Monitoring Media Pluralism in the Digital Era

MONITORING MEDIA PLURALISM IN THE DIGITAL ERA Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor in the European Union, Albania, Montenegro, Republic of North Macedonia, Serbia & Turkey in the year 2020 Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom Authors Konrad Bleyer-Simon, Elda Brogi, Roberta Carlini, Iva Nenadic, Marie Palmer, Pier Luigi Parcu, Sofia Verza, Mario Viola de Azevedo Cunha, Mária Žuffová Research Project Report © European University Institute, 2021 Editorial matter and selection © Konrad Bleyer-Simon, Elda Brogi, Roberta Carlini, Iva Nenadic, Marie Palmer, Pier Luigi Parcu, Sofia Verza, Mario Viola de Azevedo Cunha, Mária Žuffová, 2021 Chapters © authors individually 2021. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) Inter- national license which governs the terms of access and reuse for this work. If cited or quoted, reference should be made to the full name of the author(s), editor(s), the title, the series and number, the year and the publisher. Views expressed in this publication reflect the opinion of individual authors and not those of the European University Institute. Published by European University Institute (EUI) Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy doi:10.2870/251987 ISBN:978-92-9466-081-7 QM-09-21-298-EN-N The European Commission supports the EUI through the EU budget. This publication reflects the views only of the author(s) and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. TABLE OF CONTENT 1. Executive Summary Fundamental Protection 1 Market Plurality 4 Political Independence 5 Social Inclusiveness 7 2. Introduction 3. Analysis 3.1 Fundamental protection 17 3.2 Market Plurality 42 3.3 Political Independence 67 3.4 Social inclusiveness 89 4. Media Pluralism in a digital environment 4.1. Fundamental Protection - digital 106 4.2. Market plurality - digital 112 4.3. Political Independence - digital 119 4.4. Social Inclusiveness - digital 127 5. Methodology 5.1 Research design 133 5.2 Research and fine-tuning of the questionnaire 134 5.3 MPM 2021 structure and calibration 138 5.4 Assessing the risk of lack of data 139 5.6 Data collection and research network 142 6. Conclusions and recommendations Fundamental protection 146 Market Plurality 149 Political Independence 153 Social Inclusiveness 156 References 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Pluralism of the media constitutes one of the essential pillars of democracy. Freedom of expression and freedom and pluralism of the media are enshrined in the Charter of Fun- damental Rights of the European Union (Article 11), and their protection is underpinned by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This report presents the results and the methodology of the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM2021). This is a tool that is geared to assess the risks to media pluralism in EU member states and in candidate countries (32 countries in total). The Media Pluralism Monitor has been implement- ed, on a regular basis, by the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, since 2013/2014 (last implementation MPM2020), and it is based on a holistic perspective, taking into account legal, political and economic variables that are relevant to analys- ing the levels of plurality of media systems in a democratic society. This implementation covers the year 2020. As mentioned above, this edition of the MPM covers 32 countries. It is relevant to acknowledge, as it is also important to interpret the results of this round of the implementation of the tool, that the analysis this year does not cover the United Kingdom (MPM2020 included the UK too) and covers 5 candidate countries (MPM2020 covered 2 candidate countries). Fundamental Protection 1 Robert Schuman Centre, EUI Executive Summary The Fundamental Protection area of the MPM considers the necessary preconditions for media pluralism and freedom, namely, the existence of effective regulatory safeguards to protect the freedom of expression and the right to seek, receive and impart information; favourable conditions for the free and independent conduct of journalistic work; independent and effective media authorities; and the universal reach of both traditional media and access to the Internet. Similarly, as in the previous round of the MPM, the Fundamental Protection area also focuses on the challenges posed by the online environment to the plurality of the media landscape. It therefore assesses the protection of freedom of expression online, data protection online, the safety of journalists online, levels of Internet connectivity, and the implementation of European net neutrality obliga- tions. In the MPM2021, the narrow majority of the countries analysed scored a low risk in relation to the Fundamental Protection area: 17 of the 32 countries assessed scored as a low risk (namely, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Republic of North Macedonia, Slovakia, and Sweden). Fourteen countries scored as a medium risk (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Mon- tenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain), and one country scored as a high risk (Turkey, as was the case in the previous MPM round). The assessment on Fundamental Protection shows a deteriorating situation in compar- ison with MPM2020 in three of the five indicators, in particular, the indicators on Protec- tion of freedom of expression, Protection of the right to information and Journalistic profession, standards and protection. This negative shift can be explained by the governments’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the MPM2021 country reports (Bátorfy & Szabó, 2021; Milutinovic, 2021; Popescu et al., 2021; Spassov et al., 2021) have concluded that governments adopted legal and regulatory measures to prevent spreading false or distorted pandemic-related information in the traditional and/or digital media, which, however, may have long-term implications for freedom of expression and the right of access to information, and, ultimately, to the ability of journalists to fulfil their monitorial role. As Radu (2020) has argued, once these measures are adopted, revoking them may become challenging, and they may stay in place for much longer than had ini- tially been intended, renegotiating the balance between freedom of expression and cen- sorship or access to information and government secrecy. The COVID-19 pandemic has also substantially affected the working conditions of journalists (including their physical safety and social security), which has been translated into an increase in risk of seven percentage points, in the indicator on the Journalistic profession, standards and protection, if compared to the previous round of the MPM. The majority of the assessed countries (19 of 32) scored as a medium risk. While 2020 was a year in which no journalist was murdered in the EU member and candidate countries, the numbers of threats to their physical and online safety have been on the rise. Several MPM2021 country reports have mentioned the occurrence of physical attacks on journalists. These were related either to investigative reporting on corruption in the respec- tive countries (Spassov et al., 2021), or happened while journalists were covering mass protests (Klimkiewicz, 2021; Spassov et al., 2021). The violence during protests not only came from the protesters but, in some cases, it was accompanied by violence from the police forces (Rebillard & Sklower, 2021). In line with the available academic and policy 2 Monitoring Media Pluralism in the Digital Era Executive Summary research on the safety of journalists (Trionfi & Luque, 2019), the attacks on journalists who cover polarising issues, e.g., those that are related to ethnic or religious issues (Bilić et al., 2021; Popescu et al., 2021), were at a greater risk of threats. The attacks on journalists that arise from political actors have become common in many EU and candidate countries. Given that one of their roles, as policymakers, is to contribute to creating favourable conditions for the free and independent conduct of journalistic work, and they should thus lead in recognising and acknowledging the role of the free press for democratic societies, this trend is very disturbing. The attacks from political actors include an- ti-press (often vulgar and threatening) rhetoric, but also lawsuits, in particular, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), which are set out with little or no chance of success, and which usually ask for a disproportionate amount of damages. Threats to journalists have come from the online environment too. Online harassment and threats, especially against women journalists; legal provisions allowing national security services to collect internet and telephone data from citizens in bulk, as a result of the purposes of investigation and surveillance, have been reported in some countries’ reports. While the risk has increased for the above three indicators, it has dropped for the remain- ing indicators in this area, in particular, for the indicator on the Independence and effec- tiveness of the media authority (from 24% to 23%) and the Universal reach of traditional media and access to the Internet (from 39% to 33%), which both scored as a low risk, on average. As in previous rounds of the MPM implementation, Turkey is the only country that scores as a high risk in Fundamental Protection, confirming a trend to deterioration in the protection of fundamental rights and values. Of particular concern is the still high number of imprisoned journalists in the country, coupled with a lack of independence among the judiciary, and abusive use of the criminal justice system, in particular, when it comes to limiting freedom of expression. The trend to the prosecution of writers, journalists and social media users for insulting President Erdogan has grown. Journalists have exten- sively been prosecuted and imprisoned on charges of terrorism, insulting public officials, and/or committing crimes against the State.

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