Tools and strategies of political capture of the media in Europe

Commonly understood as a situation in which the media are controlled either directly by governments or by vested interests (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2008), media capture emerged as a sophisticated scheme that has affected media systems across Europe. While the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe represented the context in which this process flourished more evidently, major signs of political capture of the media can be clearly detected in Western Europe too, both in the realm of traditional media, and in the digital domain. This chapter will aim to assess the evolution of these control mechanisms across the European Union member states and candidate countries, utilising the unique set of data provided by the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) over a six-year longitudinal line (MPM2018 - MPM2023). Following a brief theoretical introduction into the topic, our analysis will be focusing on three specific forms of media capture: on the power expressed via direct ownership and indirect control via intermediaries; on the partisan distribution of subsidies and state advertising; as well as on the subjugation of regulatory institutions.