The Winding Road on the Media Landscape

Abstract

This article aims to explore the ways in which Estonian broadcasting (with a focus on television) tackled the challenges of transforming from a monopolistic party propaganda machine into a modern dual media system in which public service broadcasting and newly created private enterprises coexist; and how this process evolved in a small post-communist country. This article argues that the Estonian government’s ‘idealisation’ of market forces supported by the European Union media policy, which is driven by common market ideology, did not take into account the market’s limitations and media companies’ actual capability to provide a large range of media services. The research methodology is based on an analysis of EU media policy documents, Estonian media legislation, the protocols of the Cultural Affairs Committee of the Parliament of Estonia, protocols of the broadcasters’ licensing committee at the Ministry of Culture and the broadcasters’ annual reports from the period 1992 - 2015. The article analyses the key trends in Estonian media development and policymaking during the last 25 years.