Central European Journal of Communication

Media Capture in the Post-Truth Era: media freedom is a function of the quality of democracy

Bissera Zankova — 2024-08-06

Where do Dangers to Modern Media Come from? “Captured Media: Exploring Media Systems in and after Transitions”

Bissera Zankova — 2024-08-06

The Capture Effect: How Media Capture Affects Journalists, Markets and Audiences

Marius Dragomir — 2024-08-06

As the literature aimed at defining and explaining media capture has grown in recent years so has the interest in documenting the impact of capture in greater depth. There is still a relatively wide gap between the literature focused on defining and describing the concept, which is rich and increasingly sophisticated, and the body of research aimed at measuring the impact of capture, which now consists of a collection of disparate analytical papers primarily focused on case studies. This paper aims to contribute to this second body of knowledge: building on existing research, it looks to identify the changes that media capture leads to in three key areas: journalism (with a focus on the impact of capture on professional standards and the performance of journalists), market (with a focus on the effects of capture on free competition, market health and viability of investments), and audience (analysing the content limitations that audiences are faced with in environments where propaganda media is dominant).

Bulgarian Media Since 1989: From Instrumentalization to Capture

Ivo Indzhov — 2024-08-06

In the second decade of the 21st century, Bulgaria earned the unsavory reputation of having the least media freedom in the EU’s (Reporters Without Borders). This paper examines the current state of Bulgarian media based on two research concepts: for instrumentalization, respectively the capture of media. The latter, especially when talking about the specifics and consequences of political-oligarchic pressure on media, is more appropriate for countries with serious deficits in their democratic development. The main purpose of the paper is to study media capture in Bulgaria at a structural level: regulatory capture, control of public service media, use of state financing as a control tool, ownership takeover (based on concepts by Dragomir, 2019, IPI, n. D.), including appropriate cases. The analysis makes use of material from to scientific articles, media publications, other publicly available sources, expert interviews.

Media Capture and Perspectives for Media Development in a Fragile Media System

Johanna Mack — 2024-08-06

Guinea‑Bissau’s media have negotiated their roles and freedoms within the postcolonial national construct since its official independence from Portugal in 1974. While the current media landscape is relatively pluralistic, journalists experience constraints from various sides: political pressures, unaccommodating regulations, lack of resources. The concept of media capture (Mungiu‑Pippidi & Ghinea, 2012; Mabweazara et al., 2020; Schiffrin, 2021) allows the analysis of complex, subtle and structural constraints limiting media’s ability to fulfil their roles. This paper traces the phenomenon on the macro level (context), meso level (organizations) and micro level (journalists) in Guinea‑Bissau to interrogate how the concept plays out in a context shaped by fragility. The article draws on a literature review, official documents and semi‑structured interviews. Following Dugmore’s (2022) idea of precarity as an endogenous condition in many Sub‑Saharan contexts, this paper argues that capture is engrained in a fragile system rather than being an exception or disruption. This has implications for international media development action, which can be hindered by or become a part of the capture.

Captured by Elites: The Portuguese Media System in Liberalism (1820–1926)

Isadora de Ataíde Fonseca — 2024-08-06

This article argues that the concept of ‘captured media’ is invaluable to a deeper understanding of the roles performed by media systems throughout European liberalism and early democratization of nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This case-study explores the structures of the media system during Portuguese Liberalism (1820–1926) in the scope of the Portuguese empire. The concept of the ‘Imperial Public Sphere’ is applied to show how imperial and colonial elites captured the media system to exercise and spread its political and ideological power. As a methodological approach to analyze the roles performed by press, the case-study relies on the model developed by Hallin and Mancini (2004), which is applied to three empirical cases. The use of the concept ‘captured media’ in the field of media history is a contribution to understanding the political roots of the press during colonialism and its legacy to contemporary media systems in Lusophone countries.

Media Capture Theory: A Paradigm Shift?

Péter Bajomi-Lázár — 2024-08-06

This paper consists of three parts. First, it suggests that a paradigm shift has taken place in political communication, as the advent of social media allows political elites to assert and frame their agendas in more efficient and economical ways than the capture of legacy media. In consequence, a paradigm shift is taking place in media studies as well: because traditional media capture theory does no longer fully account for contemporary media/politics interactions, media systems scholars now study the effects of disintermediation on media and political landscapes. Then this paper returns to traditional media capture theory and discusses some definitional issues. Finally, it recalls how party colonization of the media, a version of media capture theory, accounted for the deficit of media freedom in the former communist countries a decade ago.

Patronage Media in Post-Communist Mongolia

Undrah Baasanjav — 2024-08-06

We provide a historically informed analysis of the media in post-communist Mongolia thirty years after the transition. In 1990, Mongolia chose a peaceful transition towards liberal democracy following the seventy years of the communist regime. Our analysis first establishes that amid the challenges and changes since the new constitution was adopted, a plural and commercial media system has undeniably been established. However, only a few established themselves as independent media with editorial, business, and ethical norms. While the plurality of media outlets created a media landscape aberrant from the socialist-time propagandistic media, the media market failures, along with rudimentary legal and professional institutions, contributed to the media instrumentalization and media capture in Mongolia.

Can Social Media Expand Public Discourse in a ‘Captured’ Mediascape?

Michael Nevradakis — 2024-08-06

The Greek public sphere has historically been regarded by scholars as not having developed as robustly as in the West. Instead, it is dominated by patronage, clientelism, and an ‘iron triangle’ between the government, media, and influential oligarchs, shutting ordinary citizens and independent media out of public discourse. Amid the economic crisis of the 2010s and along with an institutional credibility crisis, many new political and media-related initiatives were launched, all heavily relying on and utilizing social media. To what extent did they demonstrate longevity and help expand the Greek public sphere? Based on interviews from two case studies of the Independent Greeks political party and the enikos.gr news portal-blog, the results show the initiatives were ephemeral or were ‘captured’ by incumbent institutions. Accordingly, the institutional credibility crisis in Greece persists. The results contribute to an understanding of how ‘alternative,’ non-traditional and crisis-related media and political initiatives can become subject to the same forces of capture as traditional institutions.

Media Capture and Transitional Settings: Towards Theoretical and Empirical Developments

Mireya Márquez Ramírez — 2024-08-06

Introduction to the special issue of "Central European Journal of Communication" on captured media.