The Media as an Actor in The Post-Communist World

The process of democratising the media might be paved with challenges but the literature about mass-media no doubtly underlines their substantial contribution to the democratisation and evolution of post-communist societies through their ability to construct news about what happens in society. Sparks emphasizes that certain features of “society are more clearly illuminated through this optic (of media change) than through others” (Sparks, 1998: 16-7). Media change becomes an indicator of more general political change. Hopes are put in media as the shift between fundamentally different systems is expected to be registered particularly in the mass media (Sparks, 1998).

In the middle of the turmoil of such massive change, media has a significant importance as people rely on discursive constructs when trying to assign meanings to changing political reality (Baysha & Hallan, 2003). Media`s responsibility is substantial in this respect as the progress towards democracy depends on its state.

However, just stating the importance of the media in not enough. Jakubowicz and Sukosd (2008) urge the Central and Eastern European media scholars to take an objective look at other media systems and analyse what is happening in their own region compared to the processes developing elsewhere. They suggest the post-communist media to be seen as a key area of systemic change, based on the liberal theories of the democratic state as a fundamental philosophy of the press system which has to fulfil a number of expectations, to provide a number of services for democracy and to play some particular roles provided the historical context. An “enabling environment” (Jakubowicz & Sukosd, 2008, p. 10) for media freedom

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and contribution to democracy is needed: therefore, a critical political economy of the media approach should be employed to look not only at the prerequisites necessary to consolidate media freedom but at the political and economic environment that influences the manner in which post-communist media reports problems such as political corruption.

49 Chapter 2: Political Corruption and Political Culture

“If your vote mattered, we would not allow you to vote. All you are doing is to change some of us with others of us. We are the ones who do the combinations, we are above. We have relations everywhere, no matter who comes to power. We make money anyway. What are you doing? You are the “I cannot afford” generation (...). You have to leave the country in order to make it.” (Vântu6_{, 2014).}

1) Introduction

Political corruption and political culture are related concepts that meet on the ground of practices and values. Political corruption, a rogue behaviour practised by the political elite, is rooted in certain mentalities or modes of thought arising from the practices and values that determine political behaviours. Although political culture is seen as one of the main determinants of political corruption, I argue in this chapter that it can be a factor of resistance against corruption and a mechanism of holding power to account.

Although corruption is usually acknowledged as a deeply negative occurrence in any society, some researchers support the idea that corruption can be good in small doses. Max Weber`s functional approach, for instance, looks at the circumstances of societies in transition and describes corruption as a mechanism which helps remove the tension between emerging and outdated norms. The institutional approach considers corruption as a means of redistributing resources from an old elite to a new elite without causing a direct clash between them (Barsukova, 2009).

However, this is not the position implied in this thesis. In my view, corruption, no matter how little, is harmful. As we shall see towards the end of this chapter, Romania experienced a “small” level of corruption during the Communist era. The behaviour had spread due to the Communist economic conditions and turned, post-Revolution, into systemic corruption which led to dire economic consequences, due to its ubiquity and depth. Since the fall of Communism in December 1989, this country has been rated as one of the most corrupt

6 _{Sorin Ovidiu Vântu is a Romanian businessman and media owner with strong connections in the political}

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countries in Europe. According to the Index of Corruption made by Transparency International in 2014, Romania is one of the four most corrupt countries in the EU, ranking 43, the same as Greece, Italy and Bulgaria (Transparency International, 2014).

The first part of this chapter is dedicated to explaining the concept of political corruption, followed by an overview of the political context which allowed Romania to be seriously challenged by political corruption. The second part is dedicated to political culture in Romania. Romania’s history of corruption dates back to the Ottoman domination in the 16th Century. Habits of corruption and corrupt ways of thinking learnt from foreign domination were perpetuated by local leaders with incalculable consequences for the Romanian people, the military incapacity to face the Russian ultimatum in 1940, to name but one, since military procurement had been ruined by corrupt practices.

As “a mentality is not usually examined by those who inhabit it” (Dean, 1999:16), reflexivity is generally missing from a political culture. Despite this, there has always been in Romania a small but strong segment of society which drew attention to the mentality of corruption and its consequences and made its voice heard through the media of their time.