Essentially, political party media fall into one of three categories, and it is for a regulatory authority to decide which:
- Propaganda sheets that do not fall under a media regulator, but may be monitored if, for example, they constitute campaign spending, which may be limited by law.
- Conventional private media that just happen to be owned by a party. In that case, they will have to conform to the prevailing standards or regulations for other private media.
- Government media, in a situation in which the ruling party and government have been intertwined. In that case, media using public funds should conform to the same standards as any other public media - which in practice probably means that they cannot campaign for the party at all.
Political party-owned media are most often newspapers. In many countries, political parties are not allowed to own broadcasting stations, since this is deemed to be an unfair allocation of a national resource - the frequency spectrum - to a narrow political interest. In Turkey, for example, the 2011 Law on Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and their Media Services, states that “A broadcasting license cannot be granted to political parties [and a range of other entities]” and that they cannot be “direct or indirect shareholders of media service providers.”[i]
Another type of media straddles the distinction between party and private media. Individual politicians, or business leaders with political aspirations, own media that appear to be regular outlets. Politician-owned media has become common practice in Ukraine, where advocates for freedom of expression are gravely concerned about pluralism in media ownership and the control of key broadcasters by wealthy political oligarchs and their families. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi’s broadcasting stations successfully promoted his ambition to become his country's Prime Minister. These politician-owned media are conventional private media that are subject to the same laws and regulations as any other, yet the potential conflict-of-interest and the question of a pluralism of views in major media are causes for concern.
[i] “Law on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and their Media Services”, law number 6112 Turkey, as found on WIPO Resources webpage, accessed August 25, 2012, http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=241854
