"The Law, published on 22 December 2010, is an amendment to the 2004 Law on Social Responsibility on Radio and Television. The 2010 amended Law extends the power of the state to control electronic media in the same way as traditional broadcasting. The Law aims at “establishing social responsibilit
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y” for all participants and “to set a balance between their duties, liberties and rights”. While these purposes are recognised as legitimate by international law, ARTICLE 19 is concerned by four aspects of the law. Firstly, the Law includes no safeguards against disproportionate and arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression. In particular, there is no requirement for restrictions to meet the three-party test established by international law. In light of the severity of the provided sanctions, and the unnecessarily intrusive nature of certain restrictions, such an omission has troubling implications for freedom of expression. Secondly, the Law fails to secure the independence of the broadcast regulators. While several regulatory bodies are established to implement the law, all are either part of the government or controlled by the government. This contradicts international standards and further exposes media regulators to arbitrary and politically-motivated decisions. Thirdly, the Law contains some unclear prohibitions – with sanctions in place for “[encouraging] anxiety amount citizenry”, or “[disregarding] legitimate authorities” - which risk being used arbitrarily to place broadcast media under political control and to limit media pluralism. Finally, the Law contains broad provisions for state control over the internet, with electronic media being regulated in the same way as traditional broadcasting. Such an approach to Internet regulation impedes both the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy." (Executive summary)
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"Die in Deutschland diskutierten Modelle und Fragen zu Regulierung, Partizipation und Mitbestimmung in den elektronischen Medien sind auch in anderen europäischen Staaten relevant. Die AutorInnen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis thematisieren dabei insbesondere die Beteiligung der Zivilgesellschaft. Da
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sich die Medienpolitik zunehmend auf europäischer Ebene abspielt, ist es sinnvoll, die europäischen wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse mit den Erfahrungen von PraktikerInnen zusammenzuführen und zu diskutieren." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"With three notable exceptions—Belarus, Russia, and Uzbekistan—the media sector in the countries included in the first edition of the MSI in 2001 have over time either improved overall or stayed more or less the same. But, a review of overall MSI scores is just one way to use the MSI to see how
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the media situation has changed [...] Another is to compare the qualitative characterizations made by panelists in 2001 to those they are making today. In a similar vein, IREX includes a summary of how the Internet was viewed in 2001 and how it is described today as a way to look at the impact of new media on dissemination of information, public dialogue, and citizen access to timely news and information. IREX this year employed an updated methodology to prepare the reports [...] IREX added two new indicators. One assesses a media sector’s ability to report on local, regional, national, and international news in a way that meets the needs of citizens in all corners of a country." (Executive summary, page 9)
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"The number of foreigners in Hungary (as a proportion of the total population) is a negligible two percent. The majority of immigrants are Hungarian nationals coming from the neighbouring countries. Given to the low number of foreign citizens, the ‘man in the street’ in Hungary relatively rarely
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meets an immigrant or asylum seeker. The attitude of Hungarians is nevertheless negative toward foreign citizens who are not Hungarian nationals. The average Hungarian despises the Roma even more. Members of this community encounter widespread discrimination and occasional physical violence. One of the media’s roles might be to foster social cohesion and the integration of minorities. These roles might be enhanced by programming from public service broadcasters, balanced news coverage from commercial media outlets, media content produced by members of the minority, and media campaigns which aim to integrate minorities. The public service broadcasters satisfy their legal obligations by way of providing programming for and about the national and the ethnic minorities. Though the length of the broadcasts in lower-reach periods is not proportionate to the size of the given national or ethnic minorities as compared to the total population, these programmes constitute the only fora where the average Hungarian can encounter these minorities. Several commercial media outlets have adopted codes of ethics, and our findings confirm that most of these include provisions on how the minorities should be portrayed. However, various studies on the media representation of minorities find that in the Hungarian media, the voice of the depicted minorities can hardly ever be heard in the news, with coverage generally focusing on problems and conflicts, and the context of events being covered superficially." (Summary and conclusion)
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"This paper offers an overview of Bulgaria’s media landscape, putting it into its demographic, economic and political context. It gives a basic overview of the country’s media structure, including details on media markets; media regulation and regulatory authorities; and journalism culture." (Pa
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