By Rrapo Zguri*
The transition of Albanian media toward free and independent media has been part and a reflection of the overall political-social transition of the country after the fall of communism and the establishment of political pluralism. At the start of the 1990s, pluralistic media emerged and developed more under the encouragement of political demand and only later they began to develop also as a result of social demand and market demand.
The first media outlets in transitioning Albania were founded by political parties. During this period, Albanian media tried to emancipate itself but it did not succeed to transform itself from a party institution to an independent institution. Only after 1994, media outlets owned by journalists, inclined to detach themselves from the influence of political parties and to stage strong opposition to power, began to emerge.
After 1998, under the influence of market demand, many representatives of large businesses entered the field of media ownership, thus marking the emergence of clientelistic media outlets; many of these owners created their media outlets to serve business interests and to strengthen their ties with politics in exchange for mutual interests. Following this long and winding transition, at present the Albanian media system appears relatively consolidated and, in many directions, displays similarity also with media systems in part of the western countries. According to analysis of this research of the three models presented by authors Hallin and Mancini, the model of Albanian media is more like the Politicized Pluralistic Model. During the transition years, Albania saw the establishment of a relatively complete legal framework for the protection and development of media freedom and independence.
However, in many cases, the legal framework was delayed or a mechanical transplant of western legislation. Enforcement of legislation remains a problem. In the framework of relations between the media and politics, both in the early transition phases and during recent years, there have been frequent efforts of political formations to ensure in a way control over the media through law as in the case of the Press Law or the case of legislation establishing the regulations for the election of the Steering Council of RTSH [public broadcaster] and AMA [Audiovisual Media Authority], which gives the opportunity to the political majority to decide on the composition of the steering bodies of these two institutions.
In terms of transparency over media ownership, Albania has made progress, but the concern is raised regarding the possibility of hidden ownership. Besides the ownership factor, their funding also has played a considerable role in the degree of dependence or independence of the media. In this regard, for many domestic analysts or international rapporteurs, the situation remains alarming. The EU Progress Report on Albania notes that media financing remains very problematic. There is almost no transparency and funding sources are manipulated or hidden. Similar to countries of the polarized pluralistic media model, in Albania too, professional organizations and the trade unions of journalists are generally weak. An indicator of the lack of organization of the media and the journalists’ community is also the fact that Albania, for a long period during the transition years, has not managed to have a Media Council, which exists in the majority of the region’s countries.
The inexistence or poor role of journalists’ associations has led to a poor level of self-regulation of media in the country. With regard to editorial autonomy, one can hardly find media owners who do not influence the editorial policy of the media outlets they own. Completely ignoring the media’s public function, media owners in Albania treat information as private property and not a publicly shared asset. As a continuation of the submission of media to their interests, owners and leading officials (who are often on the same side) build fictive employment relations with journalists in order to find it easier to dismiss them if the latter do not obey.
Poor implementation of the labor code, both for those working full-time and those working part-time remains a very disturbing issue. Many journalists work without employment contracts or have such contracts that may be arbitrarily interrupted. This has led to a situation in which many journalists submit to the owners’ interests and carry out their agendas, often exerting self-censorship in their work.
Pressure and lack of economic security have decreased journalists’ independence and, as a result, have influenced the decline in professional standards and bias in reporting. Furthermore, recent years have seen an increased mediatization of politics, displayed in the increase of media channels used by political parties and politicians and in the increased time or space reserved for politics in the mass communication means. Besides the process of mediatization of politics, we have seen a change in the conduct and rapport of media actors, especially owners, toward politics in general and government in particular, leading to a reconfiguration of the media approach to political sides and, in some cases, a change of their editorial policy.
The developments of the last four years indicate that we have arrived at a situation in which almost all the important media outlets, with rare exceptions, have lined up more or less on the side of power, thus harming their public mission in the name of business interests and increasingly abandoning the position the “fourth estate.”
There are authors who see a kind of “Putinization of media” in this this situation. Although evidences of direct government pressure on media to change their editorial policy are not reported, apparently the mentioned changes may have been in exchange for favors for the different businesses of the owners through a hidden clientelistic practice that occurs behind the scenes in relations between media owners and politics.
One of the characteristics of Albanian media is their high polarization and politicization. The merge of interests of powerful businesses, politics and media has not allowed the development of independent news entities. The majority of media outlets are seen as taking the side of the SP or DP. In recent times, it appears that polarization is assuming new forms. There is a shift from the rightwing vs. leftwing media polarization to government vs. opposition media. Also, many media outlets, including some of the main ones recently have abandoned political loyalty and are moving from a “honey moon” with the DP government to a “honey moon” with the SP government, adjusting their editorial course and policy with the course and policy of the political winner, simply and only to protect and advance their business interests.
This development is naturally graver and more consequential than constant and sustainable political polarization and parallelism and leads to a serious compromise of the role of the media and to devastation and elimination of public confidence in it.
This situation of media submission to the interests of business and politics has been exploited by the latter to increase the level of their instrumentalization for its own needs and goals, using particularly public relations channels. Research in the context of this study provides data that point to a high presence of news that simply “transcribe” PR office content. Political PR-based news are found in highest percentage in television compared to the press and online media. Drastic developments have been seen recently also with regard to “ready tapes.” From a phenomenon and problem of electoral campaign periods, “ready tapes” are now a permanent phenomenon and problem.
In the Albanian context, more than a mediatization of politics, “ready tapes” represent an instrumentalization of media by the PR offices of politics or state institutions, harming considerably their independence and integrity. With the massive spread of the internet and online communication, Politics 2.0 has expanded increasingly in Albania. This means the use of interactive online channels for political communication. The internet creates the possibility for political actors to enter into direct communication with audiences without the need for the mediation of traditional media. The latest and most sensational development in Albanian politics 2.0 was the opening in March 2017 of ERTV, a kind of web TV that carries the initials of the PM and SP chairman Edi Rama. Another way that challenges the mediation of traditional media is the replacement of press statements of politicians with statuses on individual or institutional profiles on Facebook or Twitter. The number of stories generated based on these statuses is on the rise, thus marking a kind of Facebook-ization of political reporting. The submissive position of Albanian traditional media to politics and the security gained through the capacities of cyber-politics has encouraged, time after time, a populistic discourse in the political communication of the Albanian Prime Minister, who is also the head of the SP.
Also, the above circumstances have encouraged the Albanian PM to throw the duel glove to media, declaring “open war” on them – a communication strategy also used by American President Donald Trump or other current global political leaders, especially for electoral effects. Naturally, the challenge to the media, circumventing or ignoring it and the “attack” for electoral purposes might produce momentary benefits for politics. Yet, from a long-term point of view, it cultivates a negative perception and a denying spirit for the media and journalists without distinction, leaving the public to be, on the one hand, prey to the increased number of fake news and manipulated social network information and, on the other, prey of the discourse of populistic politicians, which may produce a new authoritarianism with consequences for democracy. Through the increase of time or space of the media filled with political content, the media has contributed to a kind of “bombardment” of the public with politics. Thus, it has become almost normal for the country’s television stations, particularly the all-news stations, to broadcast live for hours in a row all the main political events as well as events that may not have had much public interest. Besides live broadcasts, we notice an increased presence of political news in television news editions or newspaper pages or portals.
Certainly, it would be natural for the percentage of political news to be very high if the media outlets were of a political profile, but all six media outlets monitored in the context of this research study have a generalist character and, in this regard, we may say that there is a high presence of political news, especially in newspapers and televisions. Besides the high level of presence of political news, Albanian media have also featured increasing opinionization, especially with regard to opinions about politics. Thus, while ten years ago, televisions had only 4 talk shows of a political nature, at present the majority of television stations have one such. This category has served to build bridges between media and politics as well as to exert pressure or to make favors to it by processing opinion according to the interests of certain political forces. In the words of an opinionist, these shows have turned into “an indispensable window for politics, where you need to appear in order to exist.” Opinion makers today represent a well-paid caste of the media, with incomes tens of times higher than those of reporters. Some of them also on the list of Albanian billionaires, becoming such even without owning their own businesses.
A spectacular indicator of the increased power of opinion makers and “opinion-based programs” was the 20th anniversary ceremony for the an opinion show, which took place in one of the main squares of the capital, accompanied with a lot of fanfare and pomposity, and where all VIPs controlling Albanian politics and public opinion were present. As an analyst writes about this event, this show managed to put in line the entire “elite” of our Albanian village, as people needing his media window.
Besides opinionization coming from the television window, in recent years, we notice also an increased opinionization coming from the online media system. Portals, blogs and social media of the opinion-based profile have increased in recent years at a very high pace. Both opinion shows on TV and opinion-based portals on the web, among others, have increased considerably the intensity of the “bombardment” of the public with politics. As a result, instead of mediatizing political culture among Albanians, the media is mediatizing political conflict even more. Thus the media is contributing to building a society of opinion and hot reasoning instead of a society of information and cold reasoning. The increasing opinionization of media has led to a weakening and reduction of fact-based journalism, creating fertile ground for opinion-based journalism and for fake news. This makes it even more urgent the need for the media to reflect and respect basic standards, through the sensitization of all actors of the field and the undertaking of initiatives that contribute to the return of the media to their functioning of public responsibility
(*The executive summary of a study published by the Albanian Media Institute and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Full report available on fes-tirana.org/publications/)
