Dr. Julien Mercille:

For the State-owned media entities, the Government has a role to play in appointing officers and funding the media organisation, so it is in that way. In my study I did not really look at RTE, because it does not have a printed archive. The general principle is that any Government regulation or legislation surrounding media activities is related to that as well. I re-emphasise that it is contextual. The Government will set in place certain contextual constraints or whatever. It is not that the Prime Minister calls some journalists to say they had better report on him really well. If the Prime Minister did that, the media might do the opposite, just to show the politicians that they are autonomous and warn them not to push it too far. That is not to say there are no calls or informal conversations in that regard.