This paper is published within the Working Paper Series on Media Assistance in the Western Balkans that studies the development of independent and functional media institutions in the Western Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia. In particular, the papers in this series are concerned with media institutions that have been influenced by the international media assistance programs. The questions these studies attempt to answer are: Can external assistance result in the creation of sustainable and independent media institutions? How the context influences the development of independent institutions that have been established by external influences? How the interaction between domestic and international actors shapes the outcome of institutional building? The underlying concern that guides this working paper series is whether ‘models’ of media systems that have developed in the West can be exported to other countries where democracy is less consolidated.

 

This publication is produced within the project “Development of Functional Media Institutions in Western Balkans - A Comparative Study” implemented in 2012 and 2013 by the Center for Social Research Analitika from Bosnia and Herzegovina, in cooperation with the Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM) from Macedonia, the Albanian Media Institute (AMI), from Albania, and the Democracy for Development (D4D) from Kosovo.

 

The project is funded by the Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP), which is aimed at fostering and promoting social science research in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia). The RRPP is coordinated and operated by the Interfaculty Institute for Central and Eastern Europe (IICEE) at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). The programme is fully funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.