1
Jens Cavallin
IAMCR Mexico July 2009
Media concentration - a drama of expectations in human rights
Old principles and the trinity of old threats
This is a crude pre-print. Foot-notes are at the foot!
The UN Declaration of Human Rights (Art 19) as well as regional legal instruments
such as the European Convention of Human Rights in its Article 10 lay down the
freedom of expression and information as a human right.
Threats against this human right might, historically and in our present time, come
from basically three sides, or social sectors:
1) states and their tyrants, (“the public”1)
2) private operators, market controllers (the private)m,
3) organised interests (the civil society - legal or illegal) .
These three social sectors also are also reproduced in three categories of actors –
individual or collective – discerned in an analysis of interplay between participants in
any kind of social processes, such as production, consumption, and communication.
Looking at processes of deployment of power in cultural production, from a
perspective of action might mean at least two things.
First: it reserves a margin of freedom for human action, distinguishing it from mere
“behaviour” or “mechanic” movements (instincts).
Second: it also introduces a possibility to look at these processes “from outside” –
exploiting the metaphors of theatre or scenic action, employed by Erving Goffman
and many others after him.
Although this perspective is also to some extent always a perspective “von oben” –
seemingly from a “neutral” observer – that is, in a certain degree slightly
contradictory, since obviously the observer, viz. the scholar, is also acting within a
cultural production field, scientific research, it is rewarding from a particular point of
view. This is the obligation to refrain somewhat from the moralistic attitude so often
surrounding judgements on media ownership, regulations on cultural production etc.
This moralism is often also accompanied by a cynical attitude towards the exercise of
power in democratic societies – an attitude which should, to my mind, be reserved for
non-democratic structures.
The heading of this paper should thus be understood in a spirit of a cultural approach
rather than a spirit of cynical or moralistic condemnation.
Basically, however, the vantage point of observation proposed here is the perspective
of threats invalidating the exercise of the human right of freedom of expression and
information. This is a matter of degrees, mostly, but sometimes a matter of
“qualitative” difference: the right of information and freedom of expression might be
ever so beautifully inscribed in constitutional law, ordinary law, and abound in
political rhetoric but nevertheless nonexistent. Actually, nobody who takes care in
1 A quotation mark is required, to prevent the impression that all state authority is public authority – res
publica is, after all, the ”cause of the people”, thus not the interest of a tyrant who has the power over
a state…
2
being informed or performing a rudimentary analysis of this basic human right could
pretend to be ignorant of the real life in this respect.
Several international organisations, governmental and non-governmental, have
established continuous monitoring mechanisms in order to monitor the degrees or
existence of the real exercise of this right. The recently completed report to the
European Union on the establishment of indicators of media concentration is built
upon the perspective of risk, which is another way of looking at threats2.
Mind and power
In political life, notably political debates, there is a “loop” of the human right of
freedom of expression and power interplay: in order to exercise power it is necessary
to be informed, but those who are deprived of power (dis-empowered) retain their
position as a basis (subjects) for the powerful. After all, to have power means: to be
able to decide over other, preferably human, beings. Even a tyrant is powerless
without his subjects. Having power means also to act, that is, to impose one’s “will”
on the environment. There are limit cases, obviously, since also a cat has power over
a mouse, but the system of studying human beings and collectivities presupposes that
action, responsibility, resistance and power are valid concepts, indeed crucial to the
understanding of the difference between human societies (culture) and “nature” in
general.
The rule of law involves a plurality of partners: even if both law-making and lawbreaking
are generally defined in relation to the public sector, they require, by
definition, several actors, coming from diverse sectors of society – here subsumed
under the main categories of public, private, and civil society.
It is an inter-play, in that legislators, law-makers – whether tyrants or civilised
politicians – are dependent on other actors in the social field.
This paper, focussing on their dependence on media actors, seeks to inquire into the
aspect of how media controllers control legislation on media.
One extreme, and fascinating, example of the interplay between a tyrant and the
media is the outbreak of the Second World War. Hitler, whose aggression had no
moral or rational justification, still found it necessary, and profitable, to announce his
attack on Poland in a radio speech, even inventing some moral justifications for his
aggression, as if someone controlled or supervised his action. It might be a matter of
scholarly interest to understand whether this drive towards faked justification had a
background in the theoretical legal discourse on sovereignty and its bases, developed
by the legal theorist Carl Schmitt, who was one of Hitler’s faithful supporters, but
who has in recent times aroused renewed interest because of his radical investigations
2 I have myself in other texts proposed this approach on several occasions – inspired by the programme
launched by the London School of Economics and Political Science, but also by more general risk
studies, such as those presented in the debates on nuclear power, by e.g. Isaac Levy, within a
framework of game theory and probability calculus. The perspective dominates much of ethical debates
in analytical philosophy.
3
into the theories of the foundations of law and power, focussed 3on the notion of
sovereignty. Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbour was not, to my knowledge, preceded by
this kind of “justification in media”.
This extreme and terrible background is even more brightly illuminated by the
common saying that Stalin’s constitution of 1936 is one of the most democratic and
beautifully constructed legal pieces of work in constitutional history, save for the right
to nominate candidates for the Supreme Soviet, reserved to a few
organisations….(Article 141) .
Even the bloodiest tyrants of the modern world thus seem, astonishingly, to take
recourse to proclaiming beautiful or at least rational and comprehensive expressions
for their terror. This is not, it seems, an exception – especially if one includes
religious “higher order justifications” of cruel actions – rather it is, historically and
still today, common practice. Paradoxically, despite the hypocrisy and cynicism in
these proclamations, this practice implies a corroboration of what is rightly termed
“idealism”, as for example pronounced in the preamble to the constitution of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco):
This branch of the UN system is precisely entrusted with “matters of the mind” or
“cultural production” in a wide sense. Whatever the notion of “mind” stands for in
English, it marks the distinction from a domain where only physical and “material”
(just as ambiguous as “mental” or “spiritual”, or “ideal”) relations and objects are
taken into account. This highly complex philosophical distinction is decisive for the
wide application of the notion of “culture” in later social theory, for example by
Bourdieu, extending this notion to philosophy, art, judicial systems, scholarly
research, and the media. Ernst Cassirer, (1924, 1945) in many ways a predecessor to
some of Bourdieu’s thoughts, also included language and myth/religion in his notion
of culture. These notions are still narrower, however, than many other notions, such as
“anthropological” notions – catalogued by Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) into
roughly 160 diverse senses….
The notion of power is a notion extending from a rather physical use to social theory,
and psychology – reaching back to Aristotle’s dichotomy between energy and force or
reality/actuality and potentiality (ενεργεια and δυναμισ), as an ontological
dichotomy linked to the distinction between form and matter, matter representing in
some sense the possibility. The complexity of this matrix of distinctions, further
elaborated by Scholastic philosophy is reflected in the complexity and richness of the
notion of power in Western social theory (for a good overview cf. Lukes 19xx), and
treated by many philosophers and political theorists, among those Hannah Arendt
may be singled out as one of the more prominent ones.
Now, whatever it is, power is a systemic notion – it takes two, at least, to exercise
power… And power is, by definition, not action, but the system in which action takes
place. Power is, (tautologically!) potential.
3 Schmitt has been studied by many recent philosophers and theorists, e g Derrida, Agamben etc. It is
rather common to draw a line between Schmitt’s radicalism and complicity in the Nazi terror on one
hand and Nietzsche’s ”nihilism” as to the origin of morality on the other – though this association is
completely anachronistic and in itself a result of a conscious fraud by Nietzsche’s sister.
4
Law and power
Now, law in the normative sense (not the descriptive “natural-law”- sense) is also the
expression of power relations – in a complex way: law does not “tell the truth of
power relations” directly, as Stalin’s constitution teaches us. But still, law expresses
such relations. Law “prescribes” – though prescription also presupposes description
and expression – as is well demonstrated by theories of “speech acts”, first formulated
by Adolf Reinach (“Sprechakte”) in the beginning of the last century (1913), then by
Karl Bühler (1934) in his “Organon theory of language” and Ludwig Wittgenstein
(1952) and finally by those who have, in the Anglo-Saxon world, commonly been
given credit for these theories, J L Austin and John Searle (1969).
The complexity and ‘complicity’ of legislative processes
Wittgenstein is known for his analogy between language and games – figuring the
systemic nature of language – and its nature of being embedded in human life-forms,
and symbol systems of other kinds, and as noted already suggested by the
phenomenological philosopher of law Adolf Reinach before the First World War.
This analogy has been, ad nauseam, exploited in the most diverse contexts, in
colloquial language, cultural debates and philosophical discourse. It is also – not too
often observed – the crucial concept opening up, 30 years ago, for the powerful
current of theoretical thought in many disciplines, labelled ‘post-modernism’ by Jean-
FranНois Lyotard in his La condition post-moderne (1979). The label of postmodernism
actually marks a stream of thought which might already appear as outdated,
being itself the topic of historical celebrations - fashions come and pass.
Now, language viewed as a game, paralleled by social or cultural ‘discourse’, (or in
Ludwik Fleck’s terms already in 1937: ‘style of thought” Denkstil) prevailing in a
certain society or subculture, provides a ground for a systematic study and analysis of
the diversity in societies. This diversity might be “agonistic”, that is, to use Lyotard’s
term, involving irreconcilable but still co-existing styles of thought, or “antagonistic”,
that is, leading to inevitable conflict and ultimately the defeat of one of the competing
styles of thought.
Viewing law-making in this both slightly cultural and philosophically ‘perspectivist’
light, permits both a modest and a universalistic approach. It is modest in the sense of
observing the possibility and aspirations of validity of diverse, mutually nontranslatable
systems of law and philosophies of law. But it is also universalistic in the
sense of rejecting this pluralism as leading to the necessary conclusion of inertia or
indifference of relativism in establishing common understandings and validity of
values. In fact the negotiation between diverse systems of values is no less a hard fact
of life than the establishment of rates of exchange of different currencies – albeit
more complex. On an international macro-level we live through such processes
organised since nearly a century around, for example, international organisations or
scholarly exchange, and equally on innumerable micro-levels from families and
upwards in all social groups and institutions, political forums and assemblies, parties,
governments etc. negotiations are constantly being performed.
Seeing the process of making law as a process of negotiation between diverse
aspirations, or formulated values, by groups, interests or political layers, brings us
closer to the style of language chosen for describing some Scandinavian
5
(predominantly Swedish) experiences in the field of (mostly constitutional) legislation
on human rights.
Regulating freedom of expression has long centred around the long battles over the
issue whether and to what extent commercial principles of a free market economy
and/or the right of citizens to enjoy a diverse political structure of information and
debate should be balanced in explicit law. “Law” ranges in this context from
professional rules, ethical regulations on accountability, over local bye-laws and
ordinary law up to the constitutional level, anchored in international declarations (e.g.
the UN Declaration) and binding conventions such as the UN covenants on Social and
Economic rights, the European Convention on Human Rights etc.
The process of legislation on human rights, notably dealing with the “ideal” world of
cultural production itself, is a particularly complex game of power. Immaterial
products are not possible to lock into definite places, and, consequently possible to
disseminate and reproduce, in many places and many minds. This quality of
immaterial objects illustrates the character of a drama of regulating freedom of
expression. The drama might have deadly consequences, for sure, in some situations
and countries, and more playful, even ironic or comical effects in other places and
countries. You might be tempted to laugh (or cry, such as in the case of the Stalin
Constitution of 1936 – whose article 125 secures freedom of speech and of the press)
in reading some constitutional texts on human rights, notably in the field of freedom
of information and expression.
Viewing this field as a game or a drama might sound like a blasphemy to those
engaged – even at the expense of their lives - in the processes of writing bills of law,
fighting against censorship, or enforcing the rule of law against capricious, corrupt or
malevolent rulers. Nevertheless it represents the structure of a special kind of
interplay on several levels, in the cultural production sector between rulers and the
ruled, viz. the regulators of the conditions of production and the producers of cultural
products.
It is an interplay – not only in the usual sense of the need of legislators in a
democratic structure to secure re-election by not challenging too much their voters,
but in a more complex or multi-layered manner, also illustrating the theoretical
ambitions of both systems theory, semiotic theory, and discourse analysis, to
emphasize the multiplicity of levels of expression. The “said” and the “un-said” (in
Foucauldian terms), that is, what is taken for granted and what is explicitly stated, are
dependent on each other, just like, on a basic level, the use of any language
presupposes the vocabulary, grammar, and semantics of that very language. Saying is
just one motion in a language already existing as an immaterial artefact.
Law‐making is saying, prescriptive saying
It may be a pleasant thought for law-makers, jurisprudence theorists and lawpractitioners
(lawyers) that the legal world is a kind of closed universe or discourse –
not dependent on or even related to the social environment, moral convictions or
cultural structures. Some theorists have even developed this thought into a
comprehensive philosophy of law, or, ideology, viz. “legal positivism” (Hans Kelsen).
6
The weakness of such a position is demonstrated by the case of law-making in the
field of cultural production, notably the media. But it was also, more radically,
challenged by the above-mentioned (notorious Nazi, but today increasingly studied)
political theorist Carl Schmitt with his analysis of political sovereignty and the
foundations of political power (he termed his own study “Political Theology”). Lawmaking
presupposes power over law, and this power is what is usually termed
sovereignty: the situation preceding regulation, most importantly laying down the
forms of ruling themselves, that is constitution (written or un-written).
Law-making in the field of cultural production is law-making on the process of lawmaking
itself, both in the sense of law-making being regarded as one category of
cultural production4 and in the sense that law-making is part of a social process
involving exchange of expressions, debate etc. It is a normative ‘loop’ in the sense of
regulating how the processes leading up to making new laws on how to make laws are
to be constituted. In the particular case of media, this might be viewed as a kind of
“drama of expectations” since the the media are always involved in the law-making
processes of public opinion in genuinely democratic pluralist states, but also mostly,
though controlled by authoritarian interests, in undemocratic states. Hitler’s radio
speech in 1939 has been noted, although not being a case of changing media
legislation, supplying an extreme example of a political will to ‘justify’ even a
monstrosity, by way of using the media.
The drama might be, schematically, described as a complex game involving Ruler and
Media, staged as follows:
”you (Media) know that I can legislate, but I (Ruler) am dependent on what
you say about me, therefore I have to listen to you and formulate myself so as
to be integrated in your way of speaking… “
It has, however, also been outlined by the father of Liberal market economic theory as
follows:
………“The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from
[merchants], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought
never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not
only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes
from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the
public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the
public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and
oppressed it.”
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, 1776 (final sentences).
In the public sphere Media controllers have interests in not being controlled by states
(Rulers), i.e. maximal freedom from interventions and restrictions. Rulers have
4 This perspective is rather easy to adopt for ”primitive” societies, notably those without written
languages. Literate societies tend to ignore the link between cultural production and law-making, or
production of norms in general, included, quite properly, in the spheres of cultural production by
Bourdieu. Martin Luther’s dictum Sola Scriptura (the Scripture alone) expresses this kind of essential
oblivion of the nature of law-making in literate societies – as a contestation of the Catholic recognition
of oral tradition and the Sacred Office as its bearer...
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interests in being backed up by Media, and thus avoiding conflicts, but also trying to
gear media structures (including regulations) so as to avoid too much exposure to
media criticism. In a genuinely democratic structure the last aspiration is of course
close to null, but most democratic rulers also aspire, in some way or another, to
control the ways public administration could be attacked or undermined (as the
aspiration is preferably expressed by Rulers).5
The general public is dependent on Media for their information, that is, the general
public elects (if democracy!) Rulers – who are dependent on Media for re-election.
The drama may involve many categories on both sides. Both public, private and civil
society organisations (professional groups, parties, churches, other religious groups,
trusts) control parts of media, but are also dependent on media.
Cultural production in other spheres (arts, science, education) is also dependent on
media. Control over media thus gives control of many other forms of cultural
production – as suggested by the approach suggested by Bourdieu in e.g. “On
Television” (1996) .
In reflecting upon the context of law-making depicted as a “drama” the roles of
actors, the metaphor, despite its banality, is thus particularly pertinent.
Actors (individual or collective) in all three sectors – the delimitations of which are
possible to contest, as all categorisations in the sciences6 – have accordingly to be
considered in approaching the conditions and predicaments (the stage) of the drama of
expectation suggested. Clearly the “civil society” sector could not be restricted only to
the legal organisations – account has to be taken to both criminal, corrupt and just
ordinary informal social structures, influencing the process of law-making.
New questions around new media structures
It is probably necessary – although in detail it will not be attempted here - to draw up
a kind of matrix in matching the three social sectors with the incursion of “new media
technology” so as to present a structure taking its diverse impacts on the diverse
sectors of society into account. In various, rather complex, manners new media
technology intervenes in the drama of expectations between Media and Ruler.
Questions might be formulated along the following themes, for example:
1. Internet: do new structures in media liberate the ordinary user from, or , on
the contrary, give more power to old controllers? (C. Edwin Baker). Is
”Hacking Capitalism” (SЪderberg) an illusion? What about the replacement of
”Surveillance (Foucault) – by sous-veillance” by way of new media?
2. Scientific publications: in what way does the traditional system of cultural
capital in the academia (peer review, reputation, university status) – both
linked to state (financing most research and education), and private publishing
5 An excellent overview of such mechanisms in Post-Communist Europe is provided in Andrei Richter
(xxx) –for a continuous polemical satirical monitoring of such efforts Le Canard EnchЙinО in France
offers the most powerful example, every week, for every President of the French Republic…
6 (Foucault! 1966!) Gramsci’s inclusion of business life in the civil society sector illustrates this
ambiguity of broad-line categorisations – The Market is thus not unambiguously part of the Private!
8
enterprise – change when venture capital takes control over editing companies
on one hand. On the other hand: Is Open Access a challenge or just a fringe?
The protection of immaterial property – is it a cover for undue restrictions to
freedom of expression and scholarly creativity or a promotion?
3. Entertainment industry: does downloading of music/film inaugurate a new gift
economy or is it a marginal phenomenon, upholding for the old media
conglomerates continued control of markets? Entertainment industry – being
increasingly intertwined with ”serious” media (news, current affairs, political
opinion forums) - does it acquire (Bourdieu) control over media, arts,
education and scholarly publications?
4. How is ”the real pluralism of free information” related to control of markets,
that is, the reality of human rights vs. the formal lip-service in this new media
structure? If no market pluralism of companies or of economically
independent editorial units prevail, is there freedom in the true sense?
A national drama of expectation – a case story
In 1766 the Swedish parliament (Riksdagen) adopted the first regulation in the world
on the freedom of expression. This law lasted only six years, when the king made a
coup d’Оtat and completely eliminated in February1789, four months before the start
of the French constitutional assembly (June 20), marking the start of the Revolution.
The king was murdered in 1992 and his unhappy son deposed – after losing half his
kingdom – in 1809, when constitutional rule was re-established and with it a law on
the freedom of expression, though with reserves. Also the moribund Polish nobility
republic adopted a constitutional law on the freedom of expression in 1791.
Thus not only the English Bill of Rights and proposals of philosophers of the
Enlightenment, but also constitutional regulations were established before the French
Revolution and the US First Amendment adopted in 1789 and ratified in 1791.
Recognition of the idea of freedom of expression, and of the press, has since then
become an integrated standard element in all constitutional (real or faked) and/or
democratic governance. This idea remains not only the basis for discussions on the
functions of media in society, and of the interplay between public affairs and media
structure but also for democracy as a whole, and, as expressed in the solemn preamble
to Unesco’s constitution, ideas constitute the bulwark of peace as such.
‘Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men
that the defences of peace must be constructed’.
From that fundamental interplay between cultural production and power – public and
private – stems the nervous tension governing public relations to media production.
This tension could be termed a “drama of expectations” , using an expression once
suggested by the German media scholar Gerd Kopper7.
7 I have not, unfortunately, been able to locate this expression in Kopper’s written production, only in a
lecture held at Göteborg, Sweden in 1994
9
It goes without saying that the drama of expectations between partners in cultural
production and law-makers is differently staged under different social and political
conditions. Hallin and Mancini (200xx) have suggested a widely used classificatory
scheme of political structures as a background to diverse media set-ups and working
conditions. Sweden is classified as a structure of “democratic corporatist”
organisation. Whether this is still adequate – or whether the classification hits the
most important factors – might be discussed, but the very circumstance of the
diversity of conditions remains, of course, to be taken into account whenever attempts
at generalisations, or suggestions of models, analogues etc. are brought forward.
Market conditions, political and technological structures have provided the
framework for both regulation and political predicaments in democratic,
undemocratic, constitutional and unconstitutional governance ever since the
beginning of communication as an element in the exercise of power. No politician,
whether a tyrant or an elected representative, is independent of communication
structure, and in modern societies reproduced communication content structure, even
in very small communities in isolated areas. Finally, there is no better defence for an
“idealist” position in political theory – to say that the “superstructure” of cultural
production determines the “basis” of economic, technical and “material” conditions
(conditions of production) in terms of relations of power, rather than the opposite….
The following short story of the drama of expectation in my own country – centred on
the issue of concentration of media ownership – might illustrate how a country,
adopting the oldest constitutional law on freedom of expression in the world, has
lived through this drama in a rather recent period. The story has parallels in the other
Scandinavian countries, though sometimes surprising differences appear.
Most of the Swedish “history of the mind” after 1766 is a story of growing freedom of
expression, and a growing pluralism of the press, first Liberal opposition press
(against the King), then also newspapers owned by the Labour movement and other
political forces. A rich flora of daily and other newspapers was evolving, in private
ownership, or owned by organisations, such as political parties, trade unions, business
trusts etc. Transactions between owners, mergers, closures were natural ingredients to
this story where increasingly market conditions – such as new production technology,
advertising income, subscriptions and other sales – determined the positions of
newspapers. Local and national business connections and traditions were, of course,
also strong ingredients for success.
The burgeoning growth of the press, in Sweden as in other countries, was however
not a continuous process. Just as in the other (few) countries with unhampered media
liberty, technical developments - from the rotation press opening up for the
production of millions of copies of newspapers until the digitization of the media
landscape in the last 15 years, imposed new conditions, beside economic and political
constraints.
War-time scarcity – for example rationing of newsprint as well as political repression
or mobilisation – also played a decisive role for structural changes – or immobility.
Post-war economic prosperity had a deep impact on media structure, and on the
interplay between democratic politics and the media. New varieties of the tensions
pertaining, within a sound structural conflict of interests between public authorities
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and political opinion-moulders appear. Besides technological innovations like
television and cyberspace, market mechanisms, primarily competition on the
advertising market, provoked drastic restructuration of the press, in its turn leading to
drastic changes in the pluralism of ideological positions represented in the press
ownership. This is what is commonly called media concentration.
A depiction of the post-war expectation drama of freedom of the press and other
media, in Sweden as well as other democratic countries, is therefore, for good
reasons, focussed on this process. Naturally, the concentration of power over cultural
production is a central ingredient in any oppressive political system as well – which in
many cases is reflected in showpieces of fake regulation.
Ownership or control of media companies or production is not always the explicit
subject or main topic of regulation in the regulatory processes on freedom of
expression in democracies during the period after WW II. Still the struggle over
control of cultural production in the media sector – and hence of the space of political
opinion - is the background of major transformations, or events, which feature the
drama of expectations in the area of freedom of the media. The examples below are
taken from a brief summary of events in a European rather well-to-do country with a
small population (Sweden grew from 6 to 9 million people), but nevertheless have
analogues in most liberal democracies of varying sizes and shapes during the same
period. They might, to a surprising degree perhaps, be taken as useful experiences for
how to deal with parallel problems in open societies. It should be taken into account
that Sweden had a series of Social Democratic prime ministers, leading minority or
coalition cabinets from 1932 to 1976 (with one short interval in 1936).
The story could be summarized in the following series of events.
1. 1949. New constitutional law on freedom of the press in 1949, a late
successor of the 1766 regulation. Rejection of anti-trust regulation for the
press.
2. 1952. End of wartime rationing of newsprint. Unrestricted
competition of advertising triggers the agony of weaker daily newspapers.
Between 1950 and 2006 the number of dailies published at least five days
a week is halved, but many of the remaining dailies are versions of other
papers. The number of independent owners of dailies is reduced to about
fifteen, nearly all of them Liberal- or Conservative-affiliated.
3. 1956-1957. Television is launched.
4. 1965. First scheme of press subsidies, via the political parties, is
launched.
5. 1968. Government commission publishes report on the competition
situation of the daily press.
6. 1972. Press subsidy system is made permanent, following proposals
by a new Press commission. Small changes in the structure of the daily
press after that.
7. 1974. Commission on Media Concentration is appointed, after the
purchase by the largest national media group Bonnier of the biggest film
production studio. The report of the commission, suggesting restrictions on
media ownership concentration (1980) is rejected by the new (Centre11
Right) Cabinet.
8. 1979. Community radio is permitted, thereby breaking the monopoly
of public broadcasting.
9. 1988. Satellite television to Sweden is launched from London (TV3,
operated by Stenbeck group). Rapid extension cable networks in urban
areas.
10. 1989. Council of Europe convention on trans-frontier television and
European Community directive on Television without frontiers regulate TV
landscape in Europe, paving the way for commercial television, and new
owners of media. (Convention signed but never ratified by Sweden.)
11. 1989. Commission on television policy.
12. 1991. Defeated Labour cabinet agrees with new Centre-Right cabinet
to license first new terrestrial commercial national TV channel to a
consortium of several private owners (among those Stenbeck), as well as
civil society interests. The new channel (TV4) immediately tops audience
figures.
13. 1992. “A-pressen”, the concern of Labour press group, founded
in1947, goes bankrupt, though most existing titles survive. Nordic study
group on media mergers and ownership concentration.
14. 1993. Public service broadcasting – hitherto formally owned by
social organisations and the press – though license-fee financed, is
nationalised, ownership being transferred to state trusts.
15. 1993. Private commercial radio is authorised, following an
agreement between the government (Centre-Right) and the populist “New
Democracy” party. Licences are auctioned. Newspapers are blocked from
radio ownership (direct) and local production is prescribed.
16. 1994. “Press commission -94” is given new remit on media
concentration, following suggestions by i.a. one of the Government
coalition parties.
17. September 1994. New Social Democratic Cabinet appoints the “Council
for media pluralism”, an expert group, succeeding “Press Commission -
94”. The Council’s remit is to follow media development and, if needed,
suggest new regulation on media ownership. It publishes a number of
reports but no proposal for regulation.
18. 1995. Internet break-through.
19. Winter 1997. Bonnier group takes over TV4 profiting from a legal
incongruence.8
20. Autumn 1998. Council for Media Pluralism replaced by a new,
parliamentary, commission.
21. March 1999. Report of this commission – suggests a general clause
8 The licence conditions of TV4, forestalling substantial changes of ownership of the channel, was not
covered by statutory law – and when this was remedied, the Government did not judge it possible to
intervene against the owner of the biggest TV channel. Elections were approaching…
12
against concentration of media ownership, including constitutional
changes. Liberals and Conservatives in the commission disagreed, and
later the Center party joined these parties, breaking its traditional support
of Social Democratic media policy. No proposal for a bill to parliament
was tabled after this break.
22. 2000. Newspapers are allowed to own commercial radio and auctions
are abolished. Concentration of ownership results, gradually, in a duopoly
of two chains, transmitting very little local material.
23. 2000. The only remaining major Labour morning daily “Arbetet”
goes bankrupt, despite ca 10 million € of annual subsidies.
24. 2005. The Center party sells its newspaper group, provoking a wave
of ownership concentration, resulting in regional press groups controlling
nearly all titles in the country.
25. Ca 2005. Internet, bloggers, web-papers, point towards an anarchic
media landscape, despite continuity of control by major media groups of
nearly all traditional media.
26. 2006. New Press commission: only minor changes in existing policies
suggested.
27. 2007. Liberal party leader – in the new Centre-Right government
alliance – suggests suppression of press subsidies.
28. 2007. Cinema theatre group Sandrew/Astoria/Triangelfilm
bankrupted, leaving a monopoly for the Bonnier group.
29. Jan 2008. Special press subsidies to “metropolitan dailies” proposed to
be cancelled, after interventions from the Bonnier group to the European
Commission.
30. August 2008. After strong public debates the proposal is withdrawn.
31. June 2008. Bonniers takes over Canal + in Sweden.
32. June 2008. Law authorizing military intelligence to follow Internet traffic
is adopted, following major debates on freedom of information.
33. April 2009. EU IPRED directive restricting downloading of
immaterial property rights protected material implemented, after heavy
political debates, also leading to a new political party entering the
European Parliament in June.
34. June 16, 2009. Norwegian company Schibsted takes over the majority of
shares of Aftonbladet, the only national Social Democratic daily, with the
largest circulation in Sweden. Schibsted already in 1998 took over Svenska
Dagbladet (national leading “moderate” daily).
***
This series of events on the level of government administration and in media business
life might seem trivial. And most of these events have parallels in other countries
following rules of representative democracy. Some particularities of media structures
– such as a rather extensive press subsidy system, strong public broadcasting and
13
relatively weak commercial sound radio, might be specific – but are there other
conclusions to be drawn, on a more general basis, justifying the depiction of the
process of media regulation as a “drama of expectations”?
First of all it is difficult to discern how the legal procedures, commissions etc. reflect
the actual political “drama of expectations”, since the drama, by definition, takes
place underneath the surface. Expectations are, by definition, often not explicit, but
“inherent” in the attitudes, structures, discourses unspoken. In order to document and
making manifest the character and “content” of the drama, detailed analysis and
interpretation is required. This is by no means an impossible task – it is perhaps best
performed in the more literary or biographical material from, for example, people
working in leading positions in politics and the media. Important compilations and
documentation are also sometimes presented in scholarly histories of the press and
other media.
Such analyses give indications, or glimpses, but seldom comprehensive stories, of
lively, not to say sometimes brutal, conflicts of interests. The conflicts involve actors
on the commercial media side, different political interests requiring media support, in
elections and between elections and of course also professional cultural producers,
such as editors and journalists. For each step in the Swedish case story from 1949 it is
possible to describe how these actors have confronted each other, operating behind
the scene, in proposing new regulation, opposing changes, forming coalitions to
counter operations by adverse interests. Government ministers, and many parliament
politicians, have been involved in media business affairs, directly as editors,
journalists or by family or friendship relations. In a country with a small population
and a rather narrow circle of dominant organized interests as well as civil service
professionals, and cultural professionals, this has sometimes taken the form of almost
a piece of a commedia dell’arte play.
The most recent case of the press subsidy system disputes might be illustrative in its
complexity in this respect. Only some rather openly discussed details are provided.
Take your seat and try to follow!
• The drama might be given a starting point in “scene 25” above: the sale of the
Centre party daily press. The sale, in 2005, gave rise to a wave of ownership
concentration in the daily press, hitherto unknown in Swedish press history –
leaving a structure of ownership radically reduced, and predisposition of still
more reductions.
• The party – earlier a coalition partner of Social Democrats but now part of the
“Alliance” of right-of the centre parties in the cabinet – became one of the
richest parties in Europe, since the sale price was, according to some
economists (Melesko) far above the expected economic profitability level.
• Since the Social Democratic – heavily subsidised Arbetet was closed in 2000
(“scene 23”) – the only “metropolitan” levels of subsidy (ca 10 mill €) were
given to the Centre party affiliated (but not party-owned) SkМnska Dagbladet
in MalmЪ, and Svenska Dagbladet (national, Stockholm-based, “Moderate” –
i.e. Liberal-Conservative) .
• Now, this situation was difficult to support for the Bonnier group, controlling
the dominant dailies both in MalmЪ and Stockholm. Subsidies were
considered to distort the market – much more so than the traditional
14
advertising strong domination by the Bonnier dailies. In SkМnska Dagbladet
however the former Secretary General of the Social Democratic party was a
regular contributor in the editorial columns… The “metropolitan” status of
this paper is highly doubtful, since its offices in MalmЪ might be regarded as a
more formal localisation, its main sales being in another, actually more rural
part of southern Sweden…
• And in Svenska Dagbladet the husband of the Secretary of State of the
Ministry of Culture (and media), responsible for subsidies policies was on the
Executive Council.
• During the discussions following the Bonnier appeal to the European
Commission the wife of the Prime Minister (Moderate) took a seat on the
same board.
• So: the then Liberal party leader, Minister for Education announced a will to
abandon the subsidy system – the Liberal party is very strong in the press, and
the Bonnier family closely affiliated to Liberal interests. (Scene 27)
• In the same cabinet the Minister for Culture (Moderate), receiving the
complaints to the European Commission, involving the Ministry in “informal
talks” with the Commission, announced a will to suppress the “metropolitan”
subsidy scheme, hitting strongly the newspaper which normally supports her
own party in its editorial policies. (Scene 29)
• After a while this appeared as an impossibility, since it would leave Bonniers
nearly monopolists on both the scenes of the capital and the third biggest city
MalmЪ.
• (The second biggest city GЪteborg, since the fall of Arbetet, already has a
monopoly in its sector, and has, after buying some of the Centre party papers,
expanded to a nation-wide chain of newspapers, controlling about 35 dailies.)
• The Minister of Culture (the wife of a former Moderate party leader),
announced that the “metropolitan” subsidy level would continue to exist,
pending further discussions with the European Commission. (Scene 30)
The scenes indicated above also contain the new ingredient of increased international
operations of media owners, which have lead to rather brutal clashes betweens some
major operators. Norwegian prime media group Schibsted and their Swedish
competitor Bonnier thus competed over Svenska Dagbladet, the only Conservative
national daily in Sweden, as well as the Finnish commercial media group Alma Media
– and TV4.
Even in Scandinavian states, where transparency of ownership is relatively high, the
moves of media operators may thus appear as Renaissance court intrigues. More
seriously, notwithstanding the “normality” of such dramas in a democratic structure –
and recognizing conflicting interests as a basis for representative administration in a
pluralist context – the apparent unavoidability of the process of media ownership
monopolisation in a pluralist market economy challenges the very foundation of
political democracy.
The interdependence of cultural, social and economic capital on one hand, and the
political power spheres on the other, on constitutional and “ordinary” legal levels,
illustrate, sometimes on the verge of ridicule, theses such as those proposed by
Bourdieu. The conclusion which seems unavoidable is the following:
15
If public, representative and legitimate, power-holders are not in actual practice
capable to halt – or even actively oppose interventions to do so – mechanisms
excluding a diversity of political interests from being expressed in cultural
production, a fundament for democratic governance seems to be shaken. And this is
due to the very mechanisms of a free market economy. Instead of being – as in the
European metropoles of the 19th C – a motor for the democratic exchange of views in
a pluralist society, market mechanisms risk to suffocate freedom of opinion.
The metaphor of a drama of expectation in this light may take on grim shade, being
transferred from a sphere of “distantiated9” irony to everyday practice of democratic
rule.
The details of the Swedish case story may look like a rather innocent prelude,
compared to the heavy direct involvement of leading politicians on the European
scene with media power. Examples are already clearly perceived in the worries over
the “media tycoons” in the beginning of the 1990s debated both in the Council of
Europe and the European Commission, examples, which I have followed from a
personal horizon of involvement. Since then one of these “tycoons” has been – and is
today – the prime minister of his country (Berlusconi), one head of state has during
his entire political career been involved in very close personal and intimate friendly
relations with media owners (Sarkozy), and a third leading European politician (Blair)
has been deeply politically dependent for electoral success on another of the
“tycoons” of the 1990s, viz. Rupert Murdoch. This grimness may even acquire an
appalling shade if this is, as it seems, an adaptation of media legislation and policies
to the wishes of dominant media owners or controllers far beyond the normality of
ordinary legitimate conflicts of interests in a democratic society. For a democratic
society is, let us never forget that, founded upon the respect for human rights, one of
which is freedom of speech and information. And if human rights are involved in a
drama of expectations of the nature indicated here, there seems to be ground for
serious worry.
Actually, the process at stake does seem, even in countries with a solid democratic
tradition, approach the situation depicted by one of the compatriots of Berlusconi,
Giorgio Agamben – himself drawing upon one of the most brilliant and illusion-free
scholars in political theory, Carl Schmitt (a fervent supporter of the Nazi regime in
Germany!) – as a situation of permanent “state of exception”.
This perspective of an interplay between wealthy merchants and legislators was
actually already, as reminded above, foreseen by the father of the systematic study of
wealth, himself no doubt an advocate of freedom of the mind and expression. If three
eminent theorists - of such different convictions as Communism, Nazism and
Liberalism - point to the same worries, should we not listen?
9 to employ a term proposed by Bertolt Brecht in drama theory
16
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