"The essential thesis of this paper is that the requirements and problems of the media sector differ substantially from country to country according to its political, social and economic conditions: in authoritarian states the scope and intensity of media assistance is quite limited, whereas democratizing countries are open for foreign assistance on developing an independent media sector; in war-torn societies the first objective should be to provide increased access to accurate news, and post-conflict societies offer good opportunities for the promotion of independent media. For each of these four categories the paper proposes different media assistance intervention strategies." (commbox)