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[ecrea] NEW BOOK: Making Democracy in 20 Years. Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Sat Sep 17 18:51:05 GMT 2011



*Making Democracy in 20 Years. Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe*

Edited by: Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska and Michal Glowacki

(Wroclaw: University of Wroclaw Press)

The 1989 social and political transformation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe generated a significant number of changes, followed by a plethora of new problems, which are typical for young democracies. The communist policy of control and censorship was replaced by democratic institutions with the hope of supporting the development of the public sphere. However, as in many cases in Central and Eastern Europe, the practice has consistently proven that some of the mechanisms for creating civil society and independent media organisations have been misunderstood or simply neglected. Hence, among the questions are: How is democracy supported and what have been put in place to guarantee the successful development of democratic institutions? What is the role of the media and political actors in supporting the public sphere? What is the quality of democracy that Central and Eastern European countries can experience today? Is 20 years enough to reach the mature stage of its development? And last but not least, what still needs to be improved?

We believe that the multi-level analysis presented in this collection will go a long way to explaining significant differences and key characteristics of media–political relations in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Keeping in mind the expression used in the Preface by Jan Malinowski — Head of Information Society, Media and Data Protection Division, Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs at the Council of Europe — emphasising that “democracy is always in the making,” we hope that this collection will further stimulate a number of different studies which should be among the guiding principles when discussing the future development of democracy in the fast-changing information society.

Table of contents:

Editors’ introduction (Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska, Michal Glowacki)

Preface: Media and politics 20 years on (Jan Malinowski)

Democracy at 20? Many (un)happy returns (Karol Jakubowicz)

From movements to institutions? The twenty-year history of political parties in new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe (Piotr Sula)

Evolution of the local government electoral system in Poland (1990–2006) (Robert Alberski)

Creation of a coalition government policy in Slovakia (L’udmila Malikova)

Media and political relations in Slovakia (Andrej Skolkay)

Pressured media — two nations, different problems. Development of the media in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Branislav Ondrasik and Martin Skop)

Destructive influence of the government on the formation of the Slovak media system during the period of "Meciarism" (1993-1998) (Imrich Gazda, Albert Kulla)

What kind of collective memory does a democratic state need? A contribution to the analysis of identity discourse in Slovakia after 1989 (Radoslaw Zenderowski)

The impact of electoral designing. The case of the Czech, Slovak and Polish radical right political parties (Dominika Kasprowicz)

Trust and mistrust on “yellow brick road.” Political communication culture in post-communist Bulgaria (Alina Dobreva, Barbara Pfetsch, Katrin Voltmer)

Political parallelism or political bias? Consequences for the quality of democracy in Poland (Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska)

Radio landscape in Poland and the development of European radio broadcasting sector (Stanislaw Jedrzejewski)

Towards commercialisation and politicisation — Polish media and Polish journalism

20 years after socio-political change (Adam Szynol)

Between quality and tabloid press strategies: Czech journalism 20 years after the collapse of the centralised non-market media system (Jaromir Volek)

Czech media and their audiences after 1989 (Barbara Kopplova, Jan Jirak)

The tabloidisation of the Czech daily press (Tomas Trampota, Jakub Koncelik)

More information about the publication - please visit the official website of the University of Wroclaw Press:

http://www.wuwr.com.pl/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1169&category_id=29&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=4&lang=en <http://www.wuwr.com.pl/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1169&category_id=29&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=4&lang=en>


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