The comparative analysis prepared by RESIS deals with the regulation of political advertising in the media during election campaigns or referendums in several European countries and in Macedonia.
The need for this analysis has arisen from a series of dilemmas and issues that have arisen in Macedonia over the last ten years, when the political parallel to state-sponsored advertising was widely used as a mechanism to "buy" the servitude of media owners. Such practice thoroughly distorted the position of the media and journalism in Macedonian society, so that instead of serving the citizens and the public interest, they largely served the centers of economic and political power.
The analysis presents the best European standards and legal systems of developed democracies in Europe that do not allow political advertising in the broadcast media. It should stimulate public debate on the arguments used by developed democracies and the European Court of Human Rights in assessing the negative impact that political advertising can have on the public sphere, journalism and, more generally, on freedom of expression. The analysis recommends that state advertising be abolished, and the need for and conditions under which paid political content can be published in the media be reconsidered.
RESIS has prepared this analysis in cooperation with the needs of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, with the financial support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the European Union in the framework of the project "Western Balkans Regional Platform for Media Freedom Advocacy and Protection of Journalists".
