Essay: What are the key features of media systems in Central Europe?

Twenty-one post-communist countries in Europe embarked on democratic

transformation after the collapse of their respective regimes between 1989 and 1991.
Many factors contributed to transformations, such as geographical location,
historical experiences and their respective levels of economic and cultural
development. Although the concept of CEE emerged from the ruins of European
post-communist/post-socialist states, the region is not a monolith with regards to
democratic consolidation and European integration. It is quite a varied region with
different political standards and levels of economic development.
The media systems find themselves operating in a difficult situation, or rather
between political pressure, leading to politicization, and economic pressure, leading
to commercialization. These two negative tendencies result in the low quality of the
media in CEE countries. Three decades after the collapse of communism, four
models of media and politics in the region have emerged in Central Europe: the
Hybrid Liberal, the Politicized Media, the Media in Transition and the Authoritarian
model1.
The mass media of the largest European countries have played a significant
role in the history of the world's mass media and journalism. In fact, they outlined
the main ways of formation and development of media systems, identified the main
models of relations between the media and society, the formation of industrial
structures and professional standards in the context of social relations, as well as the
definition of many formats of journalistic texts, criteria for professional behavior
and journalistic norms.
First, despite the fact that today people are increasingly talking about a single
Europe within the European Union, a common European home and European
integration, despite the creation of common European political and even social
institutions, a common currency for 17 states, significant differences remain
between European countries. And this applies not only to issues of culture, national
identity, traditions, and language. The example of the media industries in Europe
1
Dobek-Ostrowska, B., & Głowacki, M. (Eds.). (2008). Comparing Media Systems in Central Europe:
Between Commercialization and Politicization. Wrocław: University of Wrocław Press.
fully confirms this. Although on regional and multinational companies operate in the
European Economic Area, there is a significant segment of global and trans-
European advertising, and the pan-European media market itself unites a large
number of unconsolidated national media industries. They are characterized by the
diversity of national legislation and its enforcement-primarily in the field of property
and copyright, professional journalistic and corporate cultures, the peculiarities of
cultural policy, and the variability of business models2.
Secondly, the very concept of the media industry in the Russian academic
environment has not yet received an unambiguous understanding and, as a result, a
definition. The English-language term media industry (or even industries) is often
translated as both the media industry and the media industry. It is clear that in the
first case we follow not only the consonance of English and Russian words, but also
the most important concept for the political economy of the media, «industry
(industry) of culture», rooted in the tradition of the Frankfurt School and the works
of T. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, V. Benjamin. Close to this approach is the concept of
«industrialization», which integrates the production of media content by media
enterprises in the context of market logic, the interaction of supply and demand, and
profit-making processes3. However, some Russian authors prefer to use the term
«media industry», thereby emphasizing a kind of economic isolation of the media in
the context of the national economy. The media industry forms a large number of
mass media enterprises (firms) that produce a homogeneous product and operate on
the basis of a single business concept.
After the 1950s and 1960s, most European countries approached the media as
a social / cultural/political and at the same time a national institution. Therefore, they
were considered in the context of a global neoliberal logic driven by a market
philosophy. The key public institution in the European media environment has
traditionally been the public broadcasters, whose activities were based on the

2
Dobek-Ostrowska, B. (2015a). Journalism and Politics. In G. Nygren & B. Dobek-Ostrowska (Eds.),
Journalism in Change: Journalistic Culture in Poland, Russia and Sweden (pp. 179–210). Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang.
3
Bajomi-Lázár, P. (Ed.). (2017). Media in Third-Wave of Democracies: Southern and Central/Eastern
Europe in Comparative Perspective. Paros and Budapest: L’Harmattan.
philosophy of the BBC, its norms and professional values. This was also reflected in
the European tradition of political economic research. The main goal of researchers
working within this tradition was to search for social justice, although the authors
agreed that this approach failed to develop a sufficiently transparent model of how
the research of the media industry can be integrated into other approaches of cultural
and institutional analysis.
Unlike many international and trans-regional organizations, the European
Union «has considerable capacity to determine the content of the legislation and
policies of the EU member states in relation to the economic aspects of mass
media». Aspects that should have common approaches in all EU member states
include:
- Measures aimed at promoting the freedom of the provision of media
services;
- Regulation of the processes of concentration and provision of state financial
assistance in the field of mass media.
In the context of the rapid development of information and communication
technologies, the formation of strategies for the transition to the information society,
the EU is beginning to play an important role in determining the common priorities
of the participating countries in this area. In this context, we should mention the
European Commission's initiative «2010-European Information Society for Growth
and Employment», which has become a strategy and a starting mechanism for many
documents and initiatives in the EU. On the basis of common approaches, the
growth of the Internet, mobile telephony, digital services and - including - the
transition of the EU countries to digital broadcasting was stimulated. Another
important area of joint approaches, and in this case already broader than the pan -
European one, is the protection of intellectual property, in which the Pan-European
approaches (EU) correspond to the principles of the World Copyright Organization
and the World Trade Organization4.

4
Castro-Herrero, L., Humprecht, E., Engesser, S., Brüggemann, M., & Büchel, F. (2017). Rethinking
Hallin and Mancini Beyond the West: An Analysis of Media Systems in Central and Eastern Europe. International
Journal of Communication, 11, 4797–4823.
 References
1. Bajomi-Lázár, P. (2015a). Variations in Media Freedom: Why Do
Some Governments in Central and Eastern Europe Respect Media Freedom More
Than Other Ones? Central European Journal of Communication, 8(1), 4–20.
2. Bajomi-Lázár, P. (Ed.). (2017). Media in Third-Wave of Democracies:
Southern and Central/Eastern Europe in Comparative Perspective. Paros and
Budapest: L’Harmattan.
3. Castro-Herrero, L., Humprecht, E., Engesser, S., Brüggemann, M., &
Büchel, F. (2017). Rethinking Hallin and Mancini Beyond the West: An Analysis
of Media Systems in Central and Eastern Europe. International Journal of
Communication, 11, 4797–4823.
4. Chadwick, A. (2013). The Hybrid Media System. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
5. Dobek-Ostrowska, B. (2015a). Journalism and Politics. In G. Nygren
& B. Dobek-Ostrowska (Eds.), Journalism in Change: Journalistic Culture in
Poland, Russia and Sweden (pp. 179–210). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
6. Dobek-Ostrowska, B. (2015b). Journalism and Commercialization. In
G. Nygren & B. Dobek-Ostrowska (Eds.), Journalism in Change: Journalistic
Culture in Poland, Russia and Sweden (pp. 211–232). Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang.
7. Dobek-Ostrowska, B., & Głowacki, M. (Eds.). (2008). Comparing
Media Systems in Central Europe: Between Commercialization and Politicization.
Wrocław: University of Wrocław Press.