The book depicts and reflects the media change by concentrating on five main topics: the development of the media market, the relationship between media and politics, the establishment of public broadcasters, the status of the journalistic profession and the role of digitalisation and the internet. The publication provides a chronological background and outlines the characteristics of the media landscape in each of the ten countries monitored by the KAS Media Programme: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Romania and Serbia.

Furthermore, the authors - media experts from the respective countries - address the following key questions, considering the fact that some countries have already joined the European Union: What is the state of the media today? What is their contribution to democracy, how viable are they, what has been achieved? - Important questions for all media experts in the region, but also for everyone who is interested in the media change in South East Europe.

“The result is a broad historical overview that impressively documents how differentiated and how fast the change has taken place. It is closely linked to the social transformation process as a whole, which has not yet been completed in any of the countries.”, says Hendrik Sittig, Head of the Media Programme South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. “Moreover, it must unfortunately be said that the hope that accession to the European Union would be accompanied by rapid alignment with the other EU countries has not been fulfilled.”

Thirty years have passed since the fall of the socialist regimes in the region. From a historical point of view, this is a period that offers a lot of material and perspectives for a scientific observation of the media development in South East Europe, but also enables an exact description of the effects on the media industry in this time.

The book is available as a free e-book here.

We would gladly send you a printed copy. Please send us an email to: media.europe@kas.de