The Media in Southern Europe: Continuities, Changes and Challenges

Abstract

The media systems of Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey represent what Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini have proposed as the Southern European or polarised pluralistic model. Regardless of their differences, the media in Southern Europe are characterised by low levels of newspaper circulation, a tradition of advocacy reporting, instrumentalisation of privately owned media, politicisation of public broadcasting and broadcast regulation and limited development of journalism as an autonomous profession. In the digital era, the media in Southern Europe have to adjust themselves to the new conditions, as citizens have turned rapidly to the digital and social media, regardless the uneven development of the Internet in most countries. It seems that digitisation of the media landscape has led the Southern European media to follow a path not very dissimilar to other European countries as in the past. The advent of digital and social media, as well as the emergence of citizen journalism, has made the news media landscape even more uncertain for the legacy media and the professional journalist, but less controlled by the state, which used to be the norm in the analogue past.

1 Introduction

The media systems in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey represent what Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini proposed as Southern European or Mediterranean or polarised pluralistic model. Despite this group not being completely homogenous, the media systems in Southern Europe tend to share several characteristics which distinguish them from the rest of the Central, Western and Northern Europe.¹ At the same time, the development of commercial media markets was relatively weak, leaving the media often dependent on the state, political parties, the Church or wealthy private patrons, inhibiting professionalisation and the development of the media as autonomous institutions.

The media systems of the Southern European countries fit well and present similar features with the Mediterranean/polarised model identified by Hallin and Mancini (2004) and Hallin and Papathanassopoulos (2000). These are low levels of newspaper circulation, high levels of TV consumption, a tradition of advocacy reporting, instrumentalisation of privately owned media, tight governmental control of the public broadcaster, savage deregulation and limited development of journalism as an autonomous profession. The recent fiscal crisis in relation to the advent of the digital media has caused additional problems to the Southern European media systems. With a few exemptions, however, the media in Southern Europe have managed to survive since the fiscal crisis has not eventually weakened their close relationship with the political system. On the contrary, it seems that the media landscape has entered a new era of ‘interplay’ between media owners and politicians. This chapter aims to focus on the continuities and discontinuities of the Southern media model by focusing firstly to the developments in the market and then to its main characteristics.

2 The Media Market

2.1 Low Levels of Newspaper Circulation

In most Southern European countries, the press was traditionally regarded as a means of negotiation among the politically active classes rather than as a part of mass popular culture (Hallin & Mancini, 2004, 2012). As a result, when electronic media started to approach the public with a familiar language and modes of communication, they managed to become the true mass media (Casero-Ripollés & Izquierdo-Castillo, 2013).

In the last decade, publishers had to confront the financial crisis of 2008 and the decrease both in sales and in advertising expenditure. From 2007 to 2012 the advertising expenditure decreased by −51% in France, −39% in Spain and approximately −60% in Greece for the same period (Papathanassopoulos, 2020). In Italy between 2009 and 2015, the publishing industry lost about 50% of its total advertising revenues (Mancini & Gerli, 2017). As a result, many historical newspapers shut down. In Greece Eleftherotypia and Eleftheros Typos ceased publication; others continued with only their online editions like La Tribune and France Soir in France; many free dailies ceased operation like Metro in Spain and Meia Hora and Global Notícias in Portugal; mergers and changes of ownership took place; local offices were closed down and continued working with only a few correspondents, as in the case of Spain. As a result, thousands of newsroom staff and journalists became redundant.

To better understand the relationship between citizens and the press, we have to take a look at the trust in the press indicator. Contrary to other European regions, the newspaper in Southern Europe is not considered a trustworthy medium. According to the EBU’s figures on media trust (2020), apart from Portugal, where 58% of the citizens say they trust the written press, Southern Europeans appeared to be more sceptical about, if not avoiders of, the press than their northern counterparts. Press trust in France and Italy scores medium. Cyprus reports low trust (40%), while only one in three citizens in Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and Turkey tends to trust the press (EBU, 2020).

In most Southern European countries, low circulation and the continuous failures of newspapers to reinvent themselves in appealing ways traditionally led to over-dependence on state aid, along with the governmental involvement with the publishers (Antheaume, 2010). Italy and France developed such complicated media subsidy mechanisms since the 1960s (Antheaume, 2010; Palmer & Sorbets, 1997). Often the amount of the subsidies has to do with the newspaper’s political stance and affiliations. A characteristic example was the lack of transparency in the way the Greek government allocated funds at media outlets during COVID crisis (The Manifold, 2020).

However, these low circulation volumes and the downward trend in sales and readership from 1990 to 2019 did not appear at the same time nor to the same degree across Southern European countries (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Dailies average circulation/adult population (copies per thousand). Sources: World Association of newspapers–World Trends Report 1991, 1997, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2017. Compilation: Eumeplat Project

Overall, the biggest effect is a change of reading habits. Levels of readership increased in the early 2000s due to the appearance of free press in Southern Europe. Direct Matin, Metro and 20 minutes in France (Kuhn, 2013), Metro and Leggo in Italy (Mancini & Gerli, 2017), and 20 Μinutos, Que!, ADN and Metro Directo in Spain (OECD, 2010) soon found their audience. In Italy daily readership has been steadily growing since 2000, and free dailies have strongly contributed to this increase adding about six million readers from 2005 to 2009. Research has shown that ‘free newspapers’ were the most popular type of print press (Nossek et al., 2015), while focusing mostly on soft news and ‘apolitical’ content (Kuhn, 2013). These newsreaders, however, were not converted into traditional newspaper readers and dropped reading newspapers altogether as soon as free press was hit by the 2008 economic crisis. More precisely, when we observe the readership trends, as reported in data surveys throughout the 30-year period, it is apparent that while daily readership drops, weekly readership is rising in most cases until 2015 and then dropping a little from 2015 to 2019.

It might be argued that the penetration of Web 2.0 and faster Internet connections, as well as the financial crisis, were the principal factors that led to lower newspaper consumption. On the other hand, newspapers in the Southern European countries were merely addressed to the respective elites and not the wider public. Nonetheless, the people that used to read newspapers continue to do so, but on a weekly basis. It can therefore be argued that while web-based news portals are more efficient in providing breaking news and 24 hour information, newspapers continue to function as a point of reference in decoding this ocean of constant information.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the advertising industry is responsive to sales fluctuations. During the first newspaper crisis in France from 1990 to 1995 the advertising expenditure for newspapers was cut up to 75%, whereas in Italy there was a -15% decrease, in Spain - 10% and in Greece almost -43%.On the contrary, from 2005 to 2010, we notice that in France—most probably due to French presidential elections—the advertising expenditure for newspapers increased significantly (from 16.5% in 2005 to 37.3 in 2010). During the same period in Italy, Spain and Portugal, there were slight decreases. Newspapers in Italy were resilient most of the time; however, the advertising expenditure was cut to more than 60% from 2010 to 2019. The drop was huge also in the case of France (−80%), Malta (−72%), Spain (−63%) and Turkey (73%) for the same period. In Portugal the decrease was −43%, while in Greece the drop in advertising share for the same period was −28%. Greece still has the biggest share of advertising expenditure for the press in 2019 reaching 12.4%.

In the early 2000s, newspapers started experimenting with their online presence. Unlike native digital news media, traditional publishers had to worry about the sustainability of newspapers and finding new viable business models. However, most publishers and users embraced the digital environment faster than advertisers. From 1996 to 2008, as Antheaume (2010) points out for the French press, online open access to newspaper content was the norm. Getting as much traffic and therefore advertising was the goal. The fact that users could and in many cases still can access online the same content that is available in their print edition caused problems in their sustainability, making scholars talk about a cannibalisation process (Casero-Ripollés & Izquierdo-Castillo, 2013; Simon & Kadiyali, 2007; Kaiser, 2006; Filistrucchi, 2005; Chyi & Lasorsa, 2002).

In Greece new native online media have become the most popular sources of news, whereas French, Spanish and Italian online public spheres are still dominated by legacy media (Antheaume, 2010). La Repubblica, Il Corriere dellaSera and Il Fatto Quotidiano websites in Italy, as well as elmundo.es and elpais.es in Spain and lefigaro.fr and lemonde.fr in France, are among the top-ranking websites. However, advertising revenues appeared to be insufficient for sustaining traditional press outlets. New business models combining pay wall and subscription models still need time to be established, while publishers in Southern Europe have had more difficulties in comparison to the north of Europe to convert free readers to paid online subscriptions. Nevertheless, 90% of publishers’ revenue continues to come from print revenues (World Association of Newspapers, 2022).

2.2 Radio Small but Trustful

With the exception of Cyprus and Greece, all the countries in Southern Europe are below the EU28 median regarding the share of respondents who listen to the radio every day or almost every day (Statista, 2020). Although they listen less, they operate more radio stations. According to Eurostat (2018), Spain leads in radio production with 781 stations, followed by Italy with 701 and Greece with 614. Portugal follows in the 5^th place with 298 radio stations. Only in the case of France, we found a relatively small number of radio stations, considering the size and the population of the country. On the other hand, France is one of the major employers on radio within the EU. However, the side effects of the financial crisis are visible in this section of the media market as well, since from 2010 to 2018, Spain saw a 30.5% decline in radio stations, followed by Italy (−25.5%), Greece (25%) and Cyprus (−22.8%). France had a negative rate of −6.4%, closer to the European average (−5.1%). Portugal on the contrary was the only country in this group where radio stations increased in number (+9.5%).

Similarly, the years following the 2008 financial crisis had a detrimental effect for the people employed in this media sector. Namely, in Greece almost half of radio employees lost their job. In Italy almost 40% of the employees were laid off, while in Cyprus the fired employees numbered around 35% and in Spain 28.5%. Regarding radio employment, France is the outlier since employment increased marginally (0.2%) from 2010 to 2018.

As far as it concerns the advertising share for radio, the relevant data reveal that it has remained stable throughout the years—with the exemption of Greece, ranging from 5 to 10% of the total advertising expenditure. It is worth mentioning that even during the financial crisis the radio ad spent was not severely affected. Moreover, the shifts in listening habits caused by the technological developments (e-radio, streaming platforms, podcasts, etc.) don’t seem to have an effect on the traditional radio regarding the share of advertising expenditure (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Radio daily listenership (in minutes). Sources: EBU, Audience Trends. Compilation: Eumeplat Project

In the last years, traditional radio in Southern Europe is losing its appeal. This can be explained with the rise of streaming services and platforms; and even though terrestrial radio broadcasting is still the most important distribution platform, figures show that online radio is no longer just a complement to FM but replacing it, especially when it comes to younger listeners (Cordeiro, 2012).Concerning news consumption, podcasts seem more appealing to the youth (18–34 yrs.), while older age groups (35–55 +) still prefer listening to the radio (Newman et al., 2020). An interesting exception to the rule is Italy, where young people still appear to be avid radio listeners (EBU, 2020).

On the other hand, radio continues to be the most trusted medium. Respondents in Portugal said they trusted radio as well as TV (both 68%). Trust in radio in Spain fell sharply from 2018, with 48% of citizens expressing distrust in 2020. Another notable exception is Greece, where citizens distrust all traditional media (62% distrust radio) and instead turn to the Internet to get the news. Distrust in radio in Turkey is as high as in Greece (61%) with Turkish citizens turning to TV and the Internet as more reliable sources of information (EBU, 2020).

2.3 Television Is Still Dominant

As already noted, the Southern European media market, even though it presents common characteristics, mostly regarding consumption patterns, varies greatly in size and dynamic on the supply side. Namely, the model consists of larger markets of France, Italy, Spain and Turkey, followed by the medium markets of Portugal and Greece and smaller markets of Cyprus and Malta that mostly import their content. However, following deregulation all these markets saw a boom in the number of free commercial TV channels up to 2010. However, this trend differs greatly from one country to another. In Greece, there were a moderate number of commercial channels that apart from changes in the media field remained stable through time, whereas in Portugal both public and commercial channels remained stable. Italy is on top. It is striking that in 2019 there were 128 commercial channels in Italy, while in Turkey that ranked in the second place, there were only 41 channels at the time. As a result of the economic downturn of 2008, markets in Cyprus, Spain and Turkey experienced the closure of commercial TV channels, while public channels were also closed or merged by 2010. France and Italy saw a boom in the number of commercial channels from 2010 and on, while Portugal kept a stable number in TV channels, as in the case of Greece.

The arrival of digital platforms in the mid-1990s has opened up the way for increasing specialisation in their content. In fact, digital technology has enabled the analogue thematic channels of the 1990s to proliferate and achieve even more specific levels of segmentation. Nowadays, there are channels specialising on news, music, sports, children, lifestyle, home shopping, animals, wildlife and documentaries, history, science and so on. By 2015, the thematic TV market had reached its saturation in most countries of the Southern European cluster. The only exception is Turkey, partly because of its late market development. As in other European countries, IPTV and VOD started establishing in the field, driving revenues in the TV industry.

When it comes to TV consumption, market share and overall impact, research has shown that TV occupies an important part of the daily lives of Southern Europeans (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). More importantly this trend seemed to be on the rise until 2010, where upon a reverse trend followed. For 2010 alone, the global average of TV dropped slightly to 190 minutes per day. During the same year, the countries grouped into the Southern European model remained well above the global average. Moreover, in the next 10 years, TV viewing time continue to grow in all Southern European countries (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

TV daily viewing time (in minutes). Sources: EAO –Trends in European Television 2006, vol.2, EAO, 2011, vol.2, EAO – Yearbook 2020 EBU, TV Audiences, 2021. Compilation: Eumeplat Project

Although Southern Europeans seem to be heavy TV users, citizens in six out of the eight countries of the Southern Europe report low to no trust at all in TV: Cyprus (48%), Turkey and Malta (45%), France (32%), Spain (29%) and lastly Greece (22%). Two notable exceptions are Portugal which reports high trust in TV (69%) and Italy just limping above the European average with 51%. In other words, it seems that the viewing habits of Southern European citizens have little to do with TV news content and more with the consumption of entertainment programs. This disassociation might be explained by an increasing news avoidance, or it could imply that Southern Europeans trust less news that disseminated by mainstream media.

2.4 Going Broadband, Even Unevenly

Broadband Internet penetration has followed a considerable growth in the last decade, with Greece presenting the highest development, according to the latest data from Eurostat (2021). More precisely, in 2020, 95% of Spanish households have broadband Internet connection (well above the EU average). Cyprus seems to have an outstanding performance in this indicator as well, with 92% and 93% of the island’s households having broadband Internet access, in 2020 and 2021, respectively, followed by Malta (90% in 2020). It comes as a surprise that countries with advanced economy as Italy and France seem to follow broadband Internet penetration with a slower pace than countries with weaker economy. More precisely, according to Eurostat, in Italy 87% of households have broadband Internet access in 2020, whereas in France 88% in 2021. Greece has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates, compared to other countries of this cluster, since in 2021 85% of the country’s households had access to broadband Internet connection. Portugal stands at the bottom of this ranking (84% in 2021). In Turkey, the broadband Internet penetration has been growing steadily, where according to Turkstat (2015, 2019) in 2015, 67.8% of households had broadband Internet connection and in 2019 the relevant percentage has risen up to 87.9%. Mobile broadband subscriptions have encountered a tremendous growth during the last decade (2009–2019) in the majority of the countries under examination, although at a different pace.

In effect, Internet use has been steadily growing throughout the last decades in all the countries under examination. What is worth noting though is that smaller Southern countries—with the exemption of Spain—seem to be the leaders of this trend. More precisely, according to ITU in 2019, 90.72% of Spanish people use the Internet, followed by 86% of Cypriots and 85.78% of Maltese people. Italians, Greeks and Portuguese people use to a lesser extent the Internet, compared to their Mediterranean counterparts. The percentage of individuals using the internet in Italy was 74.39 in 2018, whereas for the year 2019, 75.67% of Greeks accessed the Internet and 75.35% of Portuguese people (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Percentage of individuals participating in social networks 3 months prior the year of survey. Source: Eurostat. Compilation: Eumeplat Project

Social media use among Southern Europeans seems to be steadily growing, although not with the same pace in all the countries. The issue of trust in legacy media might provide an explanation for the increased use of social media in Southern European countries. Nevertheless, France and Italy have the lowest percentage of daily social media use. Regarding the low percentage of social media use in France, one possible explanation could be found in the French government’s determination for stronger social media regulation over privacy matters, which has resulted in clashes with Silicon Valley CEOs and consequently has affected the social media usage in the country, compared to other European countries.

3 Political Parallelism

According to Albuquerque, the concept of political parallelism is a ‘product of history’ that reflects a peculiar pattern of relationship between media and political institutions, ‘common enough to define the political communication system as a whole’ (2018, p. 2). As a result, Albuquerque (2013) points out that in order to be applied, the concept of political parallelism demands the satisfaction of two preconditions: the existence of a competitive political system with clear political cleavages and a stable relationship between media and political actors that fosters recurrent patterns of interaction between them.

As Hallin and Mancini point out, the media in the Southern European countries are relatively strongly politicised, and political parallelism is relatively high. The style of journalism tends to give substantial emphasis to commentary. Newspapers tend to represent distinct political tendencies, and this is reflected in the differing political attitudes of their readerships; at times they play an activist role, mobilising readers to support political causes. Public broadcasting tends to be party-politicised. Both journalists and media owners often have political ties or alliances (2004, p. 98).

In effect, most of the countries covered have traditions of advocacy journalism. In contrast with the Anglo-American model of professional neutrality, journalism in Southern Europe tends to emphasise commentary from a distinct political perspective. However, there is some variation in this trend as well. In France the press has a strong tradition of advocacy journalism, as commentary and opinion, satire and sarcasm are often more valued than factual reporting (Kuhn, 2013). However, there have been some steps towards investigative journalism (Charon, 2009; Kuhn, 2013).

Advocacy traditions have been modified both by diffusion of the Anglo-American model of journalism and by traditions of precarious reporting that developed during periods of dictatorship. But, in general, journalism in Southern European countries tends to emphasise opinion and commentary, and newspapers represent distinct political tendencies. These tendencies, however, are not distinct to southern Europe, but are also characteristic of most of the continent, though over the last decade or so, the movement away from advocacy journalism has probably been faster in Northern than Southern Europe.

The extended character of state in most Southern European countries has remained one of the most important features of the state electronic media. Public broadcasting systems in the Southern European region present a symbiotic relationship with the political controversies of their countries. Both public radio and television have been regarded as the ‘long arm of the state’, and in many cases the debate about the electronic state media was focused on governmental control and interference in television, particularly in news programmes. This situation became part of post-war ritualised politics in France during the De Gaulle administrations. As Chalaby notes: ‘De Gaulle’s communications strategy had one point in common with that of most of his American counterparts: the reliance on television to gain direct access to the electorate and bypass a hostile press’ (2002, p. 203).

Although the state may no longer control political information on television to the extent that it used to do in the 1960s, government politicians still exert their power on public television managers (Kuhn, 2017, p. 67). It is worth noting that the main commercial channel, TF1, has long been supportive to leading political figures of the French right such as Jacques Chirac and, more recently, Sarkozy (Kuhn, 2017). After all, public ownership is a major characteristic of the television and radio landscape in France, since almost half (44%) of the general information television channels are directly owned by the state (Cagé et al., 2017).

A similar ‘attitude’ by the government of the day took place, as well as in Greece, Portugal and Spain after the restoration of their democracies. To stress the tight relationship between politics and broadcasting during the Franco dictatorship, de la Sierra et al. (2010, p. 380) argue that the phases used to study the dictatorship usually coincide with those established for the study of television. In the case of Malta, media was run by the two political parties and the Church for three decades. The case of RAI’s lottizazzione is another manifestation of the heavy use of the media by the political parties. In Turkey, regular public television broadcasts began in 1971, and it seems that from the very start these have been designed in such a way as to prevent the passing of control to overt party-political hands (Finkel, 2015, p. 12). Since then, TRT has been an instrument by both the military and the government, and it seems to continue ‘to be part of this order as facilitators and ideological communicators’ (Sümer & Taş, 2020, p. 43).

Even after the commercialisation period had started and the deregulation of TV market had taken place, most of the countries under study have retained their distinct ties to specific political parties or ideologies. In France, for instance, journalism is characterised by a strong political orientation if not outright partisanship. Even though after the 1980s commercialisation period the French media followed the trend of autonomising from political power, most of the news media can still be identified along the far left-far right axis. In other words, as Kuhn (2017, p. 61) puts it, ‘one should be wary of simply equating economic with political liberalization’. There are concerns on the horizontal concentration of the French media market (Graña et al., 2020). In France, the local press is characterised by a high degree of concentration, which is quite geofigurically localised, a consequence of the media concentration regulation, which set limits on concentration at the national, but not at the local level (Cagé et al., 2017). The most significant players in the field are mostly companies with interests mainly in the media market. On the other hand, national newspapers are less concentrated, but are almost all into the hands of non-media companies or tycoons (Cagé et al., 2017). However, in terms of plurality, there is a variety of legal provisions reinforcing media organisations (transparency in public life, freedom of communication).

The media landscape in Spain retains, to a great extent, its wide ideological range on two distinct fields. On the one hand, from left to right, media outlets in Spain represent the most progressive and the most conservative media. On the other hand, Spanish media also feature a conflict between constitutionalist and separatist/nationalist media (Salaverría & Gómez-Baceiredo, 2017). Fuentes Aragones (cited in de la Sierra et al., 2010, p. 380) best describes the partisan character of Spanish media by arguing:

(…) possibly one could formulate a historical rule that, with exceptions, then became generalised: that newspapers and magazines linked to one ideology or other kept more radical and partisan views than those of the political parties or trade unions to which they were attached.

Proof of the close ties between media and political authorities is the creation of a new power elite, where politicians hold managerial positions in the media, while as in the Greek and Italian cases, journalists become MPs (Papathanassopoulos, 2001; Mancini, 1993). This reality has caused the public to perceive the media as guided by political and business interests as well as clientelism.

The political independence of journalism in Italy is also disconcerting, especially related to the lack of independence of the public broadcasters. Similarly, to Spain and Greece, there are deep historical and structural issues pertaining to the autonomy of the private media. For example, only one of the main media owners is only a ‘publisher’ with the entirety of the media owners’ group engaging in a wide range of other businesses from retail to construction (Mancini & Gerli, 2017). In addition to dependence on political decisions, Italy also scores very low regarding the state regulation of resources and support for the media sector which further strengthens their co-dependence (Brogi et al., 2020). Legislation efforts to regulate conflict of interest have been hindered in Parliament with several proposals for new and more effective laws pending draft reforms for years now. The political influence of Silvio Berlusconi, despite the declining support to his party, is still central for the fate of any reform (Brogi et al., 2020).

The issue of media’s independence in Cyprus is also perceived as problematic for a variety of reasons. To begin with, legislation regarding regulation of media ownership doesn’t exclude politicians, unless they hold public office (Christoforou & Karides, 2020). Adding to this, Cyprus features a strong informal network; politicians, media owners and journalists operate as in Greece, under a strong culture of self-censorship even though there are no such legal caveats. Most of the daily newspapers are linked to various political parties, so the most salient trait of media has been ‘an account and reflection of the dominant political forces, enhancing polarisation and strained relations, mostly leading to polemics, rather than to a productive exchange of views and ideas’ (Christoforou, 2010, p. 243).

In Portugal, media political bias lost relevance once the normalisation of the democratic regime has taken place, and the partisan press has virtually disappeared ever since the commercialisation’s drive of the 1980s. Since ‘political conflict does not sell’, an adoption of a catch-all media perspective on politics is broadly used, in compliance with the catch-all rhetoric of the most important parties in the Portuguese landscape: PS and PSD (Santana-Pereira, 2015, p. 13). A notable exception is the newspaper Avante! published by the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) still produced and run by a professional newsroom (Correiam & Martins, 2017).

In Malta, political parties and the government have to right to own, control and edit nationwide television and radio services, with the two main political parties owning their own media enterprises, making Malta a distinct case in the European family. As Borg informs us: ‘All Maltese papers are owned by the large institutions...and they are very strong on editorialising, even when they are reporting news’ (2009, p. 27). The public service media are financed exclusively by the state, and key appointments are made directly by the corresponding minister. News outlets keep internal codes of conduct that are not publicly available. In short, it is a generally acknowledged fact that political influence in Maltese news organisations is not only prevalent, but dominant.

In Turkey political independence of the media is highly problematic. There is a clientelist relationship between media owners and the government, while seven out of the ten most watched TV channels being government affiliated. In 2018, the biggest media group was sold to an investor with personal ties to the government. More worryingly, the purchase was possible through a bank loan forwarded by a state bank with dubious repayment terms. The deregulation of media market in Turkey has marked a new era, which has been defined as ‘patrimonial/clientelistic’ relationship between media and the state, giving birth to media instrumentalisation (Çarkoğlu & Yavuz, 2010, p. 618). As Irak (2016, p. 343) points out, the uniqueness of the AKP in the media history of Turkey is that ‘for the first time after single-party regime of the 1930s, the government has its “own” media,² the function of which is to support the political party in power at all costs’. Furthermore, a survey which analysed the political connection of the state-run news agency—AA (Anadolu Agency, Anadolu Ajansı)—members’ has revealed that the administrative level of the agency is comprised by a small network, which members belong to the ‘pool media’ and the political circles related to Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bulent Arinc (Irak, 2016).

Added to that, Turkey has also featured direct interference with media content, while there has also been a proliferation of lawsuits brought against journalists, academics and human rights defenders. In 2011, watchdog associations filed that Turkey ‘had the dubious distinction of holding more journalists in prison than any other country’ in the EU (Bayazit, 2016, p. 394). A recent example is the case of Cumhuriyet, with 13 journalists and an editor-in-chief put on trial and staying in jail for months under charges of aiding a terrorist organisation because of their critical stance to the government (Graña et al., 2020). More diverse and vibrant views appear consistently at the local and regional outlets, but these have limited distribution (Yesil, 2016, p. 8).

4 Instrumentalisation of Media

As already mentioned, countries of Southern Europe have had a history of strong partisanship that in most cases distilled to political parallelism. At the same time, clientelism is deeply rooted in these societies. The wave of deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s and the 2008 financial crisis, along with distinct characteristics of the media market such as growing fixed costs, excess supply, price deflation, high risk of distribution success and convergence of technology and even government involvement (Noam, 2016), shaped a hardly sustainable business environment pushing old media owners out of the industry. At the same time, the door opened to businessmen coming from other industries, willing to acquire and finance media to better serve their business interests. What makes instrumentalisation so effective in some countries is that laws are not applied equally to all pressure groups; public funds are often distributed based on political ties, while there is room for informal contacts or without standardised legal procedures (Mancini, 2012). Direct ownership and/or political pressures are the main means of media instrumentalisation, while lack of transparency in terms of media ownership is a thorn in media’s side regarding audience trust and credibility (Mancini, 2012).

According to CMPF (2022), the countries of the polarised model fall in a spectrum of low (Portugal, France) to medium (Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Greece) to high risk (Turkey, Malta), based on the indicators measuring the political independence of media outlets. In any case, there is a strong tendency in most of the countries to ‘purchase’ control and instrumentalise the media for political exploitation.

In France, although there are legal provisions for publishing companies to provide their readers with information on the composition of their capital, media ownership is characterised by lack of transparency. The media are run by companies with complicated shareholder structures and rarely by individuals, since as Cagé et al. (2017) point out ‘the big families that owned the media have gradually sold out to corporations’. Half of the print and online news media are controlled by companies in the financial and insurance services sector, while information and communication sector are just 18%. However, concentration of media differs greatly from one industry to another. According to Badillo et al. (2016), concentration is relatively high in the newspaper market, though due to newspapers’ financial difficulties, the situation is expected to get worse; radio is becoming less concentrated, but there is strong concentration in TV news, while cable and satellite TV are almost monopolies. Public ownership in print is only 1%, but in broadcast media it is 43%. The Lagardère group with significant presence in book publishing and magazines was bidding contracts in the defence sector, Dassault with Group Figaro bidding in military aircraft production and sales, and Bouygues with TF1 and telecoms bidding in public construction projects (Kuhn, 2010).

In Italy, during the 1980s and 1990s, the regulatory framework for the media landscape has been shaped by several laws and Corte Costituzionale (Italy’s Supreme Court) decisions that were characterised by discontinuities, partisan ambitions and private interests. As Tonello points out:

There has never been a bipartisan plan to shape the Italian electronic media vis-à-vis the challenges of globalization. The turbulence in the political system, the lack of government clear-cut programmes, the strong lobbying by major operators and a general short-sightedness of the Italian political parties in this field are the reasons of the present state of uncertainty and fogginess in the media landscape. (2008, p. 245)

The Gasparri law enacted in 2004 and reformed in 2011 holds that no entity is allowed to control more than 20% of the Italian media market. However, the TV broadcasting market is highly concentrated with Fininvest (Berlusconi family) owning three TV channels (Canale 5, Italia 1, Rete 4) through Mediaset, the commercial broadcaster and the Arnoldo Mondadori Editore publishing house among others (Richeri & Prario, 2016). In Italy too, the old media companies such as Mondadori, Rizzoli and Rusconi are now controlled by non-media businesses, such as Berlusconi (soccer, insurance, commercial television) and Fiat (automobile). Radio and television are rather fragmented in local and regional level, but that’s not the case for print since daily newspapers, even on local and regional level, are owned by big corporations. For example, Carlo DeBenedetti of Olivetti controls L’Espresso, La Repubblica and its ten local editions; Agnelli family of Fiat controls La Stampa and, though RCS, with Benetton (apparel) and Dealla Valle (shoes), the largest Italian daily, Corriere della Sera and its 20 local editions; the Caltagirone Group (construction) daily, Il Messaggero (Rome), Il Mattino (Naples) and Il Gazzettino (Venice) along with two local newspapers; while Il Giornaleis owned by Paolo Berlusconi, brother of Silvio Berlusconi, and the Italian Manufacturers’ Association (Confindustria) publishes the best-selling financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore (Richeri & Prario, 2016).

The ‘golden era’ of the Greek media and journalism (1980s and 1990s) is characterised by a high degree of media ownership concentration, but most worryingly by the consolidation of close relations between the media and the political elite. The so-called diaploki (intertwining interests) and cronyism or the domination of the media environment by wealthy businessmen with interests in shipping, energy and oil industries, transportations, telecommunications, construction and sports reflects this reality (Iosifidis & Boucas, 2015).

Greek media have been dominated by large media organisations since the 1980s characterised by excessive number of outlets for a rather small market, high production costs and close ties to the political and banking elites (Iosifidis & Boucas, 2015). Their operation served at times to exert pressures on the political landscape and at others to further the economic activities of media moguls in various sectors where investments were dependent to the state. During the fiscal crisis and the loss of the public trust, old players were side-lined by new who had little if any experience in the news industry. Moreover, the new owners range from controversial to having extensive legal conflicts. Since 2019 the news media have come under more direct control of the government with the Prime Minister taking under his purview the only news agency in Greece (APE-MPE) with the Index on the editorial autonomy receiving a high-risk score as a result.

In Spain, as Sanders and Canel note, the governmental policies which were implemented during the transition to democracy left their ‘mark’ on the national media scene, since ‘the successive laisser faire approach to media ownership, has enabled the emergence of cross-media ownership, with a relative ease’ (2004, p. 198). In addition, legislation in Spain welcomed foreign investors resulting in foreign owners dominating TV broadcasting and book and magazine publishing sectors (Artero & Sánchez-Tabernero, 2016). Horizontal concentration of the media market is high with print and online media mostly concentrated in six domestic companies (Vocento S.A, Prisa, Editorial PrensaIbérica, Grupo Unidad Editorial, Grupo Zeta and Grupo Joly), most of them turning also to Latin American markets (Artero & Sánchez-Tabernero, 2016). Of these only two own a broadcast medium as well, namely, a television channel for Editorial PrensaIbérica and a radio station for Unidad Editorial (Cagé et al., 2017). However, the media are increasingly dominated by three broad multimedia conglomerates with strong political alliances: PRISA that includes companies from different economic sectors (banking, real estate etc.) owns most of the newspapers in Spain, including El País, SER radio and cable and satellite television, and whose owner was close to socialist President Felipe González. Planeta ranks among the top four in the following sectors: book publishing, terrestrial TV and radio broadcasting. In addition, a new rival media empire is now emerging around the former state telecommunications monopoly, Telefónica de España, which was privatised under the conservative Partido Popular government. This conglomerate includes the private television company Antena 3, the newspaper El Mundo, which made its name breaking the news of several major scandals involving the PSOE government, the radio network Onda Zero and a satellite television platform. The two media empires have become intense rivals, as much in the political as in the commercial world. The conservative newspaper ABC and the Catholic Church’s radio network, COPE, were also aligned with Telefónica in this conflict. Major banks also have ties to these conglomerates, and Spanish journalists and media analysts often describe them as a major power behind the scenes, though their role is very difficult to document.

In Portugal the transition to democracy began with a 2-year period of revolutionary upheaval during which the media were, for the most part, taken over by radicalised journalists who conceived them as instruments of class struggle. Ownership of much of the media passed to the state when the banks were nationalised, and by the early 1980s, effective control had, to a significant extent, passed to the political parties. In the late 1980s, state-owned media were privatised, while in the last years, many mergers have taken place, resulting in few conglomerates dominating the Portuguese media landscape, causing debates among the regulatory authorities (Faustino, 2016). Media have to provide details on their shareholder structure, while it is forbidden for a media company to own more than 20% in private TV channels. One of the principal media conglomerates, Impresa, is owned by F. Pinto Balsamão, a former prime minister and leader of the (conservative) Social Democratic Party and belongs to a group of financial companies. Zon multimedia, leading cable TV provider, belongs also to a financial group, while Media Capital is owned mainly by PRISA group. Even though instrumentalisation of the media in Portugal is perhaps less intense today than in the other countries of Southern Europe, the dominance of two media groups Impresa and Media Capital, the small size of the media market and the high concentration of the advertising market cause worries about the future (Faustino, 2016).

In Malta, politics has used media as ‘technologies of othering’, meaning that while parties express their views on public issues, media were used as ideological vehicles for the furnishing of stereotypical typifications of the ‘other’ (Sammut, 2007, pp. 33–34).

In Turkey, all the major media groups, Doğan, Merkez, Çukurova, İhlas, Doğuş, etc., are large conglomerates, and their activities expand to other sectors of the economy (tourism, finance, car industry, construction and banking). Instrumentalisation of the media is a keen practice among different pressure groups, further enforced by the lack of state regulation to counter cross-ownership. Even in cases where Turkey had to abide by EU rules, domestic media owners managed to find their way mostly regarding the lack of transparency of their shareholder structures (Bayazit, 2016). Media proprietors in Turkey seem to use their media outlets to protect their interest in other sectors of the economy. As Somer notes, most Turkish newspapers while privately owned are vulnerable to political pressures, since the pursuit of their owners’ economic interests forces them to develop clientelistic relations with the government and other political actors (2010, p. 560).

5 Politicisation of Public Broadcasting

Most countries in Western Europe have succeeded in developing institutions which separate public broadcasting from the direct control of the political majority. In France, the period of policy debates on TV and press raging since 1968 had ended with the retreat of the state. In its place multimedia groups emerged taking advantage of a system of public fiscal aids and political connections with Hachette and Hersant emerging as leading actors in the new media landscape. However, a political consensus during the Rocard socialist government led to the creation of CSA in 1989. This body aimed to ensure the independence of the public broadcast and offered transparency in the manner TV and radio licences were being issued (Palmer & Sorbets, 1997). It is worth noting that during his presidency, Sarkozy as a part of a reform process regarding the public broadcasting regained the responsibility for the direct appointment of the President Director General of the two public broadcasting companies, France Televisions and Radio France (Kuhn, 2010, p. 363).

The Italian public broadcaster RAI was essentially under the control of the ruling Christian Democratic Party in the 1950s and 1960s, but in the 1970s, when a broader coalition was formed and the ‘historic compromise’ allowed the Partido Comunista to share in the lottizzazione—the division of political power and benefits—control of RAI was divided among the parties, with the Christian Democrats retaining control of one channel, the ‘secular parties’ the second and the Communists the third. Every change in the parliamentary majority had been triggering new cycles of turbulences in the management of RAI (Mazzoleni, 2000, p. 162). For decades, Italian governments seem to have been either incapable or reluctant to establish a regulatory framework which would pave the way of a ‘genuine public service broadcasting to flourish in Italy’ (D’Arma, 2010, p. 208). In recent years, however, the board of directors of RAI has been reduced in size, making proportional representation impossible, a move which is likely to require a degree of depoliticisation of appointments to the board.

Spain, Greece and Turkey, meanwhile, are the countries remaining in Southern Europe in which the ruling party directly controls public broadcasters. In these countries the management of the news divisions of public television changes with a change of government. In Spain, public Spanish Radio and Television (RTVE) is often criticised of biased reporting in favour of the government (Sanders & Canel, 2004, p. 202). This widespread conception of the Spanish society is fuelled by the appointing procedure of the Director General; the TVE1 post of the Director General is decided by the government for a 4-year term and expires once a new government is elected. Zapatero’s attempt in 2006 to limit state control by not directly appointing the president of RTVE did not manage to deliver the expected outcome in terms of media trust and credibility (Field, 2009; Lamuedra Graván, 2018). The two thirds parliamentary consensus was replaced in 2012 by simple parliamentary majority, allowing again the ruling party to appoint the RTVE head without wider political consent (Cagé et al., 2017). In Greece, news and editorial judgements are expected to be in close agreement with, if not identical to, government announcements across a whole range of policies and decisions. A governing board appointed by the parliament according to proportional representation therefore results in government control in the former, while it results in power-sharing in the latter (Iosifidis & Papathanassopoulos, 2019). In Portugal the first television law passed in 1979 with the aim to provide a safeguard to ‘ideological pluralism’, yet between the state and the public broadcaster RTP, there was cultivated an instrumental relationship, with the accusations of the opposition parties regarding the political manipulation of public TV being a constant phenomenon after the return to democracy (Traquina, 1995, p. 224). Similarly, in Malta the political majority has control over public broadcasting. The government intervenes with the appointment of the board of directors, and even after the advent of other TV stations, the state remains the primary definer of news and influences the agenda and framing of public issues (Spiteri, 2014).

In Turkey until 1990, radio and TV were monopolised by the state, ‘with an understanding of statist and socialist state principles’ (Kars, 2008, p. 28). The public broadcaster, TRT, has been always under tight state control, and its audience fell dramatically after the advent of private channels (Yesil, 2016, p. 39).

In other words, in most countries politicisation of regulatory bodies coexists with relatively weak regulation of private broadcasters in the sense that few public service obligations and few restrictions on commercialism are imposed, and many regulations are laxly enforced. This brief historical frame could shed a light in the less homogenous picture found in the Southern European countries regarding public broadcasters. For example, in Italy and France, PSB receive more than a third of TV viewership. Smaller markets of Portugal, Greece and Cyprus follow close to 10% or even higher. Even though a slight downward trend—with a notable exemption of Spain—was recorded in public broadcasters’ popularity for most countries up to 2019, this was reversed during 2020. During the COVID-19 health crisis, citizens in most countries turned to public channels for reliable information. In effect, public service media (including radio) was the most trusted news source in Portugal and among the top five sources in Spain, Italy and France. Nevertheless, citizens in Greece and Turkey don’t trust the public television. It is worth mentioning that in these countries the PSB head is still directly appointed by the government. Politicians in power continue to treat public television as the ‘long arm of the state’ resulting in low credibility and high levels of citizens’ distrust.

6 Limited Professionalisation

As we have already noted, the high instrumentalisation of the news media by oligarchs, industrialists, parties or the state, characterising the Southern European media model, implies that journalistic autonomy will be limited. Journalists will at times have to defer to their political masters (see Hallin & Mancini, 2004, p. 111). The process of journalists’ professionalisation did not develop as strongly in the Mediterranean countries, however, as in the North. The political and literary roots of journalism were deeper, and the political connections persisted much longer. Limited development of media markets meant that newspapers were smaller and less likely to be self-sustaining. And state intervention, particularly in periods of dictatorship, interrupted the development of journalism as a profession.

This, however, does not mean that the level of professionalisation is lower. For example, journalists in the Mediterranean countries are not less educated than elsewhere—in Italy and Greece, for example, famous writers and intellectuals have often been journalists. On the other hand, the close connection of journalism with the political and literary worlds and the orientation of newspapers to educated elites have meant that journalism has in some sense been a more elite occupation in Southern Europe than in other regions.

In Greece, the professional activity of Greek journalists in practice was and still is defined by a framework of alignment to the particular interests of the media owners (Papathanassopoulos, 2001, p. 519). In Cyprus the presence of various regulatory bodies has not actually led to a transparent media system (Millioni et al., 2018; Christophorou & Spyridou, 2017). In Spain, journalism has also resulted in a low degree of professional autonomy for journalists themselves, which favours the control on behalf of political actors (Casero-Ripollés et al., 2015, p. 98). In Italy, journalists do not hold a high level of autonomy (Splendore, 2016), while Italian journalism is characterised by a high degree of political parallelism (Hamada et al., 2019, p. 143).

The strong role of political parties and the Church in Malta’s media system has hindered the development of journalism as an autonomous profession (Vassallo, 2020; Simunjak, 2016). On the other hand, in France, journalists seem to enjoy a high level of autonomy in their daily duties, under the protections provided by the clause de conscience and clause de cession, which is linked to the process of professionalisation of journalism, which took place in the first third of the twentieth century (Weaver & Willnat, 2012). In Turkey, the guidelines of the formal accountability system and ethical standards in the exercise of journalism laid down by the Journalist’s Association and media groups have never been implemented into practice mainly, because of the political and economic pressures upon the media sector (GencelBek, 2011).

What has emerged as a common trend between the countries that have been most affected by the financial crisis and the subsequent social and political turbulences is the deterioration of the working conditions for the journalistic profession, as well as the establishment of a more hostile and riskier environment for the press corps. During the crisis the decline of the media market resulted in the bankruptcy of numerous media outlets, which paved the way for the deterioration of journalistic autonomy in southern European countries. The closure of the public broadcaster ERT in 2013 was characterised as ‘a turning point in Greece’s media history’ (Reporters without Borders, 2014), leaving not only a huge ‘trauma’ to the journalistic work force of the country but also setting the alarm for the deterioration of media pluralism and freedom in the country. It is worth mentioning that in 2014 Greece has dropped 21 positions compared to 2010, in the press freedom index, annually published by the Freedom House.

Εven in Portugal where journalists have important laws to protect their activity, the financial crisis has managed to put into test the journalists’ ability to maintain their autonomy, under acute economic pressures, paving the way ‘towards proletarianization than professionalization’ (Fidalgo, 2011, p. 259). The economic crisis has created a steep decline in media revenues forcing the journalists’ union to launch a public debate on how to best finance quality journalism while also safeguarding the ability to scrutinise political and economic power centres. Professional journalism has also suffered as journalists were threatened by job loss and salary cuts as well as the reluctance of Portuguese readers to pay subscriptions for quality journalism (Correiam & Martins, 2017). This development has created blurry journalistic practices with the sharp increase of paid content and the domination of infotainment media logic (Cádima et al., 2020).

It is reported that the worsening of journalists’ working conditions, at the aftermath of the economic crisis, has triggered a process of change within the journalistic culture in Spain, ‘producing a reduction of the level of professionalization of journalism and the professionalism of journalists’ (Alonso, 2015). Hence, the profession precariousness and the fiscal policy of media companies had forced journalists to see their public primarily as consumers.

Violence and physical attacks against journalists have also seen an unprecedented growth in the era of economic recession. In France, the exercise of journalism under the tense political environment framed by the Yellow Vests movement has emerged as a risky endeavour (Newman et al., 2020). In the last 2 years, there is a worrying growth of the number of threats towards journalists, in Italy too, where several cases of verbal attacks came from government officials (Brogi et al., 2020).

In Malta, there have been multiple reports of collusion between various media enterprises, leading to the assassination of an investigative journalist and activist, Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia in 2017 (Vassallo, 2020). The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is considered as a clear message to the investigative journalism community, to remain silent, while many reporters are committed to follow her investigations despite the threat they have to face (Vassallo, 2020).

The severe financial crisis of late 2000 and early 2001 in Turkey had a devastating effect on the domestic press corps; it is estimated that between 3000–5000 journalists and media workers lost their jobs. The job insecurity has resulted in the intensification of media owners’ control, which being coupled with the lack of any union or labour support has given birth to a suffocating working environment for the Turkish journalists (Christensen, 2007, pp. 192–193; Yesil, 2016, p. 111). According to the report of the Committee to Protect Journalists (2020), the number of journalists imprisoned in Turkey is 47. With this number, Turkey is categorised as one of the worst jailers of journalists in the world again (Brogi et al., 2020).

7 “Savage Deregulation”

Across Europe, broadcasting has been in ferment, as governments of every political spectrum try to cope with the stress and upheavals caused by the deregulation. In Mediterranean countries, broadcasting and politics seem to form an inextricable relationship. The imminent deregulation of broadcasting in most Southern European countries has been associated with progressive politics and eventually led by a haphazard reaction of the politics of the time, rather than a coherent plan. In short, the deregulation of Southern European broadcasting systems has led to an unregulated environment as market logic has in recent years been allowed to develop essentially unchecked. The dominance of private television as well as the downgrading of public broadcasters has increasingly forced politicians to have good relations with the media owners.

Italy never really developed a comprehensive plan as to shape the broadcast media. The laws approved in 1997 and 2004 didn’t include any meaningful antitrust provisions. Unlike, France that has established advance policies for the deregulation of its broadcasting system, preparing the national media landscape for technological challenges that were about to come, Italy ‘has chosen a sort of normative Darwinism, effectively a non-regulation, which resulted in the consolidation of a mixed duopoly’ (Mazzoleni, 2000, p. 160).

In Greece, meanwhile, licence applications are not adjudicated, and large numbers of radio and TV stations continue for years in legal limbo. In effect, ‘the deregulation of the broadcasting sector (in Greece) has been closely associated with politics rather than a well-organized plan according to the needs of the industry’ (Papathanassopoulos, 1997, p. 351).

In Cyprus, the advent of private channels in the early 1990s took place in an almost fully deregulated environment. More precisely, the regulations allowing the establishment of private TV stations provided only the basic guidelines for licensing and operation and proved insufficient in dealing with the complexities of commercial broadcasting (Christoforou, 2010, p. 240).

The deregulation of the TV media market in Spain was marked by a dual transformation: decentralisation and liberalisation. However, this procedure was not an orderly process, but was mostly the outcome of the ‘primacy of political interests over technical or legal ones, that is more political than rational’ (Bonet & Guimerài Orts, 2016, p. 9). The lack of a consistent plan to address the challenges of the newly formed TV landscape in Portugal is best described by Traquina (1995, p. 237), by emphasising that the deregulation has not been accompanied by a following process of ‘re-regulation’, with the aim of specifying programme obligations to both private and public operators.

In Turkey, satellite TV channels started mushrooming in 1990, while there was neither a regulation for technical standards nor content when it all began (Sümer & Taş, 2020, p. 36). The de facto privatisation by satellite channels was a major challenge for the Turkish public broadcaster. As Ürper (2016), puts it: ‘the privatization of broadcasting made it clear that TRT had neither the loyalty of its viewers nor the backing of the political elites’.

8 Concluding Remarks: Continuities and Discontinuities

Although the developments in the Southern European media sector may not entirely respond to the needs of their industry, their media systems have been surprisingly adaptable and flexible in the face of new developments. To understand this, one must remember that most of the media systems of Southern Europe have worked under Western democratic rule for less than 50 years now, and they had suddenly to face all the upheavals that other Western media systems have taken years to deal with. On the other hand, some important continuities go on such as the significant role of the state and the politicisation and polarisation of the media sector. More precisely:

First, the continuous interplay between politics and the media. Media and politics continually interact and influence each other in various ways, as we have seen, in most Southern European media systems.

Secondly, the state (aka leading political parties) has also played an important role as owner of media enterprises. The electronic media have traditionally been under the total and tight control of the state, but apart from the state-owned electronic media, the state has also had significant ownership in commercial media in the Southern European countries, including in the print press and, of course, in news agencies.³

Thirdly, in a more indirect but more effective way, the state acts to support its policies on ownership as well as to enforce the unwritten rules of power politics by using a wide range of means of intervention which are at its disposal. These means include sizable financial aid to the press, on which individual enterprises become dependent because they cannot cover their production costs. As Hallin and Mancini (2004, p. 121) note, extensive indirect subsidies have been provided to the press in the form of tax breaks, reduced utility rates and the like. In France, for instance, state subsidies (date back to 1944) in 2005 amounted to 249.2 million euro, while the non-direct subsidies were far higher. In Spain, the state is the largest spender in the media annually. Among the forms of funding are state subsidies given to the national and regional public media companies, while indirect state contributions are disguised as taxes, as well as advertising in the media bought with public money (Campos-Freire et al., 2020, p. 4). Governmental choices here are critical for the economic sustainability of some of the small- and medium-sized media companies (Artero & Sánchez-Tabernero, 2016, p. 328).

The topic of governmental interference with the media, aroused from its role as financial patron, has recently been again in the spotlight of the public debate in Greece, following the lack of transparency for the state’s subsidies to newspapers and media to cope with the COVID pandemic. In Turkey, public funding is also a source of tension in the country’s public scene. According to Nielsen’s relative data, six newspapers belonging to the “pool media” (Yeni Şafak, Akşam, Türkiye, Sabah, Yeni Akit, Takvim) received 62.5% of printed media ads given by 16 government-run companies in the first half of 2014, which cannot be justified by their circulation figures (the circulation of these newspapers barely exceeds 25% of the total market share). On the other hand, six anti-government newspapers, Zaman, Bugün (pro-Gülen), Cumhuriyet, Sözcü, BirGün and Evrensel (left-wing) absorbed only 2.2% of total ad revenues (Irak, 2016, p. 344).

In Malta, there is neither legal framework nor transparency in the allocation of state advertising (Nenadic, 2017, p. 7). Italy, during the last 5 years, is encountering major transformations regarding the system of public funding in the media.⁴ Indirect public support has already been abandoned in 2020 (Trevisan, 2020, p. 5).

However, the logic of media markets may under certain circumstances undermine these relationships. It can make media organisations less dependent on political subsidies, substitute marketing for political criteria in the making of news decisions and discourage identification with particular political positions. It may also make media enterprises too expensive for most politicians to afford or even for most industrialists to buy purely for political motives.

Or it can do exactly the opposite since in the age of digital media and the subsequent plethora of digital media outlets and the meteoric rise of the social media, one sees the emergence of echo champers leading to further polarisation and the rapid development of the niche media market with plenty of advocacy media and commentary. If it is so, the Southern European media are well ahead compared to their Western and Northern counterparts. Mattoni and Ceccobelli (2018) have made a crucial point when they state that digitisation has led to a radical transformation of politics organised around stable institutions towards what they call ‘non-elite’ politics, with an emphasis on grass-roots participation. In other words, to use Mancini’s expression ‘one of the major consequences of the technology-critical juncture’ is that it produces a general process of de-institutionalisation (2020, p. 5767) within ‘single and disperse citizens can take an active role both in news media production and circulation and in politics’ (2020, p. 5769).

In addition, the new financial pressures brought to legacy media by the digital technology have paved the way for a kind of de-professionalisation of journalism, since we are witnessing the physical detachment of the journalist from the newsroom, but at the same an increased obedience to editors’ or owners’ control to safeguard his job. The advent of social media and the emergence of do-it-yourself journalism has made the news media landscape even more uncertain for the professional journalist, as other actors producing content for online and social media call for a redistribution of power in the journalistic field (Linden et al., 2021). The lack of journalistic independence leads inevitably to a decreasing trust in the media and ultimately to the deterioration of the democratic debate. In this sense, media regulation should move towards a new approach that could guarantee media diversity and journalistic autonomy at the European level (Cagé et al., 2017, p. 23).

Finally, ‘globalisation’ may under certain circumstances undermine the close relationship between media and the political world, but it seems it does not produce the results its proponents used to argue 20 years age. Southern European media systems seem to be more affected by the EU Europeanisation processes rather than globalisation, since the EU provides with a common legal framework and all its member states, either northern, western, or southern, have to follow.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of the EU countries could be seen as an incremental process that re-orientates the direction and shape of politics to the degree that EU political and economic dynamics become part of the organisational logic of domestic politics and policymaking (Harcourt, 2002; Radaelli, 1997). The EU ‘Europeanisation’ process will certainly affect their media systems, as well. As the rest of media systems around the world, the media in Southern Europe have been affected by the globalisation processes, the Europeanization process of the EU membership and the developments of technology. In effect, the media in Southern Europe, as elsewhere, have been affected by the globalisation, technology, economy and the developments of the European Union.