Electronic Library of Scientific Literature


 

OTAZKY ZURNALISTIKY



Volume 41 / No. 2/ 1998

 


The Best From Other Countries and the Best From Ours

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 That matching process means outdated social theory must be replaced, that practical courses must be developed and used, and that management and research and planning skills must become an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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The Western Capital in the Polish Press

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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Media Colonisation or the Triumph of Market Liberalisation?

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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Success and Failure of First Foreign Investments in Mass Media of Ukraine

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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The German concern Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in Bulgaria

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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Foreign Capital in Russian Public Information Means

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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Foreign Capital in the Slovak Media

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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Globalisation and Regionalisation of Mass Communication: Two Sides of the Coin

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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Comparative Analysis of the Main News Bulletins of the Slovak Television, TV Markíza and VTV

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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Z VÝSKUMOV

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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