In Russia, for example, members of the provisional broadcast radio and television licensing board have sometimes read in the morning press about presidential decisions regarding what entities should get licenses. In Russia, as well, there have been important federalism questions, including how licenses are allocated at the regional or local level. In Poland, much of the political debate over governmental structure in the last five years has been mirrored in disputes over membership on the supervisory boards for radio and television stations. An additional issue is the transparency of laws and regulations. To the extent that third parties such as political candidates are affected by such rules, the standards must be both available and clear to them as well.
Some societies consider domestic ownership to be an important element of free and independent media.
The United States, for example, requires American citizen control of television and radio licenses. Transitional societies seem especially sensitive to this question, and ownership restrictions are a frequent characteristic of new regulations. The notion seems to be that the growth of indigenous democratic institutions can be undermined by foreign control of instruments so important to public debate. Similarly, a transitional society might reflect concerns about strengthening democracy by examining the ratio of foreign to domestic programming. An abundance of foreign, uncontrolled news programming may be perceived as a favorable aspect of developing free and independent media, but the decline of domestic news reporting may be perceived as a setback.