Although the country officially follows the laws of Europe’s for media’s conduct, it’s also heavily affiliated to political parties. The press consists of several newspapers, about 8 of them, dailies and weeklies both. What’s interesting is that they are mostly owned, officially and unofficially, by the political parties. It’s often said that Malta is a country where the media is a political mouthpiece. The media of this small dense state is pretty vast and diverse.
A daily newspaper of the country, Times of Malta, is the most popular one currently running and serving the population. But according to statistics of recent years, the print media is slowly in the decline of subscriptions as the general public is more inclining towards the online media services recently. The main media source online is social media in Malta.
It’s an interesting country where the political parties or their supporting individuals, like businessmen or so, own several print newspapers, television channels, radio stations, news portals, and so on. Even the church and unions own several media services. It’s a very high demand sector for this small country. Although there’s quite a high number of television channels locally, the public still has a knack for the television channels of foreign countries.
One example is that about 20 percent or so of the population enjoys the Italian television channels. Even after all these, press freedom is pretty moderate for a country with such a complicated media scenario. It’s interesting that Malta has such a high social media user’s presence that it places 2nd in having the most active social media members in Europe. Social media is wildly popular in Malta, especially among the young adults, also among the teenagers, but mostly for people between the ages of 20-30.
But they don’t mostly spend time on information or news though, the internet consumption is mainly for goods and services purchasing or research. But even though, Malta is one of the top countries whose population also uses the internet for consuming news and information. Even after all these, to conclude, it’s one of the states where it isn’t exactly all fair and good, but also mixed evenly between all things considered.