The Impact of Media Concentration on Professional ... - OSCE

2. <strong>The</strong> SurveyAs media concentration has long been understood as being athreat to pluralism and content diversity and thus to democracyproper, the phenomenon has been the subject <strong>of</strong> extensiveresearch. <strong>Concentration</strong> today is well understood in its economicdimension as well as in its social and political implications.Interestingly enough, in this ongoing debate on concentration,one key sector <strong>of</strong> the media industry has received littleattention. What happens to pr<strong>of</strong>essional journalism? Howdo journalists cope with the changing pr<strong>of</strong>essional environment?And how do journalists describe their pr<strong>of</strong>essional situationin the “New World Order” <strong>of</strong> globally operating mediaconglomerates?If it is true, that a free and independent press is one <strong>of</strong> theessential pillars <strong>of</strong> democracy, and that journalists are the mostimportant asset <strong>of</strong> media companies, then their opinions andtheir feelings have to be taken into account, too.To fill this gap was the purpose <strong>of</strong> this survey, conductedeach in four full Member States and four membership CandidateStates <strong>of</strong> the European Union. <strong>The</strong> results presented in thispublication would not have been possible without the activeand generous help <strong>of</strong> the European Federation <strong>of</strong> Journalists inBrussels and the national journalist unions and associations aswell as media NGOs in Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy,Lithuania, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom.<strong>The</strong> survey deals only with the impact <strong>of</strong> concentrationon pr<strong>of</strong>essional journalism in the daily newspaper sector. <strong>The</strong>decision to research daily newspaper journalism alone wasdue to limited financial resources and the short amount <strong>of</strong> timeavailable.THE SURVEY 61