Results of the 2016 Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM)

The Assessing the Risk for Media Pluralism in EU and Beyond: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor Tool (MPM 2016) project is funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF), Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. The project is based on the methodological tool initially developed in 2009, simplified in 2014, and pilot implemented in 2015. In 2016 it was implemented in the EU 28, Montenegro and Turkey. The MPM 2016 is based on a standardized and comparative monitoring tool for assessing risks for media pluralism based on a set of 20 indicators. The indicators cover pertinent legal, economic and social variables in four domains: basic protection, market plurality, political independence and social inclusiveness. The implementation in Croatia was carried out by Dr. Paško Bilić (local coordinator) from the Department for Culture and Communication; Dr. Antonija Petričušić, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb; Dr. Ivan Balabanić, Catholic University Zagreb; and Dr. Valentina Vučković, Faculty of Economy, University of Zagreb. In addition, an expert panel from the members of the academic community, members of regulatory bodies, non-governmental organizations and professional associations evaluated particularly sensitive variables. Risks to media pluralism are scored as low risk (0 – 33%), medium risk (34 – 66%) and high risk (67 – 100%).
The Croatian media system scored medium risk in the basic domain (34 %) as did Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Spain, Poland and Romania. Other countries recorded low risk, except for Turkey which scored a high risk. The market pluralism domain also scored medium risk (34 %) as did most countries except France, Germany and Portugal which scored low risk and Bulgaria which scored high risk. The political independence domain scored medium risk (55 %) in Croatia. Low risk was recorded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. High risk was recorded in Montenegro, Hungary, Slovenia and Turkey. The social inclusiveness domain for Croatia also scored a medium risk (52%) as did most countries except for Belgium, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Sweden and United Kingdom which scored a low risk; and Greece, Latvia and Turkey which scored a high risk.