Abstract:
This study uses an interdisciplinary perspective to shed light on Ukraine’s continuous
problems with media independence, which to date have not allowed Ukraine to become
a country with a truly free media: since Ukraine’s independence in 1991 its media have
consistently remained only “partly free.”1 The approach proposed in the paper combines
theoretical tools of post-communist media studies with advancements in political
science research in regime change and state-building to explore the continuities
and changes in the institutional environment for the media in post-communist new
democracies. The approach is applied to analyze two cases of post-communist media
change, both problematic to explain within the framework of media studies alone: the
case of incomplete media transformation in a hybrid regime (Ukraine) and the incident
of backsliding in independent media in an advanced new democracy (Hungary).
The paper is structured as follows: I first present the shortcomings in the way
institutions, or more specifically the institutional environment for media freedom,
were previously approached in post-communist media studies. I then propose a more
advanced approach based on theories and concepts originating from comparativepolitics studies of regime change and state and institution-building. I apply this
approach to analyze the institutional environment for the media in Ukraine. Next,
I explore the case of a radical reconstruction of media-related institutions in Hungary
after Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party came to power in 2010.
