Book Review: Central and Eastern European Media in Comparative Perspective: Politics, Economy and Culture, by John Downey and Sabina Mihelj

Abstract

Central and Eastern European Media in Comparative Perspective: Politics, Economy and Culture. John Downey and Sabina Mihelj, eds. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2012. 199 pp. $95 hbk.Reviewed by: Anthony Moretti, Robert Morris University, Moon Township, PA, USA DOI: 10.1177/1077699013506348This book demands the attention of scholars or anyone interested in understanding the ongoing development of print and television media in Russia and multiple nations in the region. In short, it challenges assumptions that people in the West (might) have about the operation of privately owned and public-sector media in Central and Eastern Europe. Perhaps the worst assumption is that all Central and Eastern European media are homogeneous, no matter the country in which they disseminate news, entertain- ment, and other programming. Such thinking could be a relic of the Cold War in which a monolithic image of the region was ingrained in the minds of Americans and others who lived in the West.The text is edited by John Downey, a reader in comparative media in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, and Sabina Mihelj, a senior lecturer in media, communication, and culture at Loughborough University. It includes seven essays examining the political, economic, and cultural forces that influence the content, ownership, and audience preferences in this part of the world.When examining politics, the book argues that as more pressure is applied by domestic political agencies, the less likely the media system will be free (based on the Western interpretation of that word as it relates to media). No surprise there; Russia is the most obvious example of this. But what the book also demonstrates is that while the European Union (EU)-an external agency-succeeded in some cases in institut- ing media policies in many of these former Soviet bloc states consistent with EU practices, the United also has been successful in guiding nations toward its media practices. The EU attempted to link mimicking of its media policies (i.e., strong public-service broadcasters and subsidies for independent and national production, p. 152) to interested in gaining EU membership. But that linkage often has not held. Alison Harcourt, of the University of Exeter, writes, States in the region adopted European policy models on paper but they have not worked well in practice. Hence, although the European model seems to have prevailed over the US model, in practice, a more liberal market has emerged (p. 145).Karol Jakubowicz, a former journalist and educator and now the chairman of the National Broadcasting Council in his native Poland, divides the in the region into democratic (Croatia is among them), semidemocratic to semiauthoritarian (Russia is among them), and authoritarian (Belarus is among them). He states, Indeed, media freedom and independence is higher in the democratic and progressively lower in semi-democratic and semi-authoritarian and authoritarian countries (p. …