Media Freedom and Pluralism: Media Policy Challenges in the Enlarged Europe

Introduction: Harmonizing European Media Policy: Supranational Regulatory Trends and National Responses

inTroduCTion Harmonizing european Media Policy: Supranational Regulatory Trends and National Responses Beata KlimKiewicz Media policy in europe faces a twofold challenge. on the one hand, new technologies and media services such as digital television, satellite radio, mobile content applications, video on demand, and new internet services are fundamentally transforming media environments and media use. on the other hand, the historical enlargement integrating the countries of eastern and Central europe within the eu’s political, economic, and legal structures implies fundamental geopolitical and cultural change, both at the european level and in the region. These new conditions in the making can be approached in one of three ways: either through a chronological description of different consecutive stages (a historical approach); through a case-by-case description of different national or country experiences (a geographical approach), or through an analytical approach aiming at conceptualizing main problem areas and open questions in european media policy today. as can be surmised from the table of contents, the authors of this volume followed the third route. This choice, however, does not eliminate time and space considerations at the expense of a problem-oriented focus. differentiation and delineation of problem areas is deeply rooted in an emerging logic of media policy, which requires a new type of complexity. in other words, national borders still matter, but so do sub-national (regional), supranational and global constellations. a new complexity thus depends on switching between different spatial, cultural, and political levels and constant redefinition of their institutional settings and fields of competencies. The dynamics of globalization bring in a systemic change of media markets, including an intensifying pressure for media ownership concentration and new forms of alliances cutting across traditionally i4 Beata book.indb 11 2010.05.09. 10:22 xii Introduction divided media sectors; audience fragmentation; syndication of media content and services; and new relations between different actors of media systems, such as platform providers and content makers. new forms of media use and modes of social interactions with the media redesign everyday social activities and change the character of social institutions (schulz, 2004). Both globalization and convergence reshape the logic of media policymaking and challenge traditional regulatory models. The conceptualization of problems to be dealt with by regulators, the processes by which regulatory decisions are made, and the operationalization of regulatory rationales are all in a state of flux, both at the european and national levels. The complexity and interpretational richness of such media policy issues as media competition, cultural diversity, access and use, public interest, media accountability, media pluralism, democratic participation, and the role of the media in a larger society are subject to ambiguity and constant redefinition. at the same time, continuous integration of media regulatory functions of the nation-state into the european union, as well as adaptation and incorporation of european decisions and strategies into domestic policy discourse and practice, have had significant implications for the legal and regulatory systems concerning the media. The historical fifth and sixth eu-enlargement waves eastward generated institutional change both at the eu macro-level and the level of eastern and Central european media regulatory institutions and regimes (especially in terms of opening media markets for eu ownership, promotion of eu audiovisual content and services, control of state aid provided to public service media and telecom industry, and privatization of the communications sector). a constant adoption of eu media policy and the Council of europe’s standards affected various facets of those media systems that underwent post-communist reform. The present collection of essays seeks to systematize recent major policy developments related to two main pan-european institutions— the european union and the Council of europe, through the perspective of new eu Member states. The analytical problem-related approach seems to better reflect a media policy process as an interrelated part of european integration, formation of european citizenship, and exercise of communication rights within the european communicative space. The question of normative expectations is to be compared in i4 Beata book.indb 12 2010.05.09. 10:22 xiii Introduction this case with media policy rationales, mechanisms of implementation (transposing rules from eu to national levels), and outcomes. a familiar historical narrative describing the imitation of Western media policy models (the “accidental” phenomenon of globalization), and then the incorporation of eu media order (counteracting with globalization ) by Central european countries, does not seem to fully explain two circumstances. The first one is varied national...