Comparing Media Systems: A New Critical Academic Reading

The year 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Comparing Media Systems (2004), by Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini, a book that established three major media models in the Western world. Subsequently, the same authors published Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World (2011), which extended the work to other countries such as Russia, Poland, and China. In both cases, the interest was in the comparative analysis using a series of variables that made it possible to classify the media structures of the countries into differential groups. For their analysis, the authors included different study categories that need to be reinterpreted considering technological evolution, changes in consumption habits, or the irruption of social networks. This thematic issue is a proposal for a review of media models in different countries and aims to be a starting point for future lines of research on this subject. A total of 10 articles are presented to address an academic debate on the scientific relevance of Hallin and Mancini’s work, its contribution to comparative media studies, and its necessary re-reading in a historical-temporal framework different from the moment in which it was published.