Browsing by Subject "ex-communist countries"

This thesis focuses on the extent to which the Albanian PBS journalists are included in the decision making process related to the digital switchover strategy. Given the fact that Albania is a European Union candidate country, in order to continue with the accession negotiationsit has to fulfill the required criteria, among which the digitization process also takes place. Even though Europe provides successful models of the PBS digitization, due to mainly the peculiar domestic market of Albania, the process has been postponed several times. The delay of the process, and especially the delay of the Public Broadcaster in completing the digitization, has been prone to a number of critiques from the European Union. In order to better understand the process, the digitization is studied from the journalistic culture and the new institutionalism perspectives. The communist regime and the perennial period of transition have left traces in the managerial structures which have shaped the working routines of the journalists at the Albanian PBS. This thesis concludes that journalists are excluded from the digitization process because political interests and media owners’ personal profits have overshadowed the audiences’ interests. Additionally, even though digitization is seen as a process that would improve the working conditions of journalists, it has reinforced the existing problem of editorial independence, inherited from the communist practices.