The mass media's dual role: ‘watchdog’ and guardian of their own interests

Date01 November 2014
Published date01 November 2014
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/pa.429
AuthorDiane E. Johnson
Special Issue Paper
The mass medias dual role: watchdog
and guardian of their own interests
Diane E. Johnson*
Department of History and Political Science, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania, USA
The mass media are a special case of interest articulation in a democracy because they play two distinct roles. On the
one hand, mass media provide information about efforts by various interest groups to inuence public policy. On the
other hand, being interest groups themselves, the mass media work to protect and advance their own interests. This
article examines the compatibility of these two roles in Argentina and Uruguay by placing this in a broader discussion
about the role of lobbying in democratic societies. The evidence suggests that despite impediments to the medias
ability to fulll both roles simultaneously, some have performed a credible job. The best explanation for the variance
in performance among the media outlets includes a combination of the following factors: the size and density of the
media market, patterns of media ownership, the relative strength of the state vis-à-vis the media, levels of public
advertising, and the particular practices adopted by individual media companies. Evidence suggests that neither
the traditional distinction between corporatist and pluralist societies nor government regulation of lobbying plays a
dominant role in determining the medias performance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
INTRODUCTION
As David Truman (1971: viii) argued more than a
half-century ago, a consistent working conception
of the political role of interest groups, their func-
tions, and the ways in which their powers are exer-
cisedis critical to our understanding of the political
process. This article focuses on lobbying by a sector
that has often stayed under the radar of scholarly
investigationsthe mass media. The media repre-
sent a special case in a democracy, because they play
two distinct roles. One is as the main source of infor-
mation about interest group activity and about
efforts to inuence public policy more generally.
This is the celebrated watchdogrole of the media.
The other is that media owners and those who work
for them seek to protect and advance their own
values and interests. Two of their most visible goals
are the protection of free expression and access to
public information. But the media, especially media
owners, also have concerns that may be less obvi-
ous. These include laws or regulations concerning
media ownership and licensing, taxes on printed
material, and access to broadcast frequencies and
wave bands, the so-called broadcast spectrum.
Conicts always arise among lobbyists and govern-
ment ofcials with competing objectives, and demo-
cratic societies largely rely on the media to inform
them about these conicts. What is distinct is that
the media can hardly be disinterested in reporting
their own efforts to inuence policy. Thus, the
watchdog must watch itselfeven though it has
an incentive to look in the other direction or to use
its authority to point the nger of blame elsewhere.
In this article, I examine the media as an interest
in Argentina and Uruguay. These two countries
share important historical and cultural characteris-
tics, plus in many respects the structure and devel-
opment of the mass media have been similar. On
the other hand, the particular form of interest articu-
lation and level of political stability in the 20th
century differs in the two countries, making for a
rich comparison.
The article demonstrates that the media in
Argentina and Uruguay act as an interest group
similar to many other traditional lobbies, adopting
similar strategies and tactics. In this way, they mani-
fest the characteristics of many other lobbies in the
region, from the unofcial power groups to various
levels of institutionalized interests. The question I
raise is whetherthey are able to fulll their conicting
roles of reporting on the efforts to inuence govern-
ment policy, while simultaneously protecting their
own particularistic interests. Given the fundamental
*Correspondence to: Diane E. Johnson, Department of History
and Political Science, Lebanon Valley College, 101 N. College
Ave., Annville, PA 17003, USA.
E-mail: djohnson@lvc.edu
Journal of Public Affairs
Volume 14 Number 3 pp 369378 (2014)
Published online 20 October 2011 in Wiley Online Library
(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.429
Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT