This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2018) |
Latvia is one of the three post-Soviet Baltic states having regained independence in 1991 and since 2004 is a member State of the European Union.[1] After its independence there have been fundamental changes of political, economic and social nature that have turned Latvia into a democratic country with a free market economy.[2] This reflects on the mass media landscape which is considered well-developed despite being subjected to a limited market and a linguistic and cultural split[3] between Latvian (58.2%) and Russian speakers (37.5%).[2] In 2017 Freedom House defined Latvia's press freedom status as “free", assigning to the country's press freedom a score of 26/100 (with 1 corresponding to the most free status).[4] The 2017 World Press Freedom Index prepared annually by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) states that media in Latvia have a "two-speed freedom", underlying different levels of freedom for Latvian-language and Russian-language media. According to RSF's Index the country is ranked 28th among 180 countries.[5]