ABSTRACT
Four Theories of The Press: 60 Years and Counting ends as it began, with the firm conviction that a new research agenda is needed to move the study of the state-media relation forward. In this endeavour, the initial incursion into the political-media complex proposed shows value. First, investigating the institutional causes and not only the general consequences of why the state-media relation falls short from the liberal democratic paradigm reduces researchers’ temptation to produce new typologies without reflecting on the applicability of normative (Western) paradigms as ideal benchmarks around the globe. Second, an institutional approach shows that politics and the media are intertwined in more than one way and at different levels. Third, this stance makes evident: (1) a diversity of influences in which the authoritarian past shaped the state-media relation in the democratic setting; (2) the role of informal arrangements and practices in this interaction; (3) an interplay between change and continuity. Four, the political-media complex serves as a unifying conceptual framework to assess the difference among and within political regimes, as well as among different media outlets. Overall, this book tells a cautionary story about the prospects for advancing our understanding about the functioning of democracy where the analysis of the relationship between politics and media is constrained to pigeonhole categorisations and models that (quite unintended) end up being rigid typologies and most worrying, that keep imposing normative aspirations that are simply beyond reach.
