Is there a Captured Media System? Advancing the Typology of Media Systems through the Cases of Hungary and Serbia

Abstract

This article extends theoretical debates on media capture by proposing the Captured Model as a refinement of Hallin and Mancini’s typology of media systems. Building on observations from post-2008 developments in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe, the model conceptualises environments where democratic backsliding and media capture systematically erode pluralism, and therefore cause the media system to fall out of the Polarised Pluralist model, not reaching the Authoritarian model (Dobek-Ostrowska), but rather a stable Captured Model, typical for electoral autocracies. In the proposed model, all four dimensions of media systems are structurally transformed into a new reality that is significantly different from both Polarised Pluralism and Authoritarianism. Hungary and Serbia are briefly described as examples of this possible new model, with indications that other countries are heading in this direction.