Category Archives: Media Structure

“No Place for Censorship in Poland”

Posted on December 14, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Poland has fell in to the influence of Soviet Union after World War Two just as many other countries, and Polish people has experienced censorship in almost every aspect of their daily life. So Polish media has been censored for sure, such as newspaper and news; and the Communist party even restricted the autonomy of artists. What’s more, the movie making process is always involved with propaganda and censorship. Therefore, it is really surprising when heard that Polish people are satisfies about their media system at the moment. This shows that Poland has made a huge step in terms of freedom of speech after these years and they are putting efforts to make the country more liberal.

New culture minister in Poland Malgorzata Omilanowska addressed that “Freedom of artistic expression is the basis of democracy and the constitution. And these were not empty words” at the 20th competition for Contemporary polish Art Awards ceremony in Warsaw. He also said that “We must ensure that nobody raises a hand against the freedom of artists. This must be as clear as the sky on a clear day.” She encourages the artists to use their imagination and express whatever they want to say in the artwork. On the other hand, she encourages the audience to appreciate the artwork with their own mind, and then share and discuss with other people.

 This two made a big comparison. Poland used to be a country full of censorship before, and the media just served as a tool for the government to disseminate the information to the public. However, the new culture minister announced that freedom of expression should be praised in the country. As a new minister, she would not pick the controversial topics to address because that may raise the negative voices on her. But she chooses to encourage the freedom of speech, which means that both the government and public want freedom of speech. And Poland is on its way to media literacy.

reference:

http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/article.php?id=114&

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/175229,Culture-minister-No-place-for-censorship-in-Poland

 

 

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“The Ministry of Information Policy” in Ukraine

Posted on December 14, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Ukraine has appeared to be in the problem of media crisis these days. Not only for its fight with Russia, but also for what is happening inside the country. One of the solutions to these crises is the creation of Orwellian-sounding Ministry of Information Policy, which is run by a close ally of President Poroshenko’s close ally, and its main goal it to confronting Russia’s propaganda. What’s more, the Ministry of Information Policy might encourage the restriction of free speech and inhabitation of journalists work according to experts.

It seems that Ukraine is not doing anything good to the media industry in terms of the creation of Ministry of Information Policy, because this usually will discourage freedom of speech and might encourage the censorship in the country. However, things might be a little different here due to Russia’s negative influence on Ukraine recently. A top security official in Ukraine addressed that he supports the creation of the ministry and says “You must understand we are being killed by Russia guns as well as their propaganda.”

Besides, the public is not against this ministry neither, although there are some journalists worrying about the new potential for censorship. Here is a news took place on December 4, 2014. Ukraine activists dressed up as zombies and appear in front of the Ukrainian Broadcasting department as a protest. They asked for taking off the Russian television show from the television. Their protest did worked; Ukraine government has already banned some Russia channels from the cable networks.

If other country has established the Ministry of Information Policy, there will definitely be a tendency of more censorship; but in this case, Ukraine is in a totally different situation due to the intense relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine released this policy primarily to confronting Russia’s Propaganda. And it is really necessary at the moment. However, there is no doubt that this policy might be an obstacle on the way to free media in the future. So the government and public’s attitude toward this policy besides this relationship with Russia is the most important.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-04/ukraine-goes-full-orwell-unleashes-ministry-truth

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/04/zombies-ukraine-broadcasting-agency/19882467/

 

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Film Industry in Poland

Posted on December 12, 2014 by | Leave a comment

One of the primary functions of media is entertainment, and film is a popular entertainment in Poland. Although film is not the dominant media outlet in Poland, it is an important component of Polish’s life. There are famous Polish films like Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski and Joanna by Feliks Falk. Ida is the film Poland submitted to the 2015 Oscars in foreign language film category, and it talks about a girl, Anna, who is an orphan and she wants to meet her only living relative before getting married. And then her only relative tells her that she has Jewish roots. As a result, both women go on the journey not only to find their family’s tragedy, but to see who they really are and where they belong.

Ida sounds like an interesting film, but we seldom heard about polish films here in the United States, because they are actually a growing industry. Poland has established a non-profit organization called Film Commission Poland in 2012 in order both to improve recognition of Poland and its regions as stunning film locations and to put the potential of the Polish audiovisual sector to effective use. Its primary purpose is threefold: to coordinate the work of national and regional entities in attracting foreign film productions to Poland; to ensure a cohesive promotion of the audiovisual potential abroad; and to provide support for foreign productions made in the country. Film Commission Poland is also a part of the international film industry that it is an active member of the European Film Commission Network and the Association of Film Commissioners International. It also has corporation with the European Film Academy.

This organization can help the film industry in Poland to some extent. Because if you are a new filmmaker, it can help you with production, service providers and licenses permits; and if you are representing an area, it will help you attracting more chances to be on film. This organization links the film resources and the filmmaker together as a huge database in Poland to encourage the film industry as a whole.

Reference:

http://www.polishfilmla.org

http://filmcommissionpoland.pl/about-fcp/what-we-do/

 

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Level of Privatization

Posted on November 2, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Poland’s government does not predominantly own media. The government owns two of the four dominant television channels, and has a market share of 50%. However, it is public channels that are providing all political and social information to people in Poland, because private channels only offer western entertainment programs to audience in order to avoid controversial issues to keep audience and attract advertisers at the end. According to OBOP’s survey in 2002 and 2004, 75% people assess the public television well, and 73% assess the commercial television well, and even slightly more people trust public than private television. (Dziennikarstwo) For radio, four of the popular radio stations are all private, and the content they offer are basically music in order to attract audience and advertising, there are very few talk show programs in radio.

Level of privatization of radio and press is pretty low in Ukraine, according to Media Landscape, only one of six main press houses in owned by the government and all of the radio stations focuses on entertainment. However, among 7 main television companies, there is one that is owned by the government and it has coverage of 97%. Most companies are holding the attitude toward the government, except for foreign owned channels.

To sum up, although level of privatization is low in both countries, it is still the public companies that are providing the politics content. The private media companies do not want to provide content on controversial issues like culture, politics and social problems, because they are easy to raise conflict, and they might lose a group of audience on the opposite side. In Ukraine, although media companies are not owned by the government, the other business of these companies are depending on the government policy, so they need to show their positive attitude toward the government in order to please the authorities.

References

http://ejc.net/media_landscapes/Ukraine

http://www.rundfunk-institut.uni-koeln.de/institut/tagungen/2010-Cologne/Dutsyk_e.pdf

 

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Television – the key media outlet of Ukraine and Poland

Posted on November 2, 2014 by | 3 comments

Poland:

According to StarTrack survey on 2001, electronic media exposure takes up 92% of Polish people’s media exposure; television, radio and the Internet dominate the media market. Although there are different kinds of media outlets, television has the highest news coverage of the four, which makes it the key media outlet in Poland.

There are four television channels that cover 75%-80% of the market, in which

Television

Television

two of them are public and two of them are private. The two commercial TV channels are TVN and Polsat whose content are based on adaptations of western entertainment formats, such as reality shows, game shows talk shows, series and film. The two public media outlets are TVP1 and TVP2 who generates income partly from the subscription and partly from advertisers. The content they offer is based on politics, social issues, culture, sport and also entertainment and Polish feature films and series. There is a dualism in the television market in terms of public and private channels, but it is the public channels that are providing all of the serious news. As a result, government has control over the political and social issues as a whole.

Ukraine:        

There are four main media outlets in Ukraine, which are press, radio, television, and the Internet. However, television has the largest population of audience among the four.

The media companies in Ukraine is different compared it to other countries, media is not the main business for those companies, but refining, chemical, heavy machinery construction are. Therefore these companies would like to keep a good relationship with the government in order to make more profit, and use media as a tool to keep the relationships. Generally, there are seven major media groups in Ukraine, which are State Media, Valeriy Khoroshkovsky Group. Mediagroup U.A. Inter Media Group Limited, Viktor Pinchuk Group, Rinat Akhmetov Group, Ihor Kolomoysky Group, Vitaliy Hayduk Group and Serhiy Taruta’s «Evolution media», and KP Media. And each company owns several TV channels. Four of these companies shows loyalty toward the government and State Media, which is owned by the government, has the highest television market coverage of 97%, which shows that the censorship in Ukraine is pretty high.

Reference:

http://www.dziennikarstwo.uni.wroc.pl/_files/files_downloads/ifaStudy_Poland.pdf

http://www.rundfunk-institut.uni-koeln.de/institut/tagungen/2010-Cologne/Dutsyk_e.pdf

 

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