Bringing History back into Media Systems Theory: Multiple Modernities and Institutional Legacies in Latin America

Abstract

Since Hallin and Mancini's (2004) seminal work, many scholars from around the world have proposed different models of media systems for countries and regions outside the Western world. Particular challenges have arisen when conceptualizing the systems in Latin America, where shifting liberal and polarized pluralist models have been proposed, and where media traits like clientelism and collusion remain in spite of political, economic and social changes. We contend that one obstacle to the characterization of the resilience of certain structures and practices in this region is the lack of a historical perspective to account for specific processes of media modernization. Drawing on the multiple modernization paradigm, as well as on post-colonial theories, system differentiation theories of the Global South, and theories of uneven regional development, we understand Latin American modernization processes as the appropriation, adaptation, or rejection of certain elements of Western institutions, ideals and values. In media systems, this might produce: (a) centralization of power, (b) a struggle between elites, (c) state-driven differentiation, and (d) regional or local subsystems. Our historical perspective aims to explain the prevalence of several media structures, and show how institutional legacies yield core media traits, in order to pave the way for further model inference.