Media Capture And Corrupt Journalists : How Europeanization Helped Build Façades of Democracy

This book explores the form, dynamics, and main reasons for media capture and conspiracy between editors and executive politicians in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since 2000. Situated in the literatures on Europeanization, democratization, party studies, and media studies, the book aims to connect these fields by showing that internal party dynamics play an important role in motivating executive politicians to hijack or collaborate with media. Against this backdrop, the book tells the story of Croatian journalism in the context of media-mafia conglomerates, political corruption, and media hijacking, and examines how "traditional" democratic drivers that the literature frequently cites, such as Europeanization and party competition, failed to prevent systematic transgressions by politicians. Methodologically, the book takes a two-pronged approach. First, nearly 50 interviews were conducted with Croatian investigative journalists, from which the narratives about the relationships between government politicians and editors over 15 years were reconstructed. In a second step, a sample of 40,000 media articles was subjected to a computational sentiment analysis, covering the same 15-year period and showing high levels of cooperation between corrupt politicians and corrupt media outlets. This interdisciplinary work offers rich scholarly analysis through a compelling narrative of corrupt collaboration in Croatia. It will appeal to a wide academic audience across the fields of Europeanization studies, party studies, and media studies. Tomislav Marsic is a political and media scientist with a professional background in political consulting Contents 6 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 13 1 Introduction 14 1.1 The Main Argument in the Wider CEE Context 20 1.1.1 Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom Since Accession to the EU 22 1.2 Introduction of the Dependent Variable: Levels of Horizontal Accountability 26 1.2.1 Conceptualizing the Axes of the Typology 27 1.2.2 Specification of Actors and Time Frame 29 1.3 Alternative Explanations 31 1.3.1 Strong Civil Society and Whistle Blowers 31 1.3.2 Economic Crises and Advertisement Spending 32 1.3.3 Media Pluralism and Market Competition 33 1.3.4 Regime Change 34 1.3.5 Europeanization 35 1.3.6 Inter-Party Competition 39 1.4 Developing the Argument 43 1.4.1 Definition of Media Capture of Media Capture and Collusion 43 1.4.2 The Principal-Agent Perspective on Party Leadership Selection 47 1.4.3 Explaining Media Capture with Intra-Party Dynamics 51 Embedding the Explanation in the Literature 51 Three Steps: Rootedness, Contestation and Institutionalization of Rules 51 Actor’s Resources 51 Scope Conditions of the Explanation 51 1.5 Conclusion 60 References 61 2 Measurement and Methods of Data Collection 73 2.1 Introduction 73 2.2 The Case Study Method 73 2.3 Measuring Media Capture 76 2.3.1 Operationalizing Horizontal Accountability 77 2.3.2 Interviews 80 Approach: Semi-Structured Interviews 80 Sampling of Interviewees 80 Time Frame 80 Managing the Left—right Divide 80 No-Response Issues 80 Other Sources of Possible Bias 80 Analysis of Interview Data 80 2.3.3 Sentiment Analysis 85 Measurement of Media Politicization and Media Bias 85 Data Collection 85 Availability and Quality of the Archives 85 Data Analysis: Slavomjer 85 2.4 Measuring the Independent Variable: Intra-Party Dynamics 91 2.4.1 Dimensions of Intra-Party Accountability 94 2.5 Conclusion 95 Bibliography 96 3 Historical Overview—Establishment of Formal Particularism and the First Transition in the 1990s 99 3.1 Introduction 99 3.2 The General Context of the First Transition 100 3.2.1 Prologue to Democratic Change (1980–1989) 100 3.2.2 The War and the Setup of Presidential-Parliamentarism 103 Institutional Level 103 Behavioural Level 105 3.2.3 Sweeping Replacement of the Elite 108 3.3 Transition in the Media 111 3.3.1 Putting the Mainstream Media Under State Control 112 3.3.2 Limiting Freedom for the Private Press 114 3.3.3 The HDZ Controls the Judiciary 116 3.3.4 Tudjman Used Formal Particularism to Control the Media 118 3.4 The HDZ Loses Popular Support After 1995 119 3.4.1 The Moderates and the Hardliners Use the Media for Their Infighting 121 3.4.2 Run-Up to the 2000 Elections 123 3.5 Conclusions 124 References 125 4 Ivica Račan and Jadranka Kosor: Steps to Universalism 130 4.1 Ivica Račan, 12.1999–12.2003 131 4.1.1 The Media Scene at the Outset of the “Second Transformation” 132 4.1.2 The Grupo Contract and Its Impact on the Croatian Media Scene 135 Interlinked Media Empires and a “Pacified” Market: Evidence for the Links Between Jutarnji List, Večernji List and Slobodna Dalmacija 135 4.1.3 The Media-Mafia Conglomerate Around Nacional 140 4.1.4 PM Račan: Careful Universalism 143 Račan Did Not Tackle the Grupo Cartel and EPH’s Role in It 143 The New Administration Stopped Formal Particularism 143 Developments of Universalism 143 4.1.5 President Mesić and Nacional 151 4.1.6 Summarizing the Roles of Račan and Mesić 153 4.1.7 The Effects of Traditional Drivers 154 4.2 Jadranka Kosor, 07.2009–12.2011 156 4.2.1 Kosor’s Relations to Ninoslav Pavić and EPH 159 4.2.2 The Effects of Traditional Drivers 163 4.3 Conclusions 164 References 165 5 Ivo Sanader and Zoran Milanović: Regression to Particularism 170 5.1 Formal and Informal Particularism 170 5.2 Ivo Sanader, 12.2003–07.2009 172 5.2.1 Capturing Media Using Informal Particularism 174 Capturing Novi List 174 Colluding with Ninoslav Pavić 174 Capturing Journalists: The Case of Helena Puljiz 174 Boycotting Media Through Advertisement Oligopolies 174 5.2.2 The Effects of Europeanization 194 5.3 Zoran Milanović, 12.2011–12.2015 198 5.3.1 Informal Particularism 200 Milanović Established a System of Trading Information for Objectivity 200 Milanović Uses Informal Particularism in Infighting Over EPH 200 5.3.2 Formal Particularism: Dispensing Rewards and Sanctions via Formal Policies 203 Media Harassment Using the Tax Police 203 Pre-Bankruptcy Settlement 203 Formal Economic Pressures 203 5.3.3 Ivo Josipović 2011–2015: Informal Particularism and Collusion 206 Ivo Josipović Tries to Remove “Novosti” from the Market 206 The Mainstream Press: Jutarnji and Večernji List 206 The Relationship of Josipović and Milanović to the Public Prosecutor Mladen Bajić 206 5.3.4 The Effects of Europeanization 211 5.4 Conclusions 212 References 213 6 Quantitative Text Analysis 219 6.1 Introduction 219 6.2 Brief Description of Method and Data 220 6.2.1 Method 220 6.2.2 Data 222 6.3 Testing the Hypotheses 224 6.3.1 Media Capture 224 Is There Evidence for Media Capture in Election years? 224 Who Organizes Media Capture? 230 Capture of Public Media 233 The Role of So-Called “Untouchables” 234 6.4 Summary of the Reliability Assessment 240 6.4.1 Limitations of Method and Data 240 6.5 Conclusions 241 Bibliography 242 7 What Motivated the Shifts Between Particularism and Universalism? 244 7.1 Introduction 244 7.2 Summary of the Argument 244 7.3 Rootedness Relaxes the Need for Media Control 246 7.3.1 Summary 246 7.3.2 The Way Račan Acquired Party Leadership 247 7.3.3 Contestation Was Not Personal But Over Ideological Questions 247 7.3.4 Permitted Contestation 249 Decentralized the Party and Allowed Factions 249 7.3.5 Required Comparatively Little Media Support from Pavić 250 7.4 Party-Internal Contestation and the Need to Control Media 251 7.4.1 Jadranka Kosor—Weakly Rooted and Highly Contested 252 Jadranka Kosor Is Appointed to Party Leadership 252 Kosor Fails to Contain Contestation 252 Kosor Tried to Fight Competitors But Was Not Supported by EPH 252 7.4.2 Sanader and Milanović—Controlling Contestation for the Leadership 257 Mode of Acquiring Power Within the Party 257 The Path of Non-Rooted Politicians—Eliminating Intra-Party Competition 260 Eliminating Contestation Allows the Party Leaders to Make Use of Particularism 263 7.5 Conclusions 270 References 271 8 Conclusions 276 8.1 Introduction 276 8.2 Synthesis of Empirical Findings 278 8.2.1 Shape and Dynamics of Media Capture and Collusion 278 (Informal) Universalism 2000—2003 278 Informal Particularism 2004—2009 278 Universalism 2009–2011 278 Formal Particularism 2011—2015 278 8.2.2 Why Did Traditional Drivers Fail and What Has Been Driving Media Capture Instead? 281 8.3 Theoretical, Conceptual and Methodological Implications 284 8.3.1 Party Leadership Selection 284 8.3.2 Particularism 286 8.3.3 Sentiment Analysis 288 8.4 Policy Implications and Directions for Further Research 289 8.4.1 Better Measures for Media Independence 289 8.4.2 Testing the Intra-Party Competition Hypothesis on a Larger N 290 8.4.3 Empirical Research on Informal Rules 290 8.5 Final Remarks 290 References 291 Bibliography 293 Index 326