Political stability and subnational media systems: Comparing Bahia and the Federal District (Brazil)

ABSTRACT

In this article, we argue that the degree of political stability is a critical element in the evolution of media systems. In our view, it is the causal mechanism allowing for the political parallelism of media systems. We argue that political stability has three main effects on media systems: it consolidates the operating principles and mechanisms of the public sphere; it gives clear and self-assumed political identities to media actors; and it allows for the establishment of predictable, long-term professional relationships within the media system as well as between journalists and their sources. To test this hypothesis, we compare Bahia and the Federal District, two Brazilian subnational units that differ essentially by the degree of political stability they experienced between 2003 and 2018.

KEYWORDS:

• Political stability
• media systems
• Brazil
• political parallelism
• Bahia
• Federal District

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Mensalão scandal of 2005 exposed how the federal government provided a monthly stipend to numerous deputies in exchange for their votes on key issues.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Distrito Federal Research Foundation (FAP-DF, Brazil) and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC, Canada).

Notes on contributors

Julián Durazo-Herrmann

Julián Durazo-Herrmann is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He is also president of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. His research focuses on the challenges of democratic governance at the subnational level.

Fábio Henrique Pereira

Fábio Henrique Pereira (corresponding author) is the Chair of Scientific Journalism at Laval University, journalism researcher and associate professor in the Faculty of Communication, University of Brasilia. He is co-editor of Sur le journalisme journal. His research focuses on the sociology of journalists and professional identity.