Executive summary: A media map of Central and Eastern Europe

Jan Zielonka and Paolo Mancini

Our project aims to investigate the often troublesome and poorly understood relationship between democracy and the media in Central and Eastern Europe. We take a novel approach, focusing on the quality of the media as a function of the quality of democracy and ask: what kind of democracy is necessary for the media to perform its statutory functions? This report contains the findings of the projects first year, when we examined the media landscape in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on three key pillars: 1) Media ownership and commercial pressures 2) Media regulation and political pressures 3) Journalistic autonomy and professionalisation

Central and Eastern Europe is often seen as a fairly coherent entity. Even the more sophisticated academic literature tends to talk about a post-communist bloc or the new memberstates from Central and Eastern Europe. Our study has certainly identified some notable similarities in the media landscape across the entire region. However, before looking at these similarities it is important to point out some striking differences between the individual states and their media scenes. Important differences The group of ten countries studied includes some post-Soviet republics, some Balkan countries and some Central European countries with closer historical ties to Western Europe. Countries such as Poland or Hungary are fairly old nation states, but their territory has shifted (and shrunk) over the decades. Countries such as Slovenia, Slovakia and the Baltic States have only recently emerged from larger federal units, and their national identity is still a sensitive question. In fact, some of these nations contain sizable ethnic minorities with only a weak loyalty to the countries in which they live. Romania and Poland are relatively large in terms of territory and population, while most of the other states in the group are comparatively small. Individual states have also experienced different patterns of transition from communism to democracy and the free market. In Poland and Hungary transition was eased by pacts negotiated between the old and new elites at so-called round tables. Transition in such countries as Czechoslovakia or Romania was far more abrupt, and violent in the Romanian case. The speed and scope of constitutional reform across the region has also differed, as did the speed and scope of the market reforms introduced after the fall of communism. Although all the countries initially experienced severe economic recession, their economic performance has since
Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe An ERC Project based at the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communications, The London School of Economics and Political Science http://mde.politics.ox.ac.uk/

The report is based on a review of the secondary literature and interviews conducted with domestic media experts, regulators and professionals in all ten countries under consideration (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia).

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varied. Most notably, the 2008-10 economic crisis generated a dramatic fall in the GDP of such countries as Latvia, Hungary or Bulgaria, while Poland and Slovenia managed to grow in the same period. Today, Slovenias GDP per capita is nearly three times higher than Romanias and twice as high as that of Latvia or Lithuania. All these differences in political legacies and economic fortunes could not but have an impact on the various countries media landscapes. For instance, the Latvian media scene is essentially split into two: Latvianlanguage media and Russian-language media. (Nearly 30 per cent of Latvias population is Russian). A similar situation does not exist in largely mono-ethnic countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary. On average, journalists earn around EUR 1,500 a month in Slovenia, but only EUR 500 in Romania. Regional media is only significant in the larger countries of the region, such as Poland or Romania. Internet use is well above the European average in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but below average in Bulgaria and Romania. Foreign investment in the print media sector is high in Hungary and Estonia, but relatively low in Slovenia or Lithuania. Individual countries score differently on the Freedom House index of media independence. One could go on listing such differences. Poland in particular seems to defy most common patterns. Newspapers such as Gazeta Wyborcza are more prosperous than all other newspapers throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Public service broadcasters in Poland have a much higher average viewership rate than in other countries in the region. Political and business parallelism also seems to be less pronounced in Poland, as well as in Slovenia, than in the other new democracies in the region. Of course, diversity is only to be expected and any map of similarities and differences is

necessarily complex and constantly changing. Division lines do not always correspond to the old East-West divide, let alone such historical divides as those generated by the Habsburg and Ottoman legacies. However, the Page | 2 differences we have identified vindicate our chosen research strategy by showing that it is important to begin the research with an indepth analysis of all ten individual cases before venturing into common patterns and similarities across the entire region. They also suggest the need for caution in conducting such comparative research and argue against sweeping generalisations. Striking similarities All differences apart, our study has also identified some striking similarities across the region. Politicisation of the state is one such distinctive, common feature across the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. After the fall of communism, the process of democracy building went hand in hand with the process of state reconstruction, or even state building in some cases. Some of the new democracies such as Slovakia or Slovenia were new states, but even more established states such as Romania or Poland had to perform the complex task of state renewal. Depoliticisation of the communist state was one of the key objectives of this renewal. After all, the communist party controlled all state structures prior to 1989. However, the reform process took place against a background of intense political struggle between a plethora of new (and old) actors, and with few rules governing their behaviour. Instead of being the key arbiter and regulator of this ongoing political struggle, the state has become the object of this competition. Political parties, business corporations, organised interest groups and even individual politicians and businessman have been trying to conquer various state institutions and extract resources from them. States were

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unable to resist this pressure and became effectively (re)politicised. The process of state politicisation and its implications for democracy has been well described by such analysts as Ganev, Grzymala-Busse or Kopeck.1 They show that administration and law in Central and Eastern Europe are often shaped by the ad hoc needs of political agents rather than by a priori policy objectives which aim at providing public goods. Legal enforcement favours partisan political interests, whereas policy favours resource extraction for private ends. Such rent seeking can consist of jobs, contracts or financial transfers. Political loyalty, rather than merit, is the criterion for obtaining them. Actors are not treated as equal, norms do not have universal application and there is only a selective accountability in such a politicised state. Corruption may not be a norm, but it occurs and it is tolerated. Informal networks and rules are extremely important in such a politicised state and they undermine formal institutions and the rule of law. State structures appear weak, volatile and prone to capture by political competitors. Political parties have been the prime actors behind this process of state politicisation. Most of these parties were new, and they were not particularly strong. They lacked members, dynamic organisation and traditional programmes: and so they needed the media in order to connect to the volatile, if not confused, electorate in the region. This gave the media powerful leverage over the parties, but it also made the parties eager (or even desperate) to control the media for their own ends. The weakness of civil society across the region has left the media relatively free from public scrutiny, but it has also made it easier for parties to colonise the media. The weakness of state structures has given the public media a chance to extract material resources from the state, while the private media has benefitted from inadequate regulation of their market. However, weak states offer the media little protection against political interference or business manipulation. All this has generated mixed views about the Page | 3 role of the media in the process of democratic transition and consolidation. On the one hand, the media has been very influential in the process of state and democracy building. Their leading role in fostering the ideas of freedom has also been repeatedly emphasised by persons interviewed by our project. As one of them put it, all political forces agreed that media freedom is a necessary element of democracy. On the other hand, however, the interviews have also revealed that the media have often used their influence for partisan political ends. As one of our interviewees observed:
[t]here are many channels in Romania that have not been created for business purposes, but are used as weapons. The main objective is to control resources which can be done in various ways, both politically and economically. This is how resources can be controlled and adversaries destroyed. *+ The media are extensively used for the purpose of blackmailing.

This could not but affect their public standing and legitimacy even though their partisanship sometimes resulted from external pressures rather than selfish internal calculations. The decrease in print press circulation and in the number of newspaper outlets is probably also a sign of public frustration with a politicised media, regardless of all economic considerations. (In this respect, the situation appears particularly dramatic in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.) The recent retreat of several foreign investors from some of the media markets in Central and Eastern Europe, including established publishing companies such as WAZ, Handelsblatt or Bonnier, might have been primarily for economic reasons, but some fear that without the backing of a foreign-based

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investor, the now locally-owned media might be even more prone to political instrumentalisation. (This seems to be especially the case in Latvia and Romania). The situation described above makes one think about the phenomenon of political parallelism which has been identified by the media literature in other countries.2 However, our study also points to strong elements of business parallelism, and this represents another common feature across the region. The mass media in Central and Eastern Europe are owned by and depend on economic and business interests rather than solely political and social organisations. This contrasts with most of Western Europe, but is similar to much of Southern Europe, where corporations and individual businessmen not only own but also directly control mass media outlets in search of profits and political influence. Profits are also usually the prime objective of foreign investors in Central and Eastern Europe. As one of our interviewees from Slovakia stated, our experience with the German publishers shows that they are not interested in engaging with politics and influencing the content. For them, it is primarily business. Local owners often seek not only economic gains, but also and often primarily political influence. As a result the main objective of the media does not seem to be the diffusion of news, as envisaged in the traditional (ideal) liberal model of professional journalism, but rather the support and defence of their owners interests. Business parallelism also implies that the news media can easily and swiftly change their editorial and journalistic line, without losing their traditional readership, as cultural and ideological links between media consumers and producers are very weak. Since public television revenues in Central and Eastern Europe are heavily dependent on advertising, corporate pressures are very potent in this sector too. (Telewizja Polska tops the list with over 50 per cent of its revenues coming from advertising). 3 This means that the classic distinction between the public and private media/sphere/interests is relatively blurred in the region. No wonder therefore that the programming of public service television channels has been largely Page | 4 commercialised across the region. However, this has not made public television particularly popular. The average viewership rate of public service broadcasters in 2008 was 20.8 per cent in the new democracies as opposed to 39.2 per cent in the old ones. (As mentioned earlier, Poland is a remarkable exception here with a 44.5 per cent audience share).4 In the literature, the notion of business parallelism stresses not only the assertion of business interests in the production of the media, but also the overlap between the media, politics and business: media owners are mostly business organisations (or individual businessmen) that are close to political institutions and try to influence the political decision making process. This diffuse and continuous overlapping of various functions and interests has also been found in Central and Eastern Europe. As Colin Sparks observed, there exist a close set of relations between politicians, businessmen and the media that leads to a routine interchange between different groups in postcommunist countries.5 Sparks himself defines political capital as the overlapping between economics, politics and the media. Our interviews confirmed Sparkss observation. In his analysis of East Asia, Duncan McCargo uses the formula partisan polyvalence to show how, in a situation where political parallelism is weak, the media may be instrumentalised by a multiplicity of stakeholders and be used for a range of different goals: supporting one political figure (or one political programme) and pursuing business goals at the same time.6 Our interviews also point to such a partisan polyvalence in Central and Eastern Europe.

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The most striking example is the practice of allocating state-owned company advertising to individual media outlets along clientelistic lines: the existence of such a practice was revealed in our interviews in Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. The fact that many media owners assume various public functions is also a manifestation of this phenomenon. In business terms one should keep in mind that the ten countries under consideration are all relatively small and weak media markets as compared to the other states of Western Europe. This represents another striking similarity across Central and Eastern Europe. The observation applies even to relatively large states such as Poland or Romania. As one of our interviewees put it, This is a big country with a small market. This is largely because the overall economic potential of these states is low: the total GDP of the new member states (at market prices and current exchange rates) is about five per cent of the GDP of the remaining seventeen EU member states. However, linguistic factors are also at play here. Apart from the existing media trade between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, none of the countries under consideration can export their media products beyond their own borders in the way that the Belgians, Austrians or Dutch can, let alone the Spanish, French or British. (Because of the Hungarian population in Romania and Slovakia, Hungary may be a small complication here). Small markets are more exposed to external shocks than are large, and it is not surprising that the media markets of such countries as Latvia and Bulgaria have been devastated by successive global economic crises. Small markets are also easy targets for investors. In the first years after the transition even small foreign investors could conquer the Central and Eastern European media market with limited funds and at low risk. More recently, local oligarchs have been able to buy up various media companies and keep them going with no obvious economic gain. It is also easier for political entrepreneurs to manipulate small markets than it is large. This leads us to another striking similarity in the region: fuzzy ownership. The transition from communism to market economy Page | 5 involved a huge transfer of property from the public to the private sector. In most cases, this transfer was not transparent let alone fair. Many members of the communist nomenklatura or even the secret services benefitted from it. Many foreign investors acquired property at bargain prices. Many new owners took advantage of the weak legal and tax systems to multiply their assets and shift some of them to tax havens overseas. This general development has evidently affected media ownership. Even now it is not always clear who owns individual media companies, as the media laws demanding full ownership transparency are either nonexistent or difficult to enforce. Ownership concentration is conspicuous and growing. Local media moguls such as Irena Krasteva and Krasimir Gergov (Bulgaria), Hans Luik (Estonia), Andrejs Ekis (Latvia) and Ivan Kmotrik (Slovakia) are gaining prominence across different media sectors, while members of the local business elites like Zdenk Bakala (Czech Republic), Gbor Szles (Hungary), Viesturs Koziols (Latvia) or Dinu Patriciu (Romania) are purchasing media outlets. As a result, newspapers and television stations often tend to sell content rather than advertising. In other words, they try to influence the decision making process within their states through the content of their media production. Their policy is not to generate profit from media production, but to secure the profits of various other businesses owned by them. As mentioned earlier, the public sector has shrunk and fused with the private across the region. On the one hand, public television is largely dependent on advertising revenues from the private sector, and on the other, private television competes with public in news making and opinion

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forming. There are no public press subsidies in the countries under consideration, the only exception to this rule being Slovenia. Floating laws and procedures is another striking regional feature. The transition from communism to democracy involved the installation of a new constitutional order, followed by a fundamental reform of ordinary laws and procedures. This was a complex and at times chaotic process, which also affected media regulation. For instance, the Bulgarian 1998 Radio and TV Broadcasting Law has already been amended 28 times, and not just at a technical level. As mentioned earlier, the move from a controlled to a free media is taking place in the context of an intense political struggle and volatile economy. The EU accession process has not been politically contested, but it has multiplied the intensity of legal reform. European laws and regulations have often been adopted under time pressure with little parliamentary, let alone public, debate. As a result national and European laws are often poorly aligned or even in some cases clash. For instance, we found that in Romania the Protection of Classified Information Act and the Law on the Implementation of the European Directive on the Re-Use of Public Information contain different provisions; the former is undermined by the more restrictive provisions of the Romanian Penal Code; and this in turn is poorly aligned with the Act on Classified Information. As one of our interviewees observed, The European Directive was somehow mechanically adopted in Romania. No one took the effort to see how it relates to Romanian regulation. One could cite similar examples in other states across the region. The result is legal uncertainty and regulatory chaos; and ultimately, the assertion of informal rules over formal ones. In several of these countries, media regulation falls short of normative standards of free speech. For example, Polands Penal Code stipulates that those insulting the President of the Republic are liable to up to three years imprisonment, while Hungarys new Media Constitution prescribes that media content may not offend or discriminate against whether expressly or Page | 6 by implication persons, nations, communities, national, ethnic, linguistic and other minorities or any majority as well as any church or religious groups (emphasis added).7 Such regulatory frameworks may have a chilling effect upon critical journalism. The opaque imitation of external models represents another striking feature in the region. The states of Central and Eastern Europe were under autocratic rule for many decades, and even before the Soviet conquest had very limited experience of democracy. Moreover, major technological innovations took place during the years of captivity, to use their favourite expression. No wonder therefore that after the democratic breakthrough much of the media legislation adopted reflects solutions borrowed from other countries. Different states have imported different models. For instance, Estonia adopted many Scandinavian regulations, while Hungary looked to Germany or Austria. Common history and culture is one of the factors determining individual choices. The pattern of foreign investment in the media sector was another factor, because foreign owners promote different models and practices. And of course, individual states were asked to adjust to the EU regulatory framework. The US has also served as a model, despite geographic distance and socio-political differences. However, imported models have been put into practice in very different environments from those in which they originated. For instance, many Central and Eastern European states looked to the BBC model of public broadcasting and even attempted to implement it but with mixed results. Moreover, foreign models were usually

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adapted by local political and economic actors engaged in heated negotiations over rights and profits. The result was a rather obscure, incomplete if not erroneous imitation of external models. A disoriented journalistic profession is another striking feature in common. This disorientation is chiefly the result of the fall of communism and the assertion of democracy. With a few notable exceptions, journalists active under the former regime were either incompetent, or politically discredited, or both. They were frequently replaced by the inexperienced, untrained or politically partisan. Economic changes were often a mixed blessing for the profession, as they reduced journalistic job security without necessarily promoting experience and knowledge. Schools of journalism have improved teaching standards, but have failed to secure career opportunities for their graduates. Professional associations of journalists have few members, rudimentary organisation and scarce financial resources. Often the organisational framework of journalism is fragmented. There is not one journalists association but several; and sometimes these associations are even political rivals as they are divided along ideological lines (this is the case in Hungary, for example). Journalists in Central and Eastern Europe are not only poorly paid in comparison to their Western European colleagues; they also operate in a less stable and coherent regulatory framework, and face more direct pressures from politicians and owners. As Karol Jakubowicz observes in the context of Poland, the volatile situation in the press market (with many publications being launched and soon going out of business) leads to high fluctuation and insecurity on the journalistic labor market.8 No wonder therefore that they often fail to rise to the ethical and professional standards expected from journalists in academic textbooks. Blurred professional identity is another common feature across Central and Eastern Europe. So far, it has proved difficult for journalists to develop a strong and clear professional identity in the constantly changing political, economic and social Page | 7 environment of the post-communist region. Journalists diffuse and frequently overlapping social roles have generated confusion and lack of coherence. Ongoing legal and regulatory reforms have created uncertainty and a lack of security. The professional status of journalists is still poorly defined in the region. For instance, journalists rights in terms of source confidentiality or access to information are unclear. Employers are seldom able or willing to guarantee their journalists a proper legal defence when cases go to trial. Journalistic salaries are relatively low in most cases and are often variable. For instance, in most of the countries studied royalties based on the authors rights represent a significant but floating part of journalistic income. Codes of ethics do exist, but are often not unanimously recognised by professional journalistic bodies. (A case in point is Estonia, where there is not one but two separate Ethics Commissions that receive complaints about journalism from the public, and these Ethics Commissions to some extent act as rivals in the public arena). The overlap between journalism and other professional activities, such as PR, appears to be widespread and frequent. Indeed, in many Central and Eastern European countries the majority of student journalists end up in PR. Forms of recruitment do not seem to be properly defined and stable, and frequently depend on networks of family or friends. Nor is professional education reflected in the recruitment process in any significant way.

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References Bajomi-Lzr, Pter, Vclav ttka and Mikls Sksd (forthcoming): Public-service television in the European Union countries: old issues, new challenges in the east and the west. In Manuel Pippis and Natascha Just (eds.): Trends in Communication Policy Research: New Methods, Page | 8 Theories, and Subjects. Bristol: Intellect. Council of Europe (2010): European Audiovisual Observatory: Yearbook 2009. Film, Television and Video in Europe. 15th edition, Vol 2: Trends in European Television. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. Ganev, Venelin (2005): Postcommunism as an episode of state-building: a reversed Tillyan perspective. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38.4: 425-445. Grzymala-Busse, Anna (2003): Political competition and the politicization of the state in East and Central Europe. Comparative Political Studies 36.10: 1123-1147. Hallin, Daniel C. and Paolo Mancini (2004): Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakubowicz, Karol (2003): Change in the Polish media: how far to go yet? In David L. Paletz and Karol Jakubowicz (eds.): Business as Usual. Continuity and Change in Central and Eastern Europe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Kopeck, Petr (2006): Political parties and the state in post-communist Europe: the nature of symbiosis. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 22.3: 251-273. McCargo, Duncan (forthcoming); Partisan polyvalence: characterizing the political role of Asian media. In Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini (eds.): Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sparks, Colin (2000): Media theory after the fall of European communism: why the old models from East and West wont do anymore. In James Curran and Myung-Jin Park (eds.): DeWesternizing Media Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 35-49.

See, e.g., Ganev 2005, Grzymala-Busse 2003, Kopeck 2006.

2 3 4 5 6 7

Hallin and Mancini 2004: 26ff. Bajomi-Lzr, ttka and Sksd forthcoming. Council of Europe 2010. Sparks 2000: 42. Duncan McCargo forthcoming.

Art. 17. 2. of Act CIV of 2010 on the Freedom of the Press and the Fundamental Rules on Media Content.
8

Jakubowicz 2003: 206.