"In spite of the multi-million international investment to establish democratic media in post-war Kosovo, media in the young republic continue to underperform. On the 2011/12 Press Freedom Index, Kosovo ranked on the 86th position worldwide. The article sheds a light on the reasons for this dilemma ... by assessing strategies, successes and failures of media development actors. For this purpose, two groups of stakeholders were identified and interviewed both quantitatively and qualitatively: international media assistance actors as well as local journalists, media owners and experts. The leading question of the study at hand is: How far did the international development strategy succeed in transforming Kosovar media towards greater plurality, commercialization, professionalization and de-politicization? The findings suggest that media assistance actors focused too little on economic sustainability (i.e. commercialization) or, if this was done, fragile economic and political conditions proved detrimental. Also, development actors have focused too long on ad-hoc training sessions as well as on supporting different competing media outlets, thus creating a congested market. In comparison, wherever media framework institutions were supported, the success was more clearly visible." (Abstract) more

"Nowhere in modern history has media assistance been as concentrated and large in scale as in the case of Kosovo, where under the auspices of the OSCE, different state and non-governmental actors have invested millions in the crisis-ridden media system. This thesis discusses the strategies for media ... assistance actors in Kosovo and focuses on their outcome by questioning whether the international actors involved have been able to establish a more democratic media system, and questioning which strategies have been successful and which have not. The results are discussed by utilising the theoretical framework of the modernisation theory. The author has interviewed media assistance actors by using two methods: an online survey and face-to-face interviews. In addition, 26 Kosovar journalists, media owners and researchers were questioned in order to evaluate the approach used by the international actors. The findings primarily suggest that media assistance actors have focused too little on economic development in Kosovo and that since the beginning of the international intervention, Kosovar media has never been as fragile and threatened as now." (Abstract) more