Audiovisual Regulation in Russia in the Context of the Council of Europe Standards

Review of Central and East European Law. 2019. Vol. 44. No. 3. P. 366–405.

Sherstoboeva E.

This paper explores, mainly from a legal perspective, the extent to which the Russian regulations of traditional TV and online audiovisual media policies have been consistent with the Council of Europe (hereinafter CoE) standards. The study compares between the CoE and Russian approaches to  specific aspects of audiovisual regulation including licensing, media ownership, public service media, digitalization, and national production. The paper first studies the CoE perspective through examining its conventional provisions related to audiovisual media, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as well as the CoE non-binding documents. The paper then considers Russian national legislation governing audiovisual media and the Russian general jurisdiction courts’ practice on broadcast licensing. The paper suggests that the Russian audiovisual regulations are insufficiently compatible with the CoE standards and more in line with the Soviet regulatory traditions.

Keywords: freedom of expression, European Court of Human Rights, European court, Russian media, media law, European Convention on human rights, Russian media freedom, Russian media law, freedom of expression in Russia, The Council of Europe, the European Convention, case law of the European Court of human rights, Art 10 of the European Convention on human rights, Media Law and Policies, International standards on freedom of expression

Publication based on the results of: Media and sociocultural changes: a critical analysis of transformative effects of mediatization (2018)