Media systems

The concept of mass media combined with that of system(s) has travelled a long way over the last decades. Within this scientific journey, it experienced a main critical juncture, namely the publication of a book by Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini in 2004 (Comparing Media Systems), which immediately created a ‘pre and post Hallin and Mancini’ scenario within the scientific debate around the notion of media systems. By pivoting around the theoretical framework delineated by Hallin and Mancini, this entry hence outlines all the main stages that have characterized the scientific journey of the concept of media systems, with final particular attention to the most recent lines of research currently debating whether (and eventually how) the digital has turned upside down, transformed, or simply updated one of the pillar notions within the field of political communication.