Cristian Ghinea, who forms part of Mediadem’s Romanian research team, has published two articles in the Romanian press, reporting on the first findings of the project. The first one was published in the daily newspaper Romania libera. It is entitled ‘Statul, mogulii şi jurnaliştii’ [The state, the moguls and the journalists], and provides an overview of the conclusions of the Romanian background report. More »
The Institute for International Relations (IMO) in cooperation with the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) organised a workshop on ‘Media policies: Country practices within the EU media regulatory framework’. The workshop took place on 10 December 2010 at the ‘Academia’ Hall of the Palace Hotel in Zagreb and gathered over forty participants: experts involved in the MEDIADEM project, researchers, as well as members of the media regulatory bodies in Croatia. Speakers discussed national media regulatory practices and the influence the European Union has exerted on state media policies. More »
The constantly growing importance of the Internet has induced so-called ‘traditional’ media to diversify the forms of their production in order to develop rich and attractive websites. Audiovisual broadcasters had to resort to text to complete their offer on the web while the written press editors included videos and sounds on their websites. As a logical consequence, all editors borrowed from each other’s methods. But current times of financial uncertainty render competition for advertising income fiercer. In Belgium, as well as in other countries of the European Union, the newspapers publishing industry has vividly protested against the development of the public broadcasters’ activities on the Internet, claiming that a state-supported competitor was plundering their resources. In the French Community of Belgium, the press took their case to court, seeking an injunction that the public service broadcasters (PSB) cease all “written press activity” over the Internet, including electronic newsletters and presence on the social networks. More »
Mediadem researchers met in Zagreb on 10-11 December 2010 for the second meeting of the project. They discussed theoretical approaches to the study of media policy and exchanged ideas and opinions on how to empirically explore the formulation of national media policies for free and independent media and the ways in which the various regulatory measures and instruments are put into practice. Throughout discussion, emphasis was put on the importance of examining the processes under which the various rules and policy tools are formed and implemented and of the influence that the various policy participants exert throughout the process. More »
On 29 November 2010, the Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy and the Institute for European Studies of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) organised a conference on the influence of the internet on the media. The conference started with a brief welcome and introduction by Benoît Frydman, professor at the ULB. Bart Van Besien, research fellow at the same university, informed the public on the scope of the Mediadem project and its aim of mapping the influences of various media policies on the development of free and independent media in Europe. More »
On 4 November 2010, the European University Institute (EUI) organised a workshop entitled ‘European policy for free and independent media systems: Current issues for regulation’. The workshop was devoted to the definition of the research questions that will guide the analysis of a comparative report on media regulation that the EUI will prepare at a later stage of the Mediadem project. More »
On November 9 the Commission adopted its 2010 Enlargement package which includes a Progress Report for Croatia as a candidate country. The section of the Report that examines the progress made by Croatia towards meeting the Copenhagen political criteria notes that, although freedom of expression (including media freedom and pluralism) is provided for by the Croatian laws and is generally respected, editors and journalists continue to report undue pressure from political and economic interest groups. There has been limited progress in investigating threats against journalists who work on cases of corruption and organised crime (only one case about the assassination of two prominent journalists has been processed so far). More »
The European Commission’s 2010 Progress Report on Turkey and Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2010-2011, both released on 9 November 2010, were positively received by the Turkish government. While the government opted for a more optimistic interpretation of Turkey’s progress, the majority of the Progress Report’s findings signal a pressing need to record faster and more ambitious progress in accession reforms. Two areas where little or no progress has been recorded are freedom of expression and the media. More »
A Greek national economic newspaper, Imerisia, reported on the first findings of the MEDIADEM project on media policy and regulation in Greece. The article offers a brief overview of the media market in the country, focusing especially on newspapers and state policies towards them, as well as the pressures stemming from the development of the online media on the traditional press. More »
The results of a public consultation, The open internet and net neutrality in Europe, that was launched by the European Commission on 9 November 2010, revealed a near consensus on the importance of the openness of the internet, yet with divisions over how to preserve it. The consultation that lasted from 30 June to 30 September 2010 attracted a wide range of stakeholders, including the body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC), network operators, internet service providers (ISPs), national authorities, consumer and civil society organisations as well as individuals. More »
