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Who Owns the Media in Bangladesh?

Dhaka: Center for Governance Studies (CGS) (2021), 57 pp.

"This report documents a snapshot of media ownership in Bangladesh in late 2020 and identifies its major patterns. By no means is this report exhaustive nor does it cover all aspects of ownership of media in Bangladesh. In the absence of baseline data, our primary objective was to build one with the ... more

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Digital Transformations of the Public Arena

Andreas Jungherr, Ralph Schroeder

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2021), 75 pp.

"Digital technologies have changed the public arena, but there is little scholarly consensus about how they have done so. This Element lays out a new framework for the digitally mediated public arena by identifying structural changes and continuities with the pre-digital era. It examines three count ... more

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The Politics of Impunity and the Shifting Media Landscape in Kenya

Philip Onguny

Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, volume 7, issue 1 (2021), pp. 61-78

"This article focuses on state-media relations and the shifts in the overall media landscape in Kenya. Drawing on a political economy approach to media operations in Kenya, it argues that while there are competing meanings over what constitutes "news values", "editorial independence", and "critical ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Israel. Technology, Public Sphere and Journalism

Roni Dorot

Budapest: CEU Center for Media, Data and Society (2021), 30 pp.

"Although internet penetration rate in Israel stands at 88%, internet infrastructure, and notably the roll-out of fiber-optics, was not properly regulated until December 2020. Therefore, among other things, Israel’s internet speed was in decline in comparison to OECD countries, although it is expe ... cted to rise in mid-2021. Moreover, frequencies for 5G network deployment have been allocated only as late as August 2020, in significant delay compared to technologically progressed countries. Following global trends, Israelis draw on different technological means to use the internet, and especially to consume media. While fixed telephony demand is in decline, smartphones took over the market with 88% of smartphone ownership. Israel records a specific digital divide among marginalized groups like the Arab population and ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews. Together with the 65+ age group, these three main sectors are susceptible to be affected by digital illiteracy. The international technology conglomerates that control the Israeli market are Facebook (with its daughter company WhatsApp) in the field of messaging applications and social media, and Google Chrome browser, while the operating system (OS) market is dominated by Microsoft (on desktop) and Google (Android on mobile). The four main Israeli groups operating in the communications market are: Bezeq, HOT, Cellcom and Partner. They are all active in five telecom segments and market them in bundle packages for relatively low prices: cellular, fixed (telephony and internet) infrastructure, internet providing, international calls and multichannel TV. This highly saturated and competitive market has damaged the revenues and future incentives of these companies to invest in cutting-edge infrastructure. Israelis get most of their political information from online news sites. Some 76% of the public in Israel consume news content on social media at least once a day (40% of Jews and 66% of Arabs). The leading social media platforms are YouTube, Facebook and Twitter; they make a central source for the dissemination of politics, and have significant power in shaping public opinion. Nevertheless, “fake news” is also circulating fast and efficiently on these platforms, making disinformation a troubling phenomenon for Israeli society. Few journalistic initiatives took upon themselves the responsibility for public fact-checking. Traditional media struggles with fragile financial sustainability and business models. Given the populist effect that fake news has on consumers and, consequentially, on revenues, it is risky to rely on traditional media solely, in this matter." (Page 4) more

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Media Influence Matrix: Jordan. Technology, Public Sphere and Journalism

Mohammad Abu Hawash, Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2021), 28 pp.

"As for internet use, the percentage of the population with access to internet rose to 89% in 2019 from 48% in 2015. Access to a mobile phone and internet in Jordan has become a matter of choice rather than affordability or accessibility. The Syrian refugee crisis explains the overshooting in mobile ... phone penetration in Jordan during the 2010s. During the past decade, the Jordanian telecommunications industry has transformed from duopoly to oligopoly. Jordan’s three major telecommunications companies together worked to protect their positions in the Jordanian telecoms market. The market saw constant growth and a rapid introduction of new media technologies. Due to these technological advancements, the country has become known in the region as an increasingly influential tech hub [...] In the public sphere, Jordan has experienced an unstable legal and regulatory landscape for the media. The government constantly revises its audiovisual media and publications laws. This places those media networks with a proximity to the state at an advantage, since they have deeper insight into the expectations of the state. Independent media, on the other hand, suffers from the successive governments’ meddling in the foundational laws of the media industry. The work of journalists has been often obstructed by the blocking of hundreds of websites for failing to comply with one or another rendition of the publications law. Many journalists found their employers losing investors and/or funding after the state issued a registration requirement for websites publishing content out of Jordan. Due to strong public pressure, this requirement in the publications law was later revised. Jordan’s journalism sphere had a more difficult decade than the technology field. Restrictions on internet access and high taxes on independent media (compared with tax-exemption status for some media agencies that are close to the government) hurt several media organizations. Stagnation and decline in consumption of print media added to the woes. Jordanian newspapers are enjoying higher readership than ever but also the lowest revenues per reader in history. This is due to declining subscription rates. Jordanian journalists were stunned in the first half of the 2010s to see Jordan’s daily newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm end print circulation and shut down operations completely a few years later. Subscriptions to daily newspapers declined by 50% compared to their 2000s levels." (Pages 4-5) more

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Media Influence Matrix: Slovakia

Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), 2nd, updated ed. (2020), 110 pp.

"Seemingly, Slovaks have access to a wealth of news sources. In reality, though, the market is concentrated in the hands of a few large players. Powerful financial groups such as Penta Investments and J&T, and a handful of magnates including Ivan Kmotrik and Andrej Babis (who is also Czech Republic� ... ��s prime minister) exert decisive influence in the ownership of most major media companies. They are also close to politicians (if they are not themselves one), which means big leverage in regulatory affairs. The entry on the Slovak market of PPF, a Czech financial group led by another wealthy oligarch, Petr Kellner, which bought Markiza TV in 2019, is further cementing the oligarchic control in the country’s media. The Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic known as PMU is much responsible for the shape of the Slovak media market. It has been the PMU that approved a spate of merger cases allowing the expansion of some media owners. Decisions by the PMU in 2015-2016 allowed Penta Investments to take over several major publishers. It was one of these deals that prompted journalists from the daily Sme (acquired by Penta) to leave and set up DennikN. Civil society exerts little influence. International groups are not effective either. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a Vienna-based intergovernmental group, has some political leverage, but that does not materialize in any earth-shattering policy changes or palpable improvements for journalists. For example, in early March 2018, Harlem Desir, the head of media at OSCE, called on Slovak authorities in a meeting in Bratislava to investigate the killing by unknown assaulters in February 2018 of the Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. Instead, two months later, Slovak police began to harass Pavla Holcova, a Slovak journalist who was trying to help with the police investigation. It was only after massive pressures from citizens and journalism groups from abroad that four people were finally charged in October 2019 over Kuciak’s killing. Besides regulation, tightly controlled by authorities and highly politicized, the government plays also a direct role in the Slovak media market. Funding from license fees collected from all Slovak households and state budget makes the public broadcaster RTVS the largest player in the country’s media with a budget in excess of €115m. That is not necessarily bad. For some years, the Slovak public got its money’s worth. The station earned a feather in its cap for improved programming." (Key findings, pages 6-7) more

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Les transformations postsoviétiques des médias et du journalisme russes

Elena Vartanova

Paris: L'Harmattan (2020), 232 pp.

"Existe-t-il un chemin particulier d’ouverture d’un système médiatique à l’économie, aussi épineux soit-il ? C’est justement le fil rouge de cette monographie, qui examine, sur la base de données empiriques et théoriques, les processus de transformation du journalisme et des médias d ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: India. Funding Journalism

Vibodh Parthasarathi, Simran Agarwal

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2020), 40 pp.

"The largest players in terms of funding spent in the media are commercial advertisers. In 2018 advertising contributed €7.8bn to the media funding in India, an annual growth rate of 11.5%. Advertising makes the largest cut in the operating revenues of the news media. Subscription revenue does not ... bring in enough. The biggest advertising sectors across all news mediums include fast moving consumer groups (FMCG), services, automobiles, and banking and finance. Top advertisers include both domestic and international players such as Hindustan Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Amazon Online, Paytm, and Maruti Suzuki. In 2016-17, the advertising sector experienced a slump due to the implementation of the currency demonetization policy. However, multiple sports events, national elections in May 2019, and a significant contribution from political advertisements, from both regional and national political parties, boosted the sector’s revenue in 2017-18. Two large investors in the Indian news media include Mukesh Ambani and Subhash Chandra. Media is not their primary business. They run Reliance Group and Essel Group of industries, respectively, which are spread across a myriad of industries including petroleum, refineries, telecom, chemicals, textiles, packaging, oil and gas, precious metals, retail, infrastructure, digital services, to name just a few. Ambani ventured into broadcasting in 2011 when he took complete control over the Eenadu TV (ETV) network, broadcasting in numerous regional languages. In 2014, the Reliance group gained control of one of India’s largest news and entertainment television networks, Network 18. This included taking over of Network 18 Media and Investments Ltd and its subsidiaries TV 18 and Viacom 18 (a joint venture between TV 18 and ViacomCBS in India) in a €513mn deal. In 2016, he also started what has become one of India’s three largest mobile operators, Reliance Jio. Such vertical expansion was furthered in 2019 when he entered the television distribution segment by acquiring a majority stake in two of the three largest cable companies in India, DEN Networks and Hathway for €661m. Chandra, an MP, owns the Essel Group which runs one of India’s oldest and largest television networks with 14 news channels across eight language markets, operated by the Zee Media Corporation Limited, besides 35 entertainment channels across 19 languages, operated by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited. This conglomerate is also vertically integrated through its subsidiaries in Direct-to-Home (DTH) and Cable distribution, Dish TV India Limited and Siti Networks Limited respectively, and horizontally integrated through its subsidiaries in print and film production, Diligent Media Corporation Ltd and Zee Studios, respectively. Politicians and their affiliates are major players in the regional news media. The Sun Group in the state of Tamil Nadu is owned by Kalanithi Maran, nephew of former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, and brother of current MP Dayanidhi Maran. The Sun conglomerate owns 33 television channels across six languages, 67 FM radio stations, three daily newspapers and numerous other publications. Also, vertically integrated, it owns Sun Direct, one of the largest DTH operators, and Sumangali Cable Vision, a prominent regional cable network. Similarly, in the state of Orissa, the Panda Family runs the Odisha Television Limited, cable networks through Ortel, and digital news assets. Baijayant Panda is a former MP, currently a member of the ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party." (Executive summary, pages 4-5) more

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The Independence of the News Media: Francophone Research on Media, Economics and Politics

Loïc Ballarini (ed.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2020), xvii, 320 pp.

"This book explores the different ways Francophone research on news media has faced the challenges of dependence and independence from three complementary perspectives. The first is economics - how can sustainable business models be developed and to what extent can crowdfunding help to maintain the ... more

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Les médias en Amérique Latine: Dire et construire l'actualité latino-américaine

Morgan Donot, Églantine Samouth, Yeny Serrano (eds.)

Paris: L'Harmattan (2020), 318 pp.

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Media Studies: Critical African and Decolonial Approaches
Deep Insights

Sarah Chiumbu, Mehita Iqani (eds.)

Cape Town: Oxford University Press Southern Africa (2020), xii, 340 pp.

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Media Influence Matrix: Georgia

Giorgi Jangiani

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2020), 86 pp.

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News Literacy and Democracy

Seth Ashley

Routledge (2020), xi, 206 pp.

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Media Influence Matrix: Kyrgyzstan. Government, Politics and Regulation

Gulnura Toralieva

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2019), 22 pp.

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Media Influence Matrix: Romania. Government, Politics and Regulation

Dumitrita Holdis

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2019), 21 pp.

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Media Influence Matrix: Pakistan. Technology, Public Sphere and Journalism

Ifra Asad, Mackenzie Nelson

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2019), 20 pp.

"With particularly low internet penetration rates, intense state censorship and heavy Chinese investment, Pakistan presents elements of an authoritarian internet culture where surveillance is a barely-questioned norm, unless probed by civil society organizations or journalists. Social media giants s ... more

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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff

London: Profile Books (2019), viii, 691 pp.

"The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control us. The heady optimism of the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that we ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Jordan. Government, Politics and Regulation

Ian Graham

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2019), 22 pp.

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Media Influence Matrix: Kyrgyzstan. Funding Journalism

Gulnura Toralieva

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2019), 22 pp.

"The media sector in Kyrgyzstan is heavily dominated by the government through both ownership and funding. The government funds a large pool of state-owned media companies, including newspapers, radio broadcasters and the public service operator KTRK. According to our estimates, the government spent ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Kazakhstan. Funding Journalism

Adil Nussipov

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) (2019), 26 pp.

"Only three of the ten most popular television channels in Kazakhstan are not government-owned. Former President Nursultan Nazarbayev directly or through his family, also owns television channels. For example, KTK, the second most watched television channel in the country is run by the Foundation of ... the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan-Elbasy. Another popular television channel, NTK, is owned directly by a Nazarbayev family member. Nazarbayev resigned in March 2019, but political analysts say that he did so to be able, before he dies, to supervise a smooth transition to a new regime that will continue his policies, ensuring centralization of political control and preventing criticism of authorities as Nazarbayev did during his 29-year tenure. When it comes to online news, the Government owns three of the 10 most visited websites: Kazinform.kz, Bnews.kz and 24.kz. In fact, none of the most popular news portals in Kazakhstan are independent and truly free of government control. For example, TengriNews.kz, one of the most read news websites is owned by the company Alash Media Group, which is known for promoting a strong pro-government narrative. The foreign influence in Kazakhstan’s media landscape is limited as foreigners can own only 20% of a media company. That being said, the Russian influence in the Kazakh media is notable. The most popular television channel in the country, Eurasia, jointly owned by the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia, is known for promoting a heavy pro-Russian agenda on world affairs. Another popular television channel, Channel 31 (31 Kanal) is co-owned by Bulat Utemuratov, a wealthy local businessman, and the Russian-funded STS Media Holding. Kenes Rakishev, another entrepreneur, owner of Channel Seven (Sedmoy Kanal), is also a partner in Fastlane Ventures, a prominent Russian venture fund that usually invests in internet companies. The Government is by far the largest funder in the media, with over €144m spent in cash dished out to media companies in 2017, more than the overall ad spend in Kazakhstan, according to industry estimates. Most of the government funding goes to government-owned media companies or privately held outlets that show support of the Government. For example, in television, the biggest chunk of government cash is spent on financing Khabar and Qazaqstan, two government-owned channels. In such a centralized media environment in which the Government plays a disproportionately big role, there is hardly any space for independent journalism. Owned by a civil society activist and journalist, Vlast.kz is arguably the sole truly independent news website among the 10 most visited websites in the country. There are other independent news media such as Azattyq, the local service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, but their audience is much smaller." (Page 4) more

Media Studies: Critical African and Decolonial Approaches Deep Insights

Media Studies: Critical African and Decolonial Approaches
Deep Insights