Dumitrita Holdis

• Central European University

During the past decade, Romania’s media market has been experiencing massive shifts, particularly when it comes to its funding models. As elsewhere, these changes were triggered to a large degree by technological advances. The financial health of Romania’s media was also affected by local factors, including business practices, changes in government...

Romania’s media market seems vibrant and diverse, but in reality, the local environment hardly enables independent journalism to thrive. Independent journalism survives thanks to a string of small online outlets that are struggling financially and grappling with a low level of trust and a public unwilling to pay for media content. Media consumption...

Romania has one of the most competitive technology markets in the world. But who benefits from it? The tools Romanians use to access the internet reflect larger trends in technology and digital media. Smartphones are now ever-present; the internet is used by more than two-thirds of the population, a significant increase from less than 40% in 2010....

Media regulation in Romania remains an openly political affair where chaos rather than strategy and expertise rules. Realitatea TV, a Romanian all-news television station, was officially declared bankrupt last April after the station’s reorganization plan was rejected by a local court. It took eight years for the Romanian courts to send the station...

A new generation of brash journalism outlets challenge the highly concentrated media system in Romania. But many of them remain highly vulnerable, according to this report, the most comprehensive analysis of the country’s media in decades. In Romania, media outlets able to generate sufficient cash on their own can afford to be apolitical. But only...