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

*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:

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