Mass media in Estonia
overview of the mass media in Estonia
Since 1991 Estonia has changed from being a former Soviet republic to a member of the European Union and the European Monetary Union, making a rapid transformation in several fields, including the mass media, which is a vibrant and competitive sector. For many years Estonia has been among the top ten in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) Press Freedom Index. In 2017 it was ranked 12th out of 180 countries by RSF while Freedom House assigned Estonia’s press freedom a score of 16/100 (with 1 corresponding to the most free status). A cross-media landscape that embraces traditional media (press, radio and television) as well as the Internet and digital media characterises the contemporary media system in Estonia.
Historical background
The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) became the first republic within the Soviet sphere of influence to declare state sovereignty from Moscow in 1988. The ESSR was renamed as the Republic of Estonia on May 8, 1990, while the independence of the country was re-established in 1991, when it was also recognized by the Soviet Union. The free and independent journalism that flourished in the 1920s and 1930s has been increasingly repressed after the Soviet occupation. Between 1945 and 1988 newspapers and other media channels operated as propaganda instrument for the communist party. Since 1988 media have played an important role in the national liberation process, while after the independence Estonia witnessed a rapid development of media business, with a proliferation of media actors. This was followed in the 1990s by an increase in competition between corporations until they merged into bigger companies which were often bought by foreign investors.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mass media in Estonia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.