This thesis explores the development of the media in transitional democratic Cambodia. It looks at how the media landscape has changed over the last 20 years (what has been the successes and failures and what are the ongoing challenges); the roles of the various stakeholders critical to the development of the media (government, media themselves and development partners); and it assesses five areas critical to the establishment of an independent and sustainable media: the space for free expression, media professionalism, plurality, business management and supporting institutions. In doing so, the link between a public sphere and good governance is emphasised, the important role of the media in state reconstruction reinforced, and the western neoliberal agenda critically explored with a view to how it may be influencing current-day Cambodian political ideology and development.

The media have power: they create frames of conceptions, influence attitudes and behaviour, and monitor the conduct of government officials. For women, the media can suggest ways and means to defend civil rights and gain access to society’s resources and opportunities. Indeed, Media Development offers three levels of interventions to promote gender equality. (1) Increasing female number and roles in the media labour markets. (2) Promoting the production and circulation of content that challenge stereotypical portrayals of women and men. (3) Addressing the entire society to raise awareness and commitment for equal contributions in sustainable development. However, even though media development efforts have been popular during the last two decades in the global South (UNESCO), the Arab region is ranked the lowest in the world for achieving gender equality (CRS, 2020).  This project aims to investigate the role of media development to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment through a case study of two gender strategies driven by two main models of media development (Scott, 2014; Manyozo, 2012), in the Arab region. One is led by external interventions, the other is supported by domestic authorities and local governments. The time period of the research is limited to the last decade, which has seen radical changes in terms of women’s participation in the public sphere.  The findings are based on 10 in-depth interviews with media professionals directly involved in these strategies across different Arab countries, from Algeria, Iraq, and Palestine, to the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Despite the differences between the strategies in terms of political affiliations and territories of interest, the interviews show that gender (in)equality in the media is not a phenomenon isolated from people’s daily lives. Correspondingly, women’s empowerment is the result of different power struggles in society in which media development could potentially make a real difference if based on gendered pluralistic participatory approaches, which include the internal and external environments of media organisations, as well as all actors of society’s systems and structures.

The Master thesis focuses itself on establishment and development of free press and other media in Albania during the period since the fall of communism till today. Along with the gradual losing of power of communist regime since 1990 that culminated in 1992 by the establishment of democratic government, new era of Albanian media started, an era filled by dynamic changes and twists that have impact on the media up to these days. The aim of the author is to describe this development and to assess how Albanian media faced it and thus influenced current shape and functioning of the media market. Apart from describing the media scene in the 1990s and 2000s, specifically the establishment and development of main Albanian media as well as political and economic situation of the country, the main goal of the thesis lies in assessing the degree of independence of current Albanian press and describing of work conditions of local journalists. The main source to do that were the interviews conducted with Albanian journalists commenting mainly the issues of freedom of speech and press in their own country as well as conditions of their everyday work and thus revealing functioning of media and other sectors in this Balkan country.

<p>In a Swedish setting an audience orientation is applied to investigate public service TV in the ongoing development of terrestrial digital television. Focus is on institutionalized politics and public service TV companies Sveriges Television (Swedish Television) and Utbildningsradion (Education Radio). In a case study through a multitude of material, emphasizing policy documents and interviews but also including media coverage, it is explored how and why the audience is involved in public service digital TV development. Is it an operation in the public interest, and what does this mean for public service as a media policy principle? The empirical result indicates a complex and problematic audience, which is not constantly prioritized but always present. The audience legacy is threatened in public service TV by a consumer orientation. Concluding implications are on the one hand that feedback from the audience can not only be based in ratings and market analysis. On the other hand there is a need for an attitude towards public service legitimacy as utopian realism.</p>

In a Swedish setting an audience orientation is applied to investigate public service TV in the ongoing development of terrestrial digital television. Focus is on institutionalized politics and public service TV companies Sveriges Television (Swedish Television) and Utbildningsradion (Education Radio). In a case study through a multitude of material, emphasizing policy documents and interviews but also including media coverage, it is explored how and why the audience is involved in public service digital TV development. Is it an operation in the public interest, and what does this mean for public service as a media policy principle? The empirical result indicates a complex and problematic audience, which is not constantly prioritized but always present. The audience legacy is threatened in public service TV by a consumer orientation. Concluding implications are on the one hand that feedback from the audience can not only be based in ratings and market analysis. On the other hand there is a need for an attitude towards public service legitimacy as utopian realism.

The diploma thesis "The media landscape in Spain" aims to describe the contemporary Spanish media scene and apply the basic characteristics and particularities of the "polarized pluralist model" media system which was described by Hallin and Mancini in their book Comparing Media Systems and whose features are also allocated to other South European countries (Italy, Portugal, Greece and marginally also France) in addition to Spain. The description of the press and audiovisual media market itself is preceded by three extensive chapters dealing with press media development in Spain from its beginnings in the 17th century until today, media legislation and the concentration of media ownership. It was the development of the press (and, in the 20th century, the development of audiovisual media) which, due to its exceptionally close ties to politics, determined the shape of the contemporary Spanish media landscape, which is why the thesis focuses primarily on this topic. The historical and political development of the country and constantly changing systems of government led to frequent changes in law (press laws in particular), which makes Spain very different from other European countries in this aspect. The chapters dealing with the press and audiovisual media market refer to the weak tradition of...

This thesis discusses the development of the Czech media market after 1989 in context of political economy of the media. Its author observes the main trends in development of the commercial media market - especially print media market - in the Czech Republic and abroad, as these trends had a crucial influence on the development of Czech media after disruption of the Soviet Bloc and when the democratic and market environment has been established. Besides that, the work searches for the particular economic aspects of the media market defined by the leading critics in the media research sphere and, at the same time it tries to apply them on the Czech print media market. All of these findings are summarized into hypothesis at the last chapter, which are tested by quantitative media content analysis and columns and supplements analysis on the sample of Czech dailies. The results confirm the aspects of this influence and brings a new subjects to the further research which could describe a particular examples of influence of commercial sphere on media more in depth. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This dissertation examines nonprofit, co-operative, and volunteer media enterprises operating outside Saskatchewan’s state and commercial media sectors. Drawing on historical research and contemporary case studies, I take the position that this third sector of media activity has played, and continues to play, a much-needed role in engaging marginalized voices in social discourse, encouraging participation in community-building and local governance, fostering local-global connectedness, and holding power to account when the rights and interests of citizens are jeopardized. The cases studied reveal a surprising level of resiliency among third sector media enterprises; however, the research also finds that the challenges facing third sector media practitioners have deepened considerably in recent decades, testing this resiliency. A rapid withdrawal of media development support from the public sphere has left Saskatchewan’s third sector media at a crossroads. The degree of the problem is largely unknown outside media practitioner circles, even among civil society allies. I argue this relates to the lack of recognition of nonprofit, co-operative, and volunteer media as a distinct third sector, thus obscuring the global impact when hundreds of small undertakings shed staff and reduce operations in multiple locations across Canada. At the same time, there is increasing recognition that such media have the potential to fill a void left by commercial and state media organizations that have retreated from local communities. Accordingly, this dissertation makes the case for a coordinated media development strategy as a component of the social economy. The challenge is to build useful mechanisms of support among civil society allies that do not replicate oppressive donor-client relationships that are all too common in the arena of governmental and private sector support. While never simple, the opportunities and social benefits are considerable when citizens devise the means to participate in the creation of a robust, diverse media ecology.

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