Messages in the Media - University of Toronto

BACKGROUND:
In 2008, the EU and Ukraine launched the Association
Agreement negotiations. During the fifteenth EU-
Ukraine Summit the European Council President Herman
Van Rompuy stated that “the support of European public
opinion to Ukraine's political association and economic integration
to the EU is an important asset.” 1 However, recent
political events in Ukraine resulted in the following
statement: “The perceived deterioration of the quality of
democracy and the rule of law in Ukraine has a direct impact
in our Member-States, in our public at large, and in the
European Parliament.” 2
MEDIA SOURCES:
Ukraine’s news media field is dominated by television as
the primary source of information for most of the population.
Ukraine’s media watchdog Mediasapiens has published
a report indicating the numbers of media standard
violations and censored TV news reports. 1+1 scored as the
second channel with the greatest number of instances of
censorship. 3 In general, the current regime and its representatives
have dominated TV news commentaries and
very little time has been afforded to the opposition. 4 Moreover,
in 2005 the current Head of the State Security Service
of Ukraine bought 61% of the channel Inter. Concerns regarding
the transparency of the transaction 5 and the new
owner’s conduct 6 have been raised.
Inter
www.inter.ua
Inter is Ukraine’s most popular TV channel 7. Its web page,
Podrobnosti, gets over 13.4 million hits a month 8. The website
also has an RSS feed running non-stop.
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