Electronic Library of Scientific Literature
Electronic Library of Scientific Literature
Volume 41 / No. 2/ 1998
Timothy N. Walters - Lynne M. Walters
The authors discusses some aspects surrounding the privatisation
of the media of Central and Eastern Europe and the infusion of
foreign capital that has made this possible. One of the most important
aspects is personnel, for no enterprise anywhere can succeed without
a knowledgeable, skilled, and committed staff. Given the enormous
challenges posed by the change from state to market support, the
media cannot survive without an appropriately trained workforce.
This paper is an attempt to answer the question if the media in
Central and Eastern Europe have the necessary staff. The work
is based on a survey and a series of in-depth personal interviews
conducted in 1995 of newspaper and magazine editors in Hungary.
The authors examine issues related to employment trends in terms
of number and positions; available training programs, both internal
and external; level of knowledge and skills among new and existing
employees; work ethic of employees and professionalism of the
media.
A fundamental conclusion of this study is that developing journalism
programs must match curricula with marketplace reality. That matching
process means outdated social theory must be replaced, that practical
courses must be developed and used, and that management and research
and planning skills must become an increased part of the mix.
pp. 89-93
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Zbigniew Bayka
The author describes steps of conquering the Polish media market by the foreign capital. Firstly, the Western (mostly German) publishing groups explored available segments of the Polish media market. Then, a pilot entry of some well-known magazines into this market followed. In the next round, the Western capital presented a serious interest in the Polish market. The most impressive was the entry of the German publishing houses (Bauer, Springer, Bertelsmann). Some of Western publishers were interested in the press published by the RSW „Prassa - Ksiažka - Ruch", a publishing company which, according to the parliament's decision, had to be liquidated. The main share of the regional press won the French Robert Hersant. However, also the Norwegian publishing group Orkla Media began to buy the Polish regional dailies. In 1994, the Bavarian publishing concern Passauer Neue Presse bought from Hersant a group of the largest and most influential regional dailies. Accordingly, PNP publishing group began to increase its capital presence in the market, to buy dailies, printing plants and, lastly, also the local dailies. Into the sector of the daily (especially sports) press penetrates the Swiss concern Marquard. The magazine market is interesting not only for German but also for Swiss, American, French and Scandinavian capital. A number of Western investors in Poland increases continually. That worries public opinion, politicians as well as journalists.
pp. 93-99
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Ágnes Gulyás
This papers is limited to the analysis of foreign ownership
in the Hungarian print media and it mainly focuses on the press
markets. In Hungary, it was the print media where foreign ownership
first became dominant and played an integral part in the post-communist
transformation of the sector. In general foreign investment and
ownership is a contested issue because of its impact on the local
industry and economy. It is especially so in a sensitive area
such as the media, where cultural and political considerations
also have to be taken account. Foreign ownership clearly had an
impact on the Hungarian media markets. Introducing new type of
print media products is a clear example of how foreign companies
effected the post-communist markets. The are both negative and
positive aspect of foreign ownership in the Hungarian print media.
From the point of view of foreign media companies, the former
communist countries were newly emerging markets with financial
potential. From the Hungarian print media's perspective, foreign
investment was a helping mechanism to achieve the transformation
to a market economy, partly because there was a shortage of domestic
capital and partly because foreign investment was seen as an insurance
for political independence. To the negative aspects of foreign
ownership belong the impact on national culture and market concentration.
Nevertheless, in the first years of the post-communist transformation
foreign media ownership had more positive effects, particularly
contributing to the process of relieving the print media from
direct influence of the state and political parties, and hence
helping the media in developing their liberal democratic functions.
pp. 99-107
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Irina Polyakova
This papers describes the first attempt of the foreign investors
to penetrate the Ukrainian media market. Ukrainian market with
its population of more than 50 million is rather attractive to
foreign investors. However, the rate of investing in Ukraine is
not as it is desired so far. This state of affairs is enhanced
with quite objective reasons, the most important of these are
the imperfection of the tax system and the system of pricing and
high level of corruption. Representatives of all types of business
activities, mass media including, are confronted with these problems.
However, there is a number of specific problems, which pertain
to the mass media market exclusively and of which potential investor
should be aware.
In today's Ukraine, the most attractive for media investors is
television. The biggest Western partner came to the Ukrainian
television market at the beginning of 1997. It was Central European
Media Enterprises Ltd. which owns various shares of the television
business in seven Eastern European countries. As for the radio,
the investments in it are sporadic and the majority of them were
made at the first stage of the development of private radio. Considering
smaller capital intensity while creating a new radio station,
this was the area which interested mainly local investors. In
the Ukrainian newspaper and magazine markets, the attempts to
start more or less large projects with the participation of Western
capital were not successful so far.
pp. 107-111
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Eliezer Alfandri
In Bulgaria, a private media sector was established in 1991
- 1993. The share of private capital deposits concealed in Bulgaria
or abroad was legalised. Since then, an entry of the German company
WAZ in the Bulgarian media market is registered. In 1996, the
WAZ bought two largest and most influential dailies 24 Godziny
and Trud. However, it was necessary to make them bankrupt before.
WAZ attendance in the Bulgarian media market strengthens the competition.
Now, a lawsuit is going on in which the WAZ is accused of an effort
to monopolise the publishing, distribution, advertising and printing
as well as regional press markets in Bulgaria. The WAZ pushes
itself forward not only economically (through its capital) but
also politically. An anti-monopoly legislation does not have tradition
in Bulgaria. One feels a general lack of practice in this field.
In Bulgaria, a deficit of political will hinders the real de-monopolisation
of the national economy. According to the author, the WAZ market
monopoly is not a real WAZ monopoly but a monopoly of a political
disposer.
It is clearly evident that newspapers bought by WAZ are used to
support and prolong this political monopoly. It is a „corridor"
for transfer of, till now illegal, Bulgarian capital from abroad
to Bulgaria.
pp. 112-114
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Liya Yevseyeva
All means of public information in Russian Federation - state,
public-law or private limited companies - are more or less dragged
in free market processes. But the share of state financing all
these means /not to exchange with state subsidies for a development
of public information means/ is still quite considerable. Nearly
all regional press /from 75 % to 100 %/ is financed by the local
authorities. Commercial radio stations, advertising periodicals
or gutter press - all are governed by the free market principles.
A greater part of influential mass media in Russian Federation
, i.e. of dailies. magazines and television networks, already
belongs to information empires of Gusinsky, Berezovsky, Potanin
and others. It means that in Russia there have already been established
powerful private financial and industrial structures that have
created information holding companies. A hard competitive
struggle has recently lead to the analogy of information war between
banking sphere and state power /Berezovsky versus Cubajs/ and
a bit earlier to the division of daily Izvestija and buying
other daily Komsomolskaja Pravda by the bank Onexim.
There is a little amount of foreign capital in Russian mass
media. In spite of this fact there exist some examples of collaboration
and common projects that have been or are being realized. For
example the weekly Itogi belonging to the Most - Media holding
company has been since May 1996 published in co-operation with
American weekly Newsweek. The daily Izvestija had for some time
an annex Financial News made with the help of British daily Financial
Times. Now this annex again with the help of Financial Times is
being changed into independent daily called Financial News.
This article also brings other examples of Western companies operating
on Russian market, for instance Dutch - American company Independent
Media which publishes besides others dailies The Moscow Times
and St. Petersburg Times, weekly Capital, magazine Russian Review.
According to the Russian law on public information means foreigners
can not be establishers but the investment is free.
On the Russian press, radio and television market there are also
such companies as Burda - Moden /Germany/, Hachette /France/,
Story First Communication /USA/, Hughes Space and Communication
/USA/. On the other hand some examples of entering the Russian
market were unsuccesful. Of this kind are Maxwell's /Great Britain/,
Hersant's /France/ and Turner Broadcasting System's /Ted Turner's
empire in USA/ attempts.
This period of development in Russian Federation is characterized
as unsteady, unstable. A political stable situation will
be there when public information means are considered to be exclusively
tools for doing business and when they themselves stop to pretend
to be the fourth power in the country. The present unstable situation
is an obstacle in a regular development of free market processes,
in establishing joint ventures, realizing bilateral projects and
in foreign capital investment. In a word, it is an obstacle
everywhere where these free market processes are to help technological
progress and mutual understanding in the world.
pp. 114-118
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Jozef Darmo
Since 1989, the transformation process in Slovakia opened a
gate for the foreign capital to the Slovak media. Today, all the
Slovak press is privatised. There is a dual system of the electronic
media in Slovakia. This state of affairs is enabled by corresponding
media legislation. Slovakia has accepted approximation of its
legal system to the European legal standards in the field of human
rights and media too.
In Slovakia, the press privatisation underwent specifically. In
the first stage (1990 - 1992), editorial staffs privatised their
newspapers at a symbolic price of one Slovak crown. Joint-stock
companies with shares in amount of 1000 - 10 000 crowns were established.
In this transitory period, editorial staffs replaced the former
„political" publishers. In the second stage, the journalist/shareholders
entered into alliances with home and foreign investors. The editorial
office was separated from the publishing house. Nevertheless,
some ties between editors and publisher remained. That is why
the editors do not have an interest to disclose an amount of foreign
capital in the Slovak media.
Now, the biggest foreign investors in the Slovak press market
are the American Wall Street Journal, German Handelsblatt, Reinische
Post and Bertelsmann's Grüner und Jahr , French concerns
Hersant and Socpress, Irish company Ekakrite Ltd. Dublin and Swiss
concern Ringier.
The foreign capital pushes itself forward in the Slovak private
radio market as well as in the national, regional and cable television
markets. In these media sectors, the Czech, German, American,
Austrian, Swiss, Spanish and Portuguese capital operates. In licence
conditions, the upper limit of 49 % share for foreign investors
is stipulated.
pp. 118-124
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Samuel Breèka
Keywords: global economy and culture - communication technologies - global media - regional and local media
The author discusses two main trends in mass communication
development - the media globalisation and regionalisation. He
argues that the media globalisation is a result of the globalisation
of economy and culture. It was made possible by the development
of communication technologies. With the dissolution of the Soviet
Union and the growth of a market economy in China, capitalism
has finally created a truly global economy. The global corporations
can now follow a global strategies. But without the global transportation
and telecommunication systems in place, the implementation of
such global strategies would have been impossible. Without global
advertising, propagated by the primarily Western-produced programmes
and commercials, the market conditions necessary for capitalist
growth could not have been obtain in the low developed countries.
The opposite side of this development is media regionalisation.
Regional and local media represent an alternative form of communication
and frequently challenge the established media order as well as
hallow social communication practices. The first real challenge
to the media order which had prevailed in Europe since the war,
regional and local media have directly prepared the ground for
the reorganisation of communication patterns in Europe. Paradoxically,
they were regional and local media - usually a cheap, low technology,
and easy access - which over some years have loosened regulatory
structures, prepared public opinion, concentrated the minds and
trained the men for the communications revolution now underway
- a revolution based on new, expensive, high cost and essentially
untried technologies.
pp. 129-136
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Dana Kováèová
Keywords: television news - objectivity - balance - plurality of views - conception of news - message nature - thematic moulding - synchronisation of news and views
Within the scope of analysis, following categories and analytical
variables were set down: 1. time period, 2. conception of news
broadcast, 3. presentation modality, 4. nature of the message
and information treatment, 5. balance of information, 6. geographical
destination of information, 7. outlands, 8. Slovakia, 9. thematic
moulding, 10. political news, opinions of the political subjects
according to the presented problems, 11. self-presentation of
the media, 12. language of the news.
The sample included the main news broadcasts during the seven
randomly selected weeks in November and December 1997. The sample
contained 1697 news and information items amounting 2190 news
minutes.
During the analysed period, the Slovak Television broadcasted
762 news items in its main news bulletins, 507 of them were domestic.
TV Markíza broadcasted 516 news items (359 domestic), and
VTV 419 news items (230 domestic).
A breach of the basic principles of the broadcasting law was found
both in the broadcasting of the Slovak Television and TV Markíza.
In the broadcasting of TV Markíza not only a quantitative
preference of one political party but also a tendency to the implicit
as well as explicit synchronisation of news and views was present.
This was observed in the general editorial line and in the individual
news items too. On the one hand, a treatment and composition of
the news items resulted in the latent preference of one political
party. On the other hand, a latent support and promotion of, at
that time, non-existing party (its leader) meant a breach of balance
principle. In the newscast of the Slovak Television, a breach
of the principle of objectivity was found.
In the general editorial line, there was a tendency to the implicit
synchronisation of news an views. Presentations of the political
parties and their representatives (news from briefings and party
organs meetings) were usually followed by editorial commentaries.
Similarly, the implicit synchronisation of news and views was
present also in news items structure, unbalanced by intentional
preference of some phenomena, facts, and interests of one side
of the political spectrum.
Presently, the Slovak media environment, and within them the broadcasting
of the main television channels, is marked by some „abnormality".
Similar to the political polarisation, the relationship between
the public and private broadcasting organisations aims not to
complementarity but to antagonism. The symptoms of polarisation
and antagonism move to the viewership as well. The viewers tend
to differ their interests not according to the programme offer
but according to the political orientation of the TV channels.
Now, political pressures are present in the broadcasting not only
latently. An unbalanced and partisan newscasts are clearly apparent
also to the outsiders. Being involved in the politics, the main
TV channels developed a specific mutual communication: their representatives
discuss through the TV screens.
The basic and the most important principle of TV broadcasting
should be the respect to the viewer. The news bulletins should
be independent from the interests represented by the present managers
or owners of TV channels.
pp. 137-155
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O KATEGÓRII „NEÈITATE¼OV"
DENNEJ TLAÈE
SLEDOVANOS SPRAVODAJSKÝCH RELÁCIÍ TELEVÍZIE
A ROZHLASU
pp. 156-158
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RECENZIE
pp. 159-160
ZO ZAHRANIÈIA
pp. 161-162
DOKUMENTY
Zákon z 3. júla 1997 o povinných
výtlaèkoch periodických publikácií,
neperiodických publikácií a rozmnoženín
audiovizuálnych diel
pp. 163-170
KRONIKA
pp. 171-175
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