A new framework for the analysis of media systems and media organisations

Abstract

This article asks: How can we best conceptualise and analyse media systems and media organisations today? A discussion of approaches to media systems and organisation analysis shows that many of them seem to assume the correctness of Francis Fukuyama’s claim that liberal democracy has after the breakdown of the Soviet system been universalised. This article argues that the contemporary world situation shows that Fukuyama’s concept of the end of history is wrong and that we, therefore, need to rethink approaches to media systems and organisation analysis. This article introduces one such approach that is based on a concept of society that argues that all social systems and organisations have economic, political and cultural dimensions and that there is an antagonism between self-management and alienation. The article builds on and extends a typology of media organisations introduced by Colin Sparks. It introduces a systematic model of 12 different types of media organisation and six types of media systems. It stresses the importance of discerning between and analysing the interactions of capitalist media, public service media, civil society media, state media, authoritarian media and democratic media.