‘Media regimes’ can be described as distinct historical combinations of technology, regulation and professional norms that have come to seem natural but are the result of an intensely political and fiercely contested process.1 Until recently, English-language media regimes were characterised by a mixture of regulated broadcasters and privately owned print media. The importance of public broadcasting varied from country to country, from the relatively insignificant PBS in the United States to the well-funded and influential BBC in the United Kingdom. But even when broadcasters were private, regulation meant that television and radio, by far the most important media in the period after 1945, were aligned with the needs and perspectives of a ‘national interest’ established by elites in the state and the economy. American network owners enjoyed massive profits from licenses granted by the Federal Communications Commission. They knew, without having to be told, that the government could withdraw licenses from operations who questioned the orthodoxies of the Cold War consensus.
In these broadcast-plus-print media regimes, attempts by hostile foreign powers to influence the news agenda faced formidable obstacles. Editorial decision-makers in the mainstream press and broadcast sector identified closely with their ‘home’ states and were accustomed to working within an understanding of the national interest, which they shared with other elite groups in and around the state. Their employers were integrated, through the advertising market, with a corporate system that was itself largely national in character.
Smaller magazines and newsletters could challenge this shared understanding in matters of political economy and foreign policy. They could even publish material that was sympathetic to Cold War enemies. But those that did so struggled to find advertising revenues and for the most part remained marginal.
