The Media for Democracy Monitor 2021: How Leading News Media Survive Digital Transformation (Volume 2)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
How Leading News Media Survive Digital Transformation THE MEDIA FOR DEMOCRACY MONITOR 2021 THE MEDIA FOR DEMOCRACY MONITOR 2021 To what extent do structures and conduct of leading news media correspond with require- ments of contemporary democracies? Based on a root concept of democracy and several THE MEDIA FOR empirical indicators, the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) delivers a panorama of the news media’s performance regarding freedom, equality, and control across several countries. In 2011, the MDM analysed 10 democracies. Ten years later, it covers 18 countries DEMOCRACY worldwide and pinpoints essential strengths and weaknesses during this decade of digital- isation. Around the globe, news are highly attractive to users, and the journalistic ethos of watchdogs and investigators is paramount. On the downside, journalistic job security eroded MONITOR 2021 over time, and gender gaps both in content and employment patterns remain strikingly excessive in most countries. HOW LEADING NEWS MEDIA SURVIVE Volume one contains countries present in the 2011 MDM edition, allowing for longitudi- nal comparative analysis: Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Volume two contains all countries analysed for the first time in 2021: Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Chile, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, and South Korea. 2 2 Edited by The MDM is a research project by the Euromedia Research Group (EMRG), a network of researchers concerned with media structure and media policy in Europe and beyond. JOSEF TRAPPEL & TALES TOMAZ JOSEF TRAPPEL & TALES Nordicom is a centre for Nordic media research at the University of Gothenburg, Nordicom is a centresupported for by Nordic the Nordic media Council research of Ministers. at the University of Gothenburg, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The book has been published with ISBNsupport 978-91-88855-41-1 from the University of Navarra. NORDICOM NORDICOM EDITED BY JOSEF TRAPPEL & TALES TOMAZ 9 789188 855411 > Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 713, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden www.nordicom.gu.se Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 713, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden www.nordicom.gu.se The Media for Democracy Monitor 2021 Vol. 2 THE MEDIA FOR DEMOCRACY MONITOR 2021 HOW LEADING NEWS MEDIA SURVIVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 2 NORDICOM EDITED BY JOSEF TRAPPEL & TALES TOMAZ The Media for Democracy Monitor 2021 How Leading News Media Survive Digital Transformation (Vol. 2) Josef Trappel & Tales Tomaz (Eds.) ISBN 978-91-88855-41-1 (print) ISBN 978-91-88855-42-8 (pdf) DOI: https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855428 © 2021 Nordicom and respective authors. This is an Open Access work licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The publication is also available as Open Access at www.nordicom.gu.se Published by: Nordicom University of Gothenburg Box 713 SE 405 30 Göteborg Sweden Cover by: Per Nilsson Graphic designer: Henny Östlund Contents Chapter 1 Jonathan Hendrickx, Pauljan Truyens, Karen Donders, & Ike Picone Belgium (Flanders): News diversity put under pressure 7 Chapter 2 Gregory Taylor & Brooks DeCillia Canada: A strong foundation with an uncertain future 43 Chapter 3 Enrique Núñez-Mussa Chile: Crisis of trust and a precarious industry 85 Chapter 4 Mark Blach-Ørsten, Rasmus Burkal, Eva Mayerhöffer, & Ida Willig Denmark: High media independence and informal democratic traditions in the newsroom 147 Chapter 5 Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, Achilleas Karadimitriou, Christos Kostopoulos, & Ioanna Archontaki Greece: Media concentration and independent journalism between austerity and digital disruption 177 Chapter 6 Lo Wai Han & Wong Tin Chi Hong Kong: Free press under existential threat 231 Chapter 7 Valgerður Jóhannsdóttir, Jón Gunnar Ólafsson, & Friðrik Þór Guðmundsson Iceland: A small media system facing increasing challenges 275 Chapter 8 Claudia Padovani, Giuliano Bobba, Alice Baroni, Marinella Belluati, Cecilia Biancalana, Mauro Bomba, Alice Fubini, Francesco Marrazzo, Rossella Rega, Christian Ruggiero, Simone Sallusti, Sergio Splendore, & Michele Valente Italy: A highly regulated system in search of equality 315 Chapter 9 Eun-mee Kim & Jae-woo Lee South Korea: Relatively healthy, still trying hard to adapt to digitalisation 387 Chapter 10 Josef Trappel & Tales Tomaz Solid performance, but democratic deficits remain Conclusions 425 Chapter 1 Belgium (Flanders) News diversity put under pressure Jonathan Hendrickx, Pauljan Truyens, Karen Donders, & Ike Picone Introduction Flanders is part of the small European country Belgium, which is located adjacent to the North Sea with Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg as neighbouring countries. Belgium has 11.5 million inhabitants, and the country is divided into three regions: the Brussels Capital region (1.2 million inhabitants), Wallonia (3.6 million inhabitants), and Flanders (with 6.6 million inhabitants – the most populated region of Belgium). After World War II, Flanders was for a long time governed by the tradi- tional parties: the socialists (SP.A), the Christian-democrats (CD&V), and the liberal party (VLD). Since the 1990s, however, these parties started to lose the popular vote. The extreme right-wing party Vlaams Belang increased its political relevance up to roughly 20–25 per cent of the votes, with intermittent electoral downfalls; however, it has never been in government. The Flemish nationalist party (N-VA), which argues for an independent Flanders with an economically right-wing programme, has become the region’s biggest political party in the past decade. Since the latest elections in May 2019, the political parties have not yet come to an agreement for forming a Federal government. The Flemish government was formed in October 2019, following a coalition between the N-VA, CD&V and Open VLD. Politically, Belgium is considered a constitutional parliamentary monarchy with different competencies given to the federal and regional governments. Freedom in the World 2021: status “free” (Score: 96/100, up from 95 in 2018). Belgium is a stable electoral democracy with a long record of peaceful transfers of power. Political rights and civil liberties are legally guaranteed and largely respected. Major concerns in recent years have included the threat of terrorism, Hendrickx, J., Truyens, P., Donders, K., & Picone, I. (2021). Belgium (Flanders): News diversity put under pressure. In J. Trappel, & T. Tomaz (Eds.), The media for democracy monitor 2021: How leading news media survive digital transformation (Vol. 2) (pp. 7–42). Nordicom, 7 University of Gothenburg. https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855428-1 JONATHAN HENDRICKX, PAULJAN TRUYENS, KAREN DONDERS, & IKE PICONE and corruption scandals that have unsettled the country’s complex institutional setting and political landscape. (Freedom House, 2021) Liberal Democracy Index 2020: Belgium is placed in the Top 10% bracket (rank 11 of measured countries), down from 6 in 2019 (Varieties of Democracy Institute, 2020, 2021). Freedom of Expression Index 2018: rank 9 of measured countries, down from 3 in 2016 (Varieties of Democracy Institute, 2017, 2019). 2020 World Press Freedom Index: rank 12 of 180 countries, down from 9 in 2019 (Reporters Without Borders, 2020). Belgium consists of three linguistic communities: one French-speaking, one German-speaking, the other Dutch-speaking. Due to several state reforms, the community authorities were given more powers to regulate the radio and television broadcasting markets. Therefore, the communities have their own media law and media regulators. Distinct media markets exist also from an economic point of view, with media companies usually focusing on servicing one language community. With Belgium already being a rather small country, such a division of the media markets results in even smaller market units, especially compared with the neighbouring France and Germany, although scaling up does happen through both internal consolidation within the Flemish market and outside territorial borders. Five media companies dominate the Flemish media landscape. The Flemish Regulator of Media (Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media, VRM) asserts and con- cludes that the high level of concentration is deeply worrying (VRM, 2019a). A couple years ago, Flanders had nine media companies; however, after mergers and acquisitions, VRT, DPG Media, Mediahuis, Roularta Media Group, and De Vijver Media (part of Telenet) are the only five left. Consolidation in the media sector continues to raise concerns about pluralism and media freedom. It continues to be difficult to enter the Flemish media landscape as a new player and be relevant as well as profitable. The Flemish public broadcaster VRT is the market leader in free-to-air tele- vision and radio broadcasting. Its news programmes are also taking the lead in terms of reach, both for television and radio (although youngsters are more inclined to watch commercial television news). On both its main and secondary television channels (Één and Canvas), VRT provides a wide variety of news programmes, viewed by large sections of Flemish people. With five different FM radio stations, VRT tries to reach Flemings across all age groups and has a consolidated market share of approximately 60 per cent. The public broadcaster’s main competitor is DPG