives of the power structure. In addition, they react to the changing power relations in a society. Most of the time, such reflection and reaction are uneven. The media construct realities to make sense of the changing power dynamics. The mode of media control and its associated media functions may change as power is realigned. In the instance when a ‘hard’ authoritarianism is transformed into a ‘soft’ authoritarianism as a result of growing democratization, the state may change its press control from incorporation to cooptation. This process was rendered visible when South Korea and Taiwan, where opposition parties and grass-root groups gained solid legitimacy to challenge the ruling regime’s monopoly in the late 1980s and 1990s. Vibrancy of market competition also served to reduce press reliance on the state and to loosen state coercion of the press. The relaxed control of media results in an expanded public sphere which further reinforces democratization.

These examples, coupled with other cases of transitional societies from Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Sparks, 1998; Downing, 1996; Paletz, Jakubowicz and Novosel, 1995), reconfirm this conclusion: Shifts of media roles will occur as the dominant power structure is fundamentally upset and as new sociopolitical configurations emerge. From an organizational perspective, political transition generates environmental uncertainty. Both the power structure and the press have to develop strategic interorganizational relations to cope with, and to reduce, this uncertainty. Furthermore, internal resources of the press are not capable of self-maintenance; the press must enter into transactions and relations with the new political structure in the changing environment for further resources and services. This means that, in order to consolidate their legitimacy, power centers have to coopt the press with the delivery of considerable inducements without imposing concomitant constraints. The press in turn has to accommodate this pressure by according the power centers with legitimation.

The shift from one mode of media control to another is not as distinct as the toppling of a government. As the new is born within the old, the traits of one mode may overlap with those of another. It takes time and the right social conditions for the new media roles to take root and to develop to the full. This is evidenced by many examples in Central and Eastern Europe where media are operating in an environment that is still susceptible to influence from the past (Jakubowicz, 1995), so much so that ‘the oppressive and exploitative social relations that were once characterized of the old order have not been altered fundamentally’ (Sparks, 1998:188). While the Central and Eastern European countries vary in their media situation, they are observed to be sharing two general patterns (Fabris, 1995): First, mixed forms of old and new authoritarian structures as well as new commercial spheres linger on and co-exist. Second, although the Western media ‘logic’ has prevailed in principle, the traditional Eastern European media philosophies and behavior patterns survive and continue to have their influence felt.

The shifts of media roles are not always as dramatic as in cases of major power restructuring. As an agent of media control, media professionalism was not born with journalism in the United States. It is the result of a historical evolution spanning the development of market democracy in the 1830s (Schudson, 1978). It is still evolving, varying its emphasis on objectivity and advocacy and responding to the extent to which the society is split. The democratizing function of the media can vary as a result of splits in a given power structure, especially if disagreements develop within the central elites. These conflicts are generally reproduced in the media, giving the impression that the media are indeed engaging in watchdog activity and public debate (Curran, 2000). The media may rise to represent critical public opinion and become an emancipatory force when they break from the spell of the prevailing power system under the combined influence of an energized civil society, well-developed alternative networks of communication, professional oriented media staffs, and consumer pressure. In a similar vein, Hallin (1986) observes that the American media did not question their government’s policy on Vietnam until after the issue had become a focus of rancorous dissent in the Congress and the two-party politics.

Media roles in the context of globalization
The role of media in the globalization of democracy should not be understood in term of what some have come to called a global public sphere. As Sparks (2000) has argued, no media is genuinely global in nature. In addition, the so-called global media’s audience are ‘too small, too rich and too English-speaking to be considered inclusive.’ There is little evidence that supports the existence of a global public sphere and the public sphere remains largely state-oriented. The lack of a global public sphere, however, should not lead one to deny that media play an important role in facilitating the spread of democracy around the world via demonstration (O’Neil, 1998). It is usually through the media that both the elite and the public of one country learn about social change in another, get encouraged, and press for similar change in their home country. In effect, the global communication network is a network that help foster global diffusion of democracy. Contemporary media indeed provide an efficient link among the elites around the world. People are inspired by events that happen far away. It is no coincidence that one country after another was baptized by democracy in the 1990s. People power, as practised in the Philippines, is a source of motivation for many that struggle for democracy around the world. Images of the 1989 pro-democracy movement in China are still vivid in the world’s collective memory. The First Amendment of the American constitution finds its way into the debates about press freedom in many countries that are geographically and politically far off from the United States. There is no question that all these globalizing trends are made possible with the help of mass media at both the domestic and international level.

The international media are sources of international and domestic referencing. They can undermine the governing elite’s monopoly of information in authoritarian systems. A good illustration is the significant impact of Western films, literature, and radio programs on the collapse of Eastern Europe. According to Fabris (1995:222-223), the Western media ‘represented not only a corrective to the local official media, but at the same time symbolized ‘codes of modernity’ that were and are still being associated with most of the products of the Western cultural industries.’ The influence was particularly strong when Soviet Union’s withdrawal had left a ‘widespread ideological, media, and cultural vacuum.’ The Western radio stations had for years served as a source of information about events in Eastern and Central Europe. But the foreign media do not act alone. They joined forces with the civil communication channels that had developed next to and around the state-controlled institutions and organizations. The contribution of Western media to democratization was especially obvious when it helped trigger the domino effect arising from Hungary and Poland. But they are observed to continue to play important roles during the consolidation period.
An emerging issue in this age of globalized communication is whether new information technologies such as the Internet has an impact on democratization. Take China for instance, it is increasingly recognized that the new media, especially the Internet, plays an important role in China’s media liberalization (Chan and Qiu, 2001).

Even before the Internet became publicly accessible in the late 1990s, technologies such as cassette tapes, compact disk, VCD, telephone, mobile phone, satellite and cable television constituted an effective force that made the country’s media system more open to the world and freer from the monopoly of the party-state (Chan, 1994). This trend continues with the Internet, whose liberalizing power is enhanced by its global accessibility, channel capacity, interactivity, and decentralized structure. The Chinese authorities do attempt to constrain the liberalizing effects of the new media. Consequently, online messages are systematically cleansed, oppositional sites banned, and a few rule-breakers detained for leaking ‘state secrets’. It is true that no technical innovation can sweep out the nation’s system of media control overnight. The Chinese Communist Party still has the will and the capability to keep its media, both old and new, in order. But if the Internet is compared to traditional mass media, the former favors greater autonomy and content diversity. This is tied to the characteristics of the Internet as a relatively open, many-to-many network with higher accessibility, interactivity, and international connectivity. The Internet is potentially a useful resource in attempts to achieve greater democracy, allowing for more rapid organization, communication, and even deliberation.

Conclusions
Democracy has no end state; it is always becoming. Democratization is not a uniform and linear process. In contrast with the ‘mature democracies’ in the West, there are numerous developing democracies around the world. The differences within and between Western and Eastern democracies are so significant that the concept of multiple democracies is proposed in lieu of the general assumption of universal democracy. Democratization is an equitable reconstitution of the power structure. In the age of globalization, the pressure for more democracy and media equity is not only from within but also from without. To most of the developing world, democratization is transculturation - a process by which foreign culture, in this case Western democracy, is transformed for self-aggrandizement. In spite of the rapid spread of democracy in the 1990s on a global scale, it is too early to speak of the world having one unitary democratic system and sharing one democratic political culture. Although democratization is susceptible to influence of regional and global forces, it remains primarily a national project.

The roles of the media in a society are very much defined by its mode of media control which varies mainly with its power structure. In general, when power is concentrated, media tend to serve as an extension of the state and support the status quo. The prevailing journalistic paradigm is partisan and administrative in nature. When power is more diffused, media can maintain greater relative autonomy and serve as a forum for a wider sector of the public. Associated with this is the journalistic paradigm of media professionalism that operates in a marketized environment. Based on a mixed use of inducements and constraints in media control, four ideal types of state-press relationship are identified: laissez faire, repression, incorporation and cooptation. Each ideal type entails certain media roles that have important implications for democratization. Media can perform both positive and negative functions in regard to democratization. They can prevent, resist, promote and accelerate democracy as the case may be, depending on the prevailing mode of power distribution and specific social and organizational contexts. What is especially relevant to the theme of democratization is that each mode of media control and the corresponding media roles may shift as power is restructured. The media can render a greater emancipatory force when the power structure becomes more decentralized or divisive.

Democracy assumes the existence of a public sphere where people can carry out rational and informed discourse on public issues. How effective can the media, as a major embodiment of the public sphere, serve this purpose is a question as the media are often geared towards the ruling elites. However, not all the media in a market democracy serve as a source of empowerment and as a public forum. Some choose to roll back democracy and cancel out the pressures for democratization. The market-driven media, as argued by Curran (2000), are flawed on two counts in this regard: First, the market has favored the overgrowth of entertainment at the expense of current affairs. It is doubtful whether the media can perform the watchdog function. Second, the collusion between government and the media is growing because of interpenetration in interest and mutual dependence. In other words, the market has become a source of media corruption. Under this circumstance, how to enable the media to fulfill their democratic functions as a check of the power centers and as the public sphere poses a serious question. It is only imperative then for the media to maintain its independence and to put public interest ahead of other considerations. While some scholars (e.g.: Curran, 2000; Tracey, 1998) in the United Kingdom resort to the traditional ideal of public broadcasting as the way out, some of their colleagues across the Atlantic (e.g.: Glasser, 1999; Carey, 1999) think that public journalism may serve to correct the deficiency of a system that is overdriven by the profit motive.

This criticism of market-driven journalism not only applies to the mature democracies but also the developing democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. However, in authoritarian countries such as China and Vietnam where private media are banned, expanding the media market and allowing private media ownership command a much higher priority in the democratization project. Without due autonomy and a free environment, it is difficult to envision how the media in these countries realize their potential as a democratizing agent. This is analogous to the critique of media professionalism as being inherently biased in favor of the status quo. While that may very well be the case in the advanced democracies, media professionalism and the media market are often regarded as liberating forces in authoritarian countries where the media are tightly controlled by the state (Lee, 2000; Ma, 2000). While the media market can be restraining, it can promote diversity and countervail arbitrary state power. By the same token, media professionalism can be strategic rituals defending the status quo, it can help promote pluralism and freedom. In spite of the different priorities that developed democracies and developing democracies may attach to the media market and professionalism, the challenge for both is the same: how to enhance the media as sources of empowerment and enlightenment.

Without assuming a linear model of media development, a question often asked is whether marketization will eventually lead to a free press. This question is particularly relevant to market authoritarianism in countries such as China and Vietnam. Economic growth and marketization are two important enabling conditions for the development of a more liberal press. Without them, the media will have little chance of economic independence, a precondition for a free and independent press. However, in the absence of democratization, economic development and marketization – not even private media ownership (Zhao, 1998) - will necessarily lead to a free and independent press. The primacy of an equitable redistribution of power is borne out by the case of Singapore whose tight press control contrasts strongly with its advanced economic status (Chan, 1997). If cases of Taiwan, Korea, and other Central and Eastern European countries are of any guide, democracy is the very foundation of a free press. Democracy represents socio-political pluralism, an equitable distribution of power and the existence of checks and balances. Media commercialization under state endorsement may simply give rise to a symbiosis between money and power, resulting in state corporatism. In the case of China, there is no denial that the civil society may continue to grow, intensifying the frictions between the ideological and economic logics and other kinds of social tensions. It should be increasingly difficult for the ruling party to cope with such contradictions without a more equitable redistribution of political power.

From a comparative perspective, all societies are transitional in the sense that they are in a state of flux, with the old being replaced by the new. Many societies have gone through similar social processes and come to share some common features. This forms the social basis upon which we can make general observations on the patterns of interaction between media and democratization. The extent to which democratizations in various countries differ or resemble is partly dependent on one’s levels of analysis. It is in the spirit of fostering a comparative perspective that a broad-brush approach is adopted for this article. But any actual case of democratization is history-specific and warrants a more contextualized analysis. I believe that it is the combination of comparative analyses and specific case studies, both done at varying levels, that will give us a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between media and democratization.

Edited version of a paper presented at the conference on ‘Democratization and the Mass Media: Comparative Perspectives from Europe and Asia’, Bellagio, Italy, 9-13 April 2001.

Notes
1. Chan and Lee (1991) were originally interested in articulating how journalistic paradigms, defined as the gestalt worldviews which inform the journalists on what to report and what not to report, relate to the patterns of power distribution and other factors. The original arguments can be applied here because journalistic paradigms and media roles are closely connected.
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Joseph Man Chan is Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.