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CLP10
Media Landscapes under Pressure: Regulatory Reformand Legal Challenges
PP 667
Portuguese Mechanisms of Media Accountability. The Journalists’ Perceptions, the Regulatory Powers and the Impacts
of Non‑Mandatory Deliberations
N. Moutinho
1
, H. Lima
2
, S. Cavaco
2
, I. Reis
2
1
University of Porto, School of Economics and Management, Porto, Portugal
2
University of Porto, Oporto, Portugal
A democratic political system is not complete without a free and pluralist press. However, a free media system has been challenged by several new demands
and the impact of the internet and digital platforms, by bringing new habits of consumption that jeopardize the previous established media business mod‑
els. In a time of permanent changes and crises the media accountability tools have also been defied, nevertheless their central role as grant of credibility and
reliability for news consumption and, therefore, the increasing need of audiences that should maintain the media companies. The research project "Media
Accountability and Transparency in Europe" (MediaAcT), which has been examining the transparency and media accountability in European countries and
North Africa assumes that the status quo of the media governance in each country serves as a key indicator of pluralism and freedom of the media in each
particular case. The MediaAct research adopts the media accountability system in a more comprehensive approach than the pioneering concept of Claude-
Jean Bertrand who defines it as "any non-State means of making the media Responsible towards the public" and rather follows Denis McQuail’s perspective
by including co-regulatory instruments. The MediaAct, was launched and coordinated by the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism, in 2010 and
Portugal joined the project in 2013.This study aims to trace the current Portuguese media accountability system taking in consideration the MediaAcT mod‑
el of analysis. Accordingly, a standardized survey was submitted to the Portuguese journalists, in order to understand how professionals regard the estab‑
lished media accountability tools (eg. Codes of ethics) and the emerging new ones that stem from the use of digital platforms (eg. Media criticism in blogs).
Furthermore, this research includes the follow up of the two major Portuguese institutions, Journalists Deontology Council and the Regulatory Authority for
Mass Media, in their decision process in the last two years.
PP 668
Blurring the Lines Between Information Content and Commercial Communication. A Study from the Perspective of Radio Ownership
Responsibility
C. Muela-Molina
1
, S. Perelló
1
, R. Berganza
1
, G. Starkey
2
, R. de Miguel
1
1
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Communication Sciences and Sociology, Fuenlabrada, Spain
2
Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Radio, as a mass medium, must act responsibly towards its audience and respect listener rights in response to their loyalty. When advertising material is
blurred with editorial content, it can generate in the listener a confusion regarding the nature and intent of the communication. In radio in Spain, the pro‑
tection of listeners regarding broadcast content is reflected in Law 7/2010, of 31 March, the General Audiovisual Communications Act, which is a trans‑
position of Directive 2007/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2007. There are no studies of the practice of radio station
owners, which empirically demonstrate how and how often the principle of content separation is violated under the current legislation. Previous studies
have discussed various issues around blurring of content and advertising (Dix & Phau, 2008; Sandler & Secunda, 1993; Secunda, 1995), the practices used
to diminish the clarity of delimitation between advertising and editorial content (Harro-Loit & Saks, 2006), the audience aptitude to distinguish between
different content (Grotta, Larkin & Carrell, 1976; Steininger &Woelke, 2008), the ethical perspective of disguised advertising (Nebenzahl & Jaffe, 1998) and
the principle of separating advertising and programme content from both a legal and deontological viewpoint (Baerns, 2003). This paper aims to analyse
the respect shown by generalist radio station (GRS) owners in separating information content –editorial content based on news/talks and sports informa‑
tion- from any other type of commercial communication -non-editorial content- and to detect the presence or absence of signifiers to distinguish between
content throughout radio programming, as required by the current legislation, as well as to establish how this compulsory separation takes place. Thus,
the most original contribution of this paper to the field of communication is the creation of a matrix of variables that identify these inappropriate practices
and which has been tested from the sample under study.The present work identifies all commercial references broadcast during 24 hours of programming in
October 2013 for the three GRS with the highest audience ratings in Spain. We analysed all 372 intersections between information content and commercial
communication by time slot and commercial content. We also typified the identifiers that precede and follow an advertising break or commercial reference
respectively as Audio Signal Input Separation (ASIS) and Audio Signal Output Separation (ASOS). The results show that 29.6% of the analysed commercial
spaces lacked the required ASIS and that in 25.3% of cases an ASOS could not be detected. That is, there is a significant amount of advertising content
lacking the identifiers for content separation required by law to warn listeners that the message is, in fact, advertising and not part of the information flow.
PP 669
Basic Problems of the Media System Regulation in the Post-Socialist Society – The Experience of the Republic of Serbia -
I. Milutinovic
1
1
John Naisbitt University, Faculty of Culture and Media, Belgrade, Serbia
The subject of this paper is the regulatory framework of media in the post-socialist era in Serbia, viewed from the standpoint of the EU standards in the field
of media policy. The aim of the paper is to systematize the specifics, main problems and priorities of the process of democratic transformation of the media
system, through its harmonization with the European regulatory framework. The membership in the Council of Europe and candidacy for the membership
in the European Union obliges the competent institutions of the Republic of Serbia to implement and apply EU regulations those make the Acquis Com‑
munautaire in the media field. Especially in the field of audio-visual services, the most important regulatory document of the European media policy is
the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). The transition of post-socialist media legislation in Serbia started with democratic political changes