Post-Communism and the Media in Eastern Europe by Patrick H. O'Neil

Author:Patrick H. O'Neil [O'Neil, Patrick H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780714647654
Google: GO-5wAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 2092423
Publisher: F. Cass
Published: 1997-01-15T12:41:22+00:00

* It should be noted that Slovak Television was eastablished as a legal entity in spring 1991. Until then there were two national channels only (except for the channel which broadcast Soviet television).

Pluralization and the Politics of Media Change in Hungary

ANDRÁS LÁNCZI AND PATRICK H. O’NEIL

András Lánczi is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the Budapest University of Economics; Patrick H. O’Neil is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics and Government at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington.

In Hungary, under the relatively benign rule of János Kádár’s ‘goulash communism’, the media were less rigidly controlled than elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe, permitting broader scope for debate. This affected the transition, in which some media spontaneously privatized themselves, with the involvement of foreign media conglomerates. By 1994, however, the government regained control over several important publications and otherwise fostered a more conservative press. The electronic media meanwhile remained overwhelmingly in state hands, and open conflict flared in 1992. The media became the focus of political battles, involving parliament, government, the constitutional court and the president, and purges of journalists and officials in the media led to assertions that little had changed since the communist regime. The question is whether control of the media will remain a spoil of election victory, or new legislation will establish a non-partisan framework for the future.

With the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe one of the major struggles which has emerged is that between new political and economic relations and the legacies of state power. Under the old order, these spheres of power were merged into a single ruling entity, a party-state whose prime function was not simply to rule, but also to prevent the emergence of civil opposition at any level. Yet in the move to democracy, civil society and a free market, the disentanglement of these spheres of power has shown to be no easy task. The creation of independent loci of influence and rights – the dispersal of concentrated power – is difficult not only in practical terms, but also in the temptations that such powers create for political actors in the post-communist era. The old tools of hegemony can be utilized in the pursuit of the ‘good’, however that is defined by new political elites – the purging of state institutions, the elimination of rivals, the reinforcement of certain values at the expense of others, for instance.

While numerous institutional remnants of the old order can be seen in these terms, one that has attracted particular attention in this regard has been the press and broadcast media (from here on the term ‘media’ alone will be used to refer to both the press and broadcast media). Newspapers, magazines, radio and television served as the central information and propaganda organs of the party-state, controlling and attempting to mould information in such a manner as to reinforce political control. But the end of communist rule did not mean the dissolution of media institutions themselves; these structures remained intact, part and parcel of the state order.

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