Broadcast media in eastern Europe continue to suffer heavy political interference despite the collapse of communism and rise of democracy, research at the University of Westminster has revealed.

Ground breaking work by Colin Sparks, in the university's five-rated centre for communication and information studies, has shown that the post-communist political parties are just as keen to control national TV and radio stations as their totalitarian predecessors.

Dr Sparks found that scores of broadcast journalists, including senior figures, had lost their jobs since the fall of communism in 1989 for failing to toe the political line. In addition there was considerable news bias and censorship.

Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are the main countries studied by Dr Sparks and his team. These were seen to be the most westernised and progressive.

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But when the state broadcasters were studied it was found that many of the bureaucrats running the media were of the "old guard" and so largely predisposed to authoritarianism.

Dr Sparks said: "After the fall of communism people were arguing that democracy would flourish. The picture is nowhere near as clear as these rosy predictions. Institutions such as the army, state bureaucracy and police have survived with relatively few changes and the media is similar."

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The research has shown, however, that the political control of the media does not guarantee electoral success. Hungary's nationalist Magyar Democratic Forum lost the 1994 election despite interfering in broadcasting. Dr Sparks said it was unclear how TV and radio affected voters.

He said that a crucial development in the state/media relationship was that the subordinate role of the broadcasters was at least questioned instead of accepted as normal.