The Czech Republic. A country report for the ERC-funded project on Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe (original) (raw)
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The gradual takeover of the Czech media system
In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy, 2017
Changes in the ownership structure of mainstream Czech dailies are transforming what had been a relatively stable Czech media environment over the previous 20 years. Newspapers are now owned by major national business groups with political ties. This text discusses the developments in the ownership of Czech print media and illustrates the changes that the evolving ownership structure brings in terms of media content, media legislation, and public service media. It argues that changing ownership patterns have made media more dependent on the political and business elite and concludes that legislative changes are desirable with a view to protecting media pluralism in the country.
2012
This paper offers an overview of Slovakia’s media landscape, putting it into its demographic, economic and political context. It gives a basic overview of the country’s media structure, including details on media markets; media regulation and regulatory authorities; and journalism culture. The aim is to present this information in such a way as to facilitate comparison across the ten nations studied by the project. The findings are based on secondary academic sources and a series of elite interviews conducted in Bratislava in July and August 2010. The report was last updated in August 2012.
In this article we map some of the key developments on the Czech print media market following the fall of communism in 1989. We focus on ownership changes and their impact on the conduct of professional journalism. In the 1990s foreign media companies (dominantly German and Swiss) entered the Czech media market and brought with them a profit-oriented model of journalism. Our research in the mid-2000s explored these changes and their impact on journalists' professional conduct. At the time journalists stressed commercial pressures, however, in the mid-2010s with the departure of foreign print media owners (except for one) and the emergence of local ones, journalists voiced concerns about interference in content for political purposes. We also note that the journalists we interviewed did not reflect on the influence of government on the conduct of their profession, for example, through media regulation.
The Reality Show Called Democratization: Transformation of the Czech media After 1989
Global Media …, 2007
The underlying concept of the transformation of Czech media which started in the early 1990's was the freedom of expression as one of the fundamental characteristics of democratization of society. The whole process was taking place in an environment accustomed to the media and their usage. Media were quickly deregulated and privatized, and a dual system was set up in the broadcasting sector. In terms of the contents of their output and their structure, the Czech media changed very deeply from communist propaganda tool to profit-making commercialized industry. Their transformation did not consist in accepting social responsibility for the creation of democratic conditions and assuming the role of informal control over political power, but in building up an economically successful sector, profitable and, if possible, without regulation. Currently the Czech Republic ranks among countries where the media market is fully saturated and characterized by a high degree of comodification of the media and commercialization of their production. The media espouse their liberal democratic tradition wherever it can strengthen their position, but where they do not benefit from it, they give up this role in favour of negotiating with the political sphere.
Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 2004
In terms of the quality of democracy, the Czech Republic is underperforming. Czech media are a significant factor in the process. Recently, most of the formerly serious Czech journalism has moved into infotainment. Moreover, it is influenced by the nostalgia for communist times. Complicit in perpetuating the communist taste,the media harm the nascent civil society. The most relevant aspect of civil society in this article pertains to its ability to provide citizens with a broad range of resources to develop their talents. By promoting and further developing the cultural expression infused by communist taste, the media flatten public life around the stale mainstream. In a small, relatively poor, and culturally homogeneous market and society hampered by a residual civic passivity,the media deprive citizens of a broad range of cultural resources and slow down their pursuit of a greater equality and freedom.
Global Media and Communication
A quarter century after the collapse of Communism in the former Eastern bloc, a wide range of scholarly projects have been undertaken to compare and theorize processes of media change in the region. One question that scholars have sought to address is: what were the factors that crucially impacted how these media landscapes evolved? This essay aims to contribute to this debate by juxtaposing media change in two selected cases: the Czech Republic (as a best-case scenario in terms of convergence with the Western model) and Russia (as a scenario where convergence has been limited). Based on secondary analysis of a wide range of sources, the essay systematically exposes 11 crucial differences between the two countries and illustrates how these have impacted the processes of media change. The conclusion sets out how these findings could serve as a starting point and source of inspiration for future comparative research.
This essay examines the transformation of the culture of the Czech news media in the wake of the Cold War. Existing research on transitions from statist to capitalist media models emphasizes pol- itical or economic variables, and so this analysis is distinguished by a focus on culture—specifically, the collective beliefs and attitudes among networks of journalists and political actors in a particular national context. This research incorporates a synthesis of existing literature as well as in-depth interviews with key informants (including journalists, scholars, and political strategists) in the Czech Republic during fieldwork in the fall of 2015. It attempts to explain how the pivot to a market-oriented media culture within the Czech Republic led to: the fortification of a nationalist identity, an abundance of journalism outlets, and ultimately a celebritization of the political culture within the Czech Republic. These outcomes are described and interpreted within the context of globalization and media change.
2010
This article examines, by means of a case study, recent trends in media ownership in the Czech Republic and their impact on media pluralism and journalistic autonomy. The analysis focuses mainly on the ever-intensifying processes of ownership concentration and conglomeration, as well as on the presence and rising significance of local media owners, many of whom belong to the Czech business and industry elites. In this context, the article investigates both the allegations and the growing evidence of political and business instrumentalization of the media in the hands of these "industry tycoons.” The author argues that this kind of coupling of business, media, and political sectors constitutes an ever more prominent feature of the Czech media system, and can be regarded as an indicator of its gradual “Italianization.” Contributing to the debates about the risks of concentrating foreign ownership in the post-transformation media markets, this case study also demonstrates that the increasing power of local media owners certainly does not represent a trouble-free alternative either.
2011
This paper offers an overview of Bulgaria’s media landscape, putting it into its demographic, economic and political context. It gives a basic overview of the country’s media structure, including details on media markets; media regulation and regulatory authorities; and journalism culture. The aim is to present this information in such a way as to facilitate comparison across the ten nations studied by the project. The findings are based on secondary academic sources and a series of elite interviews conducted in Sofia in September 2010. The report was last updated in August 2011.