Democracy and the press: A comparative analysis of pluralism in the international print media

The relationship between democracy and press pluralism is assessed in seven countries: China, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Lithuania, and Russia. The term “pluralism” is defined as the extent to which diverse and competing views appear in the content of the mainstream press on a given news topic. Content analysis of 2,172 articles from the 10 largest newspapers in each country, published in the first months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is used to evaluate the level of press pluralism. The main indicator of democracy is based on data from the Freedom House organization, though other democracy indexes are considered. Previous studies have offered conflicting views on the relationship between democracy and press pluralism. Although this study finds mixed results, the general tendency, which is based on 10 major news issues surrounding the events of 9/11, supports the perspective that democracy is not always positively associated with press pluralism. Much of the debate over 9/11 in countries ranked as highly democratic was less pluralistic than in countries with weaker democratic institutions.