Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Balkan states, situated in southeastern Europe, include Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia. Altogether, the Balkan states have a population of almost 54.5 million people of very diverse ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. Montenegro is the smallest of these states and Romania the largest. The Balkan states are emerging democracies with parliamentary systems; Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union on January 1, 2007, and others aspire to do so in the future. The media in the Balkan states have traveled a long way since being freed from the Marxist-Leninist straitjacket in 1989, but becoming professional media that reflect and serve full-fledged democracies is still beyond the horizon. The desire to join the European Union and pressure from western → journalism , human rights watchdog organizations, governments, and supranational organizations have effected some modest changes in the region's media, both to the laws and regulations that relate to them (→ Communication Law and Policy: Europe ) and to the practice of journalism. Despite the progress made, there are still nagging problems that insure that the media remain only minor contributors to the process of democratization and examples of an institution that has not been allowed to fully reach the status it should have or play the roles it must play ... log in or subscribe to read full text