Natalya Ryabinska calls into question the commonly held opinion that the problems with media reform and press freedom in former Soviet states merely stem from the cultural heritage of their communist (and pre-communist) past. Focusing on Ukraine, she argues that, in the period after the fall of communism, peculiar new obstacles to media independence have arisen. They include the telltale structure of media ownership, with news reporting being concentrated in the hands of politically engaged business tycoons, the fuzzy and contradictory legislation of the media realm, and the informal...