Istanbul, August 2011

KA Research Limited and KA Consulting Limited is pleased to announce the release of the second of its  Series of Regional Media Environment (RME) Reports, a digest compiled wholly from materials produced by a wide range of recognized external information sources focusing on trends and issues most commonly affecting media in different countries, namely political, ethnic or other affiliation of media; availability of independent media; vulnerability of available independent media; internet and mobile providers; government regulations on Internet and mobile infrastructure; internet monitoring capabilities in place; the popularity of social media, including blogs and the quality of investigative journalism in general.

 The second RME Report released today is on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Individual countries covered are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Key Trends from RME CIS Report are as follows:

• Internet access is mainly clustered in urban areas and spread among youth. In contrast to gender penetration rates in most Asian and Middle East and North African ( MENA) countries, the percentage of male and female users in the CIS is almost the same;
• Most CIS countries implement some form of internet surveillance; these include Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.
• Russia, serves as a model and patron for a number of countries in CIS Region;
• Conditions in Armenia and Moldova have been improving as a result of reduced censorship and restrictions on news coverage;

RME CIS Report will be followed by RME Balkans Report, RME Central Africa Report, RME South Asia Report, RME Asia-Pacific Report, and RME Latin America Report.

How to obtain RME Reports:

RME CIS Country Report (each individual country) USD 250

RME CIS Regional Report as a whole is USD 3000 

For more information and ordering RME reports please contact Ms. Shirin Jahangir; shirin.jahangir@ka.com.tr