Hyperlocal and the nation state - Malta’s complicated media ecosystem

Abstract

Malta, the smallest member state of the EU, has a distinctive and complex hyperlocal media ecosystem for a democratic country. This chapter describes the complex relationship between state, state-controlled public broadcasting, party-owned media outlets, and the Fifth Estate. It explains the long-standing threat to independent media in Malta due to political interference and the declining (albeit still potent) influence of the Catholic Church on the social world. The perceived erosion of media freedoms (reflected in a decline in Malta’s media freedom index), ineffective national media regulation, the entrenched power of incumbency of the bi-partisan structures, and the mass turn to social media platforms are some of the challenges faced by media outlets and citizen journalists, already constrained by long-standing commercial pressures. Significant events, such as the murder of investigative journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, the death of teenager Jean Paul Sofia on a construction site, and shifts in voting patterns have led to increasing domestic and international pressure on Malta, to reform its media ecosystem. Based on this analysis, the chapter proposes a hyperlocal media ecosystem model, based on established media concepts, to explain the operations of such ecosystems in small states and how the construction of reality is mediated.