Resumen de The formal independence of national media regulatory authorities: a cross-country comparative study
This dissertation presents a comparative study focusing on the formal independence of the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) for the audiovisual sector in Europe. It fills the theoretical and methodological gaps in the current literature by answering two key research questions: 1. How does the formal independence of national media regulators vary across countries? 2. Is there any interaction between the characteristics of media systems and political systems and the variations in formal independence of national media regulators? The central argument of this thesis is that the cross-national differences in the variations in formal independence of NRAs can be explained by two factors: the configurations of media systems and political systems. By examining two separate samples of units of analysis, I demonstrate this claim in two ways. Firstly, I carry out a cross-country comparative investigation on the institutional design of 51 NRAs in 48 countries. The extensive analysis is focused on scrutinising different setups of formal criteria regarding the structural and organisational design, funding mechanisms, accountability, and the competencies of media regulatory agencies which were created up to and including the year 2013. Secondly, I conduct a large-N statistical analysis of 46 NRAs in 43 countries, and I test a set of hypotheses derived from previous contributions on regulatory agencies, media systems, and political systems. The data set on formal independence is original. This dissertation supports the prior evidence on the cross-country variations in formal independence of NRAs. It also finds straightforward links between the types of media systems and politico-administrative regimes and the variations in formal independence of national media regulatory authorities. The taxonomy of media systems is proven to be strong with respect to its explanatory potential, in contrast with the framework of political systems, which is proven to have a weak explanatory potential.
