The mass-media and political regimes (the problem of mass-media determination by political regimes)

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Kharkiv State Academy of Culture

THE MASS-MEDiA AND POLiTiCAL REGiMES (THE PROBLEM OF MASS- MEDiA DETERMiNATiON BY POLiTiCAL REGiMES)

The problem of determination of the mass-media by a political regime is important for Ukraine, which is still on the way from totalitarianism to democracy. The mass-media are an important factor in the transformation process. On the one hand, the media is the subject of transformation processes, because it varies in the context of the overall changes in the socio-political relations, but at the same time, it acts as the actor of this process since it significantly affects the changes.

The issue of the influence of the regime on the media is covered by writings of prominent political scientists (Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Raymond Aron) and specialists in social communications (Doris Graber and Johanna Dunaway, Avtandyl Tsuladze). However, the degree of comparative study of the media functioning under different political regimes is still inadequate. Although the specific features of the media under separate types of modern political regimes is well studied, no research on their general system comparison was found. The purpose of this article is a comparative analysis of the mass-media in the context of main types of regimes.

The functioning of the mass-media is conditioned by structural features of the main types of political regimes. Today the political science distinguishes three main types of political regimes: the totalitarian, authoritarian and democratic ones. Totalitarianism and democracy occupy extreme positions on the political regimes scale because they are diametrically opposed in their structural characteristics. Totalitarianism is a generic monopoly regime. It is characterized by: 1) political monopoly -- monopoly of one (totalitarian) party in the government; 2) economic monopoly -- state monopoly in the means of social production; 3) ideological monopoly -- monopoly of one (party) ideology that tries to subjugate the entire social culture. Instead, democracy is a generic pluralistic regime. It is characterized by political, economic and cultural pluralism. In a democracy, the mechanisms of free competition must be functioning in all spheres of social life.

Authoritarianism occupies an intermediate position on the scale of political regimes between totalitarianism and democracy. This position is caused by the fact that the authoritarianism is closer to totalitarianism in the political sphere, but it is closer to democracy in non-political (economic and cultural) spheres. In authoritarianism, the political sphere functions on a monopoly basis. But unlike totalitarian monopoly which has a party nature, an authoritarian monopoly is elitist. An authoritarian regime can functions on a non-party (military dictatorship, for instance), one-party (the party serves as political support of the regime and does not interfere in public administration) and multi-party (there are several parties, but they don't exert any a significant impact on the government) basis. At the same time, the political sphere under authoritarianism is characterized by limited pluralism. In economics, pluralism is limited by governmental protection to the structures that are associated with the political elite. In culture, pluralism is limited by the ban of a government critic (tab. 1).

Table 1

Structural features of the main types of political regimes

Source: [8, p. 80]

These features determine the functioning of the mass-media (tab. 2).

Table 2

The mass-media in the main types of political regimes

The mass-media in totalitarian regimes are defined as Not Free. In fact, they are governmental, despite their formal nature. The government strictly controls all information sources and news. Carl Friedrich and Zbignew Brzezinski believe that one of the six fundamental characteristics of totalitarianism is «monopoly, in the hand of the party and of the government, of all means of effective mass communication, such as press, radio, and motion picture» [7, p.22]. Raymond Aron notes: «The state and its representatives manage all media -- radio, television, and printing» [2, p. 284]. The totalitarian regimes exists in two main forms -- right-wing (fascist) and left-wing (communist), although this differentiation does not significantly affect the functioning of the media, without taking into account the differences in political doctrines. The features of right-totalitarian doctrines are the ideas of ethnic or racial superiority, supremacy, and hatred. Instead, left-totalitarian regimes cultivate the ideas of class superiority, supremacy (the idea of proletarian dictatorship), and hatred [7]. Both forms of totalitarianism are characterized not only by a tough political censorship, but also by a strict ideological one. All the media should work in the line with the official ideology based on the doctrine of the ruling party. Thus, the role of journalists is reduced to the role of the ideological fighters of the totalitarian party. In totalitarian states, the media perform very important functions related to mass propaganda. Hannah Arendt stresses that the mass propaganda is one of the totalitarian regime fundamentals along with mass terror [1, p. 341].

The functioning of the media in authoritarian regimes differs substantially from that in totalitarian ones. An authoritarian government controls most political information. The main task of censorship is to prevent the dissemination of anti-governmental news. Political science distinguishes two types of authoritarian regimes the reactionary and progressive ones. Reactionary authoritarianism aims at the conservation of existing social relations, while progressive authoritarianism is trying to modernize the country by forceful means. Reactionary authoritarianism uses more strict management methods than the progressive one. It's reflected in the media. The mass-media under conditions of reactionary (hard) authoritarianism tend to be defined as Not Free, while they are in progressive (soft) authoritarian defined primarily as Partly Free. The features of authoritarian subtypes are also reflected in censorship. In the case of reactionary authoritarianism, censorship is more rigid and carried out by governmental agencies. In the case of progressive authoritarianism, the mass-media more tend to self-censorship. Graber and Dunaway note, that authoritarian regimes use the legal, structural and economic influences for coverage of government policies by mass-media [4, p. 26]. Under an authoritarian regime, the journalists act as public informants, but this role is limited to governmental control, though that applies mostly to political news.

In democracies, the problem of functioning of the mass-media is much more difficult. David Collier and Steven Levitsky counted several dozen varieties of political democracy [3]. Among them, the factors of democratic maturity and the level of civil freedom have priority for our research. By maturity factor, democracies are divided into two extreme types -- procedural and structural democracy. The procedural democracy is such a regime, where basic democratic procedures are embodied in political practice (free, competitive and transparent general elections, and the formation of the government on this basis), but no structural basis of democracy. In procedural democracy, a democratic regime functions on the structural basis remaining from the previous non-democratic regime. The civil society has not yet grows strong, the mass democratic parties and influential pressure groups are not formed, there was no separation of powers, and democratic culture has not become the dominant segment of the political culture. In structural democracy, a democratic regime is functioning on its own structural basis. It relies on a developed civil society, mass democratic parties and influential pressure groups, the separations of power, and a democratic political culture. With the concepts of structural and procedural democracy correlated concepts electoral and liberal democracy. In this case, the criterion of differentiation is the level of freedom in society. In electoral democracies, the level of freedom allows free elections on the basis of which the government is formed. Liberal democracies are regimes which fully implement and effectively protect civil liberties and political rights.

The mass-media in liberal (structural) democracies are defined as Free, whereas they are defined in much electoral (procedural) democracy as Partly Free. This difference is caused by the stereotypes of totalitarian time that still exist in the new democracies. While most media are nongovernmental, their owners and journalists retain the habit of self-control. In addition, a democratically elected government too often relies on information control. However, democratization of the political regime involves a fundamental change of the essence of censorship, namely the transition from political censorship to moral one. The essence of moral censorship is that things are contrary to public moral standards should not be applied to the information space. These things include advocacy of national, racial, religious and social hatred, incitement of war, the spread of pornography. In the transition to democracy, journalists assume the role of free and objective public informants about the events in the country and around the world. Describing the specifics of the mass-media in democracy, Avtandyl Tsuladze points out: «In democratic countries, the media tend to support the existing political system and rarely question the fundamentals of it. They limit their criticism of the fact that, in their opinion, is a distortion of the fundamental social and political values, or in cases of corruption and improper behavior» [10]

Conclusion

political regime mass media

This article is an attempt to outline the main directions of systematic studies of the impact of political regimes on the functioning of mass-media. The impact of political regimes on the media manifests itself in the level of freedom and state control over their activities, the nature of censorship in journalism as public informants. Each of the main types of political regimes determines the specific features of these components, as discussed in the article. However, this article covers only the basic, most important features. Further work on the study of political regime influence on the mass-media requires more empirical materials. These materials can be provided by Freedom House monitoring, such as «Freedom in the World" [5] and «Freedom of the Press" [6]. Unfortunately, Freedom House does not use the concept of the totalitarian regime that hinders the application of the results of its monitoring for a comparative analyses of the mass-media under different types of political regimes.

References

1. Arendt, H. The Origins of Totalitarianism / H. Arendt. San Diego, N. Y., L.: A Harvest Book, 1951. 527 p.

2. Aron, R. Democratie et totalitarisme / R. Aron. Paris: Gallimard, 1965. 374 p.

3. Collier, D. Democracy «With Adjectives»: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research / D. Collier, St. Levitsky // Kellogg Institute, Working Paper № 230. August 1996. URL: https://kellogg.nd.edu/publications/ workingpapers/WPS/230.pdf3.

4. Graber, D. A. Mass-Media and American Politics / D. A Graber, J. L. Dunaway, 4 ed. Los Angeles, Washington (DC): CQ Press, 2015. xix, 464 p.

5. Freedom in the World / Freedom House. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/ report-types/freedom-world.

6. Freedom of the Press / Freedom House. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/ report-types/freedom-press.

7. Friedrich, C. J Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy / C. J. Friedrich, Z. K. Brzezinski. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956. 367 p.

8. Romanyuk O. I. Vid Totalinaryzmu do Demokratiyi ta Nacional'noyi derzhavnosti: systemnyyi analiz postcomunistychnykh transformaciy; monographiya / O. I. Romanyuk. Kharkiv: KhDAC, 2011. 376 p.

9. Romanyuk O. I. Pravi ta livi totalitarni regymy: spil'ne ta specefichne / O. I. Romanyuk // Nova polityka. 2002. № 1. P. 55-59.

10. Tsuladze, A. SMI v sistiemie dialoga partiy I social'nykh grupp v contekstie formirovaniya v obshchiestvie ustanovok totalitarnosti / A. Tsuladze. URL: hppt://wwww.dzyalosh.ru/01-comm/statii/culadze-02/zaklushenie.html.

Annotation

This paper is the result of a joint study of the functioning of the media by two experts, one of whom specializes in political science and the other in the field of social communications. The purpose of the study is a comparative analysis of the mass-media functioning under various types of political regimes. The authors identify and structure specific characteristics of the mass-media and journalism under totalitarian, authoritarian and democratic regimes.

Key worlds: mass-media, political regime, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, democracy, transformation.

Анотація

ЗАСОБИ МАСОВОЇ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ ТА ПОЛІТИЧНІ РЕЖИМИ (ПРОБЛЕМА ДЕТЕРМІНАЦІЇ ЗАСОБІВ МАСОВОЇ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ ПОЛІТИЧНИМ РЕЖИМОМ)

Стаття є результатом спільного дослідження проблеми функціонування засобів масової інформації двома фахівцями, однин з яких спеціалізується на політичній науці, а інший у галузі соціальних комунікацій. Метою дослідження є порівняльний аналіз функціонування засобів масової інформації за різних типів політичного режиму. Автори виявляють та структурують специфічні особливості засобів масової інформації та журналістської діяльності в умовах тоталітарних, авторитарних та демократичних режимів.

Ключові слова: засоби масової інформації, політичний режим, тоталітаризм, авторитаризм, демократія, трансформація.

Аннотация

СРЕДСТВА МАССОВОЙ ИНФОРМАЦИИ И ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЕ РЕЖИМЫ (ПРОБЛЕМА ДЕТЕРМИНАЦИИ СРЕДСТВ МАССОВОЙ ИНФОРМАЦИИ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИМ РЕЖИМОМ)

Статья является результатом совместного исследования проблемы функционирования средств массовой информации двумя специалистами, один из которых специализируется в области политической науки, а другой в сфере массовых коммуникаций. Целью исследования является сравнительный анализ функционирования средств массовой информации в условиях разного типа политических режимов. Авторы выявляют и структурируют специфические особенности средств массовой информации и журналистской деятельности в условиях тоталитарных, авторитарных и демократических режимов.

Ключевые слова: средства массовой информации, политический режим, тоталитаризм, авторитаризм, демократия, трансформация.

Размещено на Allbest.ru