Instrumentalization of the media vs. political parallelism

Abstract

I examine the possible differences between the concept of media instrumentalization and political parallelism. In the first part of this paper, I aim to reconstruct the history of the concept of political parallelism that derives from Seymour-Ure's concept of party parallelism. I will then discuss why and how party parallelism has transformed into political parallelism by following the transformation of mass political parties. Different dimensions of political parallelism are illustrated, including how it is linked to specific structures of the public sphere and to the idea of external pluralism. A similar discussion focuses on media instrumentalization. In the last part, I attempt to highlight different social and political conditions that motivate instrumentalization and political parallelism.

Keywords:

• political parallelism
• media instrumentalization
• political parties
• pluralism
• public sphere

Notes

^1. Data and information for this paper are from the European Research Council (ERC) funded project on Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe based at the University of Oxford (http://mde.politics.ox.ac.uk/)

^2. Mediaset is the television conglomerate owned by Silvio Berlusconi.

^3. Zielonka–Mancini 2011, http://mde.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/publications. [Accessed October 2011]