Ethical and Legislative Standards in the Environment of Radio Broadcasters and Their Application into Practice

Abstract

The present scientific study deals with the legislative and ethical norms that apply in the environment of media production. The authors have focused their attention mainly on the media in post-communist countries, namely the Slovak and Czech Republics and Croatia. In the process of drafting, they have made a detailed analysis of the legislative norms, giving special emphasis to a brief historical overview of the development of these documents, where they also describe the work of radio journalists, how journalists’ sources of information are protected, and how the documents reflect new forms of media development, such as online media, streaming services, podcasts, etc. A similar analysis has also been made of ethical standards in the above-mentioned countries, particularly in terms of the possibility of applying existing codes of ethics specifically to radio broadcasting and radio workers, but also of new developments that a code of ethics should cover, such as comments on social networks, profiles of journalists, their statements, etc. The study also includes a questionnaire for radio workers who process information and focuses on how they apply ethical and legislative standards in practice. Thus, the aim of the submitted study is to compare the ethical and legislative framework of work in the radio media in selected post-communist countries of Europe and their application in practice.