The Jeremiad Over Journalism

the government with an eye to its ramifications on the entire nation, and comparable legislation has
been enacted in the United States, at least until the late 1980‘s. 477 In other words, media legislation
in both Denmark and the United States has been passed with a sense of its national scope. As Lund
notes in a study of the Scandinavian media system, ―the government intervenes in media business
with the intent of securing diversity and national identity.‖ 478
Therefore, working from the premise that differences and similarities between Denmark and the
United States can be meaningfully studied, the current dissertation, following Strömbäck and
Dimitrova‘s example, proposes applying a ―most different‖ systems design for the subsequent
analysis. The present study is specifically looking at countries within the Western World where the
variations in terms of the political system and the concomitant media policies outweighs the
similarities. In other words, the basic historical, political and cultural differences between Denmark
and the United States which has shaped the media environment, means that the two countries can
most fruitfully be viewed as ―most different‖ in terms of research design. 479
The choice of nations as the basis for analysis originates with Hallin and Mancini‘s distinction
between the Scandinavian (in this case represented by Denmark) and American media system as
epitomizing the Democratic Corporatist and Liberal media system respectively. 480
The following section will argue that the ―paint roller‖ approach, to use Schröter‘s terminology, of
content analysis complements the ―small bristle‖ approach of the previous section‘s historical study
in important ways. One of content analysis‘ strengths is its emphasis on reproducibility by other
researchers which has led to the emergence of a intercoder reliability-test norm. Another advantage
is the quantity of material covered, the conventions for reporting content analysis results force the
477
Croteau and Hoynes, The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest. Page 71-72. Also Michael
Schudson and Len Downie Jr., "The Reconstruction of American Journalism," (New York: Columbia University,
Graduate School of Journalism, 2009). Page 27.
478
Anker Brink Lund, "Media Markets in Scandinavia: Political Economy Aspects of Convergence and Divergence,"
Nordicom Review, no. Jubilee (2007). Page 127.
479
Strömbäck and Dimitrova, "Political and Media Systems Matter: A Comparison of Election News Coverage in
Sweden and the United States." Page 132. Strömbäck and Dimitrova‘s study has informed much of the research design
as well as the development of the code book.
480
This distinction is mainly based on level of government involvement in the media market, internal and external
pluralism of the press and the different electoral systems. The two nations might, however, have been viewed as ―most
similar‖ has a more global perspective been adopted. As Hallin and Mancini point out, ―[b]y limiting ourselves to North
America and Western Europe we are dealing with systems that have relatively comparable levels of economic
development and much common culture and political history.‖ Hallin and Mancini, Comparing Media Systems. Three
Models of Media and Politics. Page 6. Thereby, the authors implicitly point out that had North America and for
example Southeast Asia been compared there would have been less common culture and political history.
157