About

Limited scholarship, limited comparative media analyses, limited publications in other than national languages, but most importantly – lack of analytical studies – contribute that the three Baltic countries are still Terra Incognita for many scholars outside this geographic and cultural region of Europe. “BalticMedia.eu” aims to fill this gap.

Broadly speaking, Baltic media change, developments and journalism cultures are at the core of this online project.

The growth of  “BalticMedia.eu” was a natural process. It grew out from the lectures (“Media and Democracy in the Nordic-Baltic Area of Europe”, “Journalism Cultures”, “Political Communications”, “Media Economy”) and seminars taught by media scholars and practitioners at the universities of Kaunas, Tartu and Riga since the early 1990s. The contributions were given by professors Peeter Vihalemm, Marju Lauristin, Epp Lauk, Auksė Balčytienė, Halliki Harro-Loit to mention a few.

“BalticMedia.eu” is structured as online data base. The issues discussed here range from theoretical concepts such as media democratization, professionalization and so forth to more concrete thematic sections providing up-to-date data on media system change (convergence and concentration), media consumption and other quantitative and qualitative characteristics. 

Indeed, in the context of ongoing debates about media homogenization, convergence and commercialization as simultaneously taking place in many countries around the world, the analysis of media developments in small Baltic nations appears to be a very interesting research case for several reasons.

Firstly, the transformations in these societies have started only few decades ago, in the late 1980s, thus people’s experiences and their memories are still very fresh. Moreover, the changes which emerged in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were very complex as they simultaneously took place on multiple levels and in different political, economic and social realms.

Secondly, local changes in the fields of media and politics of the newly born democracies were coupled with multiple external pressures such as globalization, modernization, regional integration, technological diffusion, digitalization and so forth. As popularly conceived, these processes have taken place in culturally and structurally very different contexts and thus their outcomes are quite diverse.

“BalticMedia.eu” invites different groups of interested people – media and journalism students, experienced scholars and young researchers, professional journalists and editors, and, most importantly, media policy makers – to explore the available knowledge online and to discover new analytical variables according to which it is possible to compare, contrast and disclose this huge diversity of Baltic media systems.