Introduction
At 17,075,400 square kilometers (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than an eighth of the Earth’s land area; with 142 million people, it is the ninth largest by population. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and incorporating a great range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's greatest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is considered an energy superpower. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's unfrozen fresh water. The population is primarily Russian; minorities include Tatars and Ukrainians. Languages: Russian (official), various Turkic and Uralic languages. Religions: Christianity (mostly Eastern Orthodox, also Protestant); also Islam. However, about one-third of the people are nonreligious or atheist. Currency: ruble.
Russia established worldwide power and influence from the times of the Russian Empire to being the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world's first and largest constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower. The nation can boast a long tradition of excellence in every aspect of the arts and sciences. The Russian Federation was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Soviet Union. It has one of the world's fastest growing major economies and has the world's eleventh largest GDP by nominal GDP or seventh largest by purchasing power parity with the eighth largest military budget. Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, APEC and the SCO, and is a leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
Population and Ethnic Groups
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has experienced a decline in population. This is due in part to the difficult economic conditions the nation has endured, especially in the 1990s, which has led to a low birth rate, and to a reduced male life expectancy. The population drop has been slowed somewhat by immigration consisting mainly of ethnic Russians from other areas of the former Soviet Union.
There are at least 60 different recognized ethnic groups in Russia, but the vast majority of the population is Russians (80%). There are also Ukrainians (2%) and such non-Slavic linguistic and ethnic groups as Tatars (4%), Bashkirs, Chuvash, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts, Mari, Mordovians, Jews, Germans, Armenians, and numerous groups in the Far North and in the Caucasus. Russian is the official language
Religion and Education
The majority of Russia's population has no religious affiliation due to the antireligious ideology of the Soviet Union. The Russian Orthodox Church, headquartered in Moscow, has about 60 million adherents; the numbers have grown rapidly since the end of Soviet rule. There are also communities of Old Believers, a group that broke with the Orthodox Church in the 17th cent., as well as a large Muslim minority. Other religions include various Christian churches, Lamaist Buddhism, Judaism, and tribal religions. Partly in reaction to proselytizing by Protestant evangelicals, Mormons, and others, a 1997 Russian law granted superior status to the Russian Orthodox Church (and other older Russian religions).
Economy
Russian Federation inherited a Marxist-Leninist command economy from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Chief among the characteristics of the economy was an almost total absence of private productive capital. All enterprises were owned by the state, with each person receiving a salary for his or her efforts. Farmland was also almost entirely state-owned: 95% of all farmland was either state-owned or collectivized. All economic planning was done by government officials based in Moscow. Market forces played no part in their decision-making. The workforce was estimated at about 70 million persons in 1989.
The Soviet Union was officially disbanded at the end of 1991. The following year saw the introduction of stringent market reforms, which brought economic hardship to the general population. With a safety net no longer in place, beggars appeared on the streets. The countryside, in particular, suffered from insufficient food. Russia's economic problems were exacerbated by the crash of 1998, when the ruble lost two-thirds of its value. Still, the Russians are a resourceful people, and in the early twenty-first century the economy was back on its feet.
Government and Politics
The politics of Russia (or the Russian Federation) take place in a framework of a federal presidential republic. According to the Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is head of state, and the Prime Minister is the head of the government. The Russian Federation is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Federal Assembly. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which serves as the country’s highest supreme legal document and as a social contract for the people of Russia Federation.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
• Legislative: The bicameral Federal Assembly, made up of the State Duma and the Federation Council adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has power of impeachment, by which it can remove the President.
• Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
• Judiciary: The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Arbitration and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the president, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.
According to the Constitution, constitutional justice in the court is based on the equality of all citizens, judges are independent and subject only to the law, trials are to be open and the accused is guaranteed a defense. Since 1996, Russia has instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, although capital punishment has not been abolished by law.
The president is elected by popular vote for a four-year term (eligible for a second term but constitutionally barred for a third consecutive term); election last held 2 March 2008. Ministries of the government are composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma). The national legislature is the Federal Assembly, which consists of two chambers; the 450-member State Duma and the 176-member Federation Council. Leading political parties in Russia include United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and Fair Russia.
Mass Media in Russia
Russia has close to ninety officially registered television companies, 25,000 newspapers, over 1,500 radio programmes and 400 news agencies—over half of them independent, the rest entitled to full or partial government financing.The Mass Media Act, passed in December 1991, regulates their activities.Judging by opinion polls, 82 per cent of the Russian public see television as the principal information source, and prefer it to the press. Radio comes next with 24 per cent.The total number of subscriptions to publications exceeded 61~5 million in 1994, with newspapers accounting for 43.8 million. 78 per cent of Russians are regular readers of local periodicals whose total circulation accounts for 25.2 million copies, while that of national papers is 18.1 million copies.
The weekly Argumenty i Fakty leads the national press, with 36 per cent of the polled readership, and is the most popular among people with college and university degrees and those in managerial occupations. Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Moscow daily, is second in popularity, with a huge number of subscribers and sells like hotcakes on the newsstands. The youth weekly AIDS-lnfo and the daily Trud (Labour), a favourite with trade union bosses and blue collar workers, come after these two.
The respectable daily Izvestia (News) is a pronounced preference in cultural, research and business circles, 35 out of a hundred political activist pollees are also its regular readers. Of the Russian dailies, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Commersant Daily, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Pravda are also popular among political leaders, as are the weeklies Finansovaya Gazeta and Moscow News.
Opinion polls highlight the most popular TV programmes-"Wonderfield Quiz," "Topic," with its social and political charge, news programmes, and foreign serials.The Mir (World) interstate television and radio company, established in the middle of 1992, is jointly sponsored by Russia, Armenia, Tajikistan, BelaNs, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and some other Commonwealth countries.
Mayak (Beam), a round-the-clock radio station, which broadcasts news every thirty minutes, is most popular. Private radio stations—Europe Plus, Radio 101, M Radio, Moscow Echo, Radio Nadezhda (Hope), Nostalgie and others also have huge audience. They broadcast information, the analysis of the most important events and music. The new radio station Auto-Radio telling the audience about the situation in the Moscow traffic and about everything connected with cars has rapidly gained popularity.
ITAR-TASS and RIA Novosti, the two national news agencies, are followed by private and joint-stock agencies: Interfax, Postfactum.systems.
Media System in Transition
There is transformation of the media system in Russia which is moving away from the classical “communist” model. The dominant political science tradition has discussed post-communism as part of a more general theory of “ transitology”, seeing the processes involved in these cases as examples of world-wide transition from dictatorial regimes towards western style democracy. An alternative is to see the shift away from communism as an example of “elite continuity” in which the former bureaucratic ruling class attempts to restructure itself as the owners of private capital. It is demonstrated that transitology gives very little insight into the prevailing situations and that the theory of elite continuity accounts much better for major features of the media.
Television
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, "All three major television networks are now in the hands of Kremlin loyalists."Indeed, while "Сhannel Russia" was state-owned since its foundation in 1991, major shareholders of ORT and NTV (Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, respectively) sold their stocks to the government and Gazprom in 2000-2001. Moreover, TV6, a media outlet owned by Berezovsky, was closed in 2002 using a laws hole. In 2003 TVS channel which was formed mainly of former NTV and TV6 was closed due to financial problems.
Along with that, plenty of media outlets actively develop now while state participation in them is minimal ]. Private TV networks REN TV and TV Center which cover 80% and 64% of population respectively, broadcast independent analytical programms like "25th hour", "Week" with Marianna Maksimovskaya, "Postscriptum", "Moment of truth". REN TV remains perhaps the only major TV outlet with liberal views, easily unveiling themas of censorship or showing interviews with leaders of Other Russia.
In 2006 Putin commented that in the period of 1990s freedom of press in Russia "was indeed under threat, not from the former state ideology that once held a monopoly on expression, but from the dictates of oligarchic capital". Journalist Yevgeniya Albats has said: "Of course in the 1990s there were restrictions on freedom of expression but, due to the fact that the media belonged to different business structures, despite influence being exerted pluralism was preserved." When asked about media freedom in 2006 interview with NBC TV channel, Putin replied: "We have more than 3,500 television and radio companies here in Russia and state participation in them is decreasing with every passing year. As for print media, there are more than 40,000 publications and we could not control them all even if we wanted to."
As reported by Clifford J. Levy in New York Times article, all Putin's opponents are being made to vanish from Russian TV. They are blacklisted and not allowed to appear in TV shows. In one example, a presentation critical of Putin's policies has been digitally erased. As reported by Russian scientist Sergey L. Lopatnikov, information about "black lists" is nonsense; an argument was made that not less than 35-40% of participants of NTV-aired talk show "At a barrier" hosted by Vladimir Solovyov during the last two years represented the opposition (including Novodvorskaya, Ivanenko, Nemtsov, Hakamada); from January to May 2008, overt adversaries of Vladimir Putin participated in 9 of 16 (more than 50%) issues of the talk show.
Russia Television
Russian TV has come a long way. Many may expect Russian TV programming to be boring, but the fact is that many of the Russian TV stations are now broadcasting interesting talk shows covering a variety of topics. There are also channel s which offer international entertainment programs, series, comedies and so forth. Statistics show that 1 in every 2.7 persons in Russia has a television.
Television is actually recognized as Russia's most influential form of media. Interestingly
watching the Russian TV is greater value for money than purchasing a newspaper. Viewers do not pay for the national channels, only paying for power. During the Soviet period national programs were broadcast from the city of Moscow, hence Russian TV today has an excellent network for transmission.
The largest state involved Russian TV stations are ORT, All Russian TV and St. Petersburg TV. Public Russian Television or ORT reaches some 140 million viewers. ORT has 51% state involvement. On this channel you can view news from Russian reporters the world over and more. All Russian TV reaches about 50 million people and is completely state run. NTV is a private channel, but is still a designated national channel. NTV was originally owned by MOST Group, however, due to their extensive criticism of the Russian government they experienced many problems. The new owner provides programming which is both interesting and offers little criticism of the country's political situation. Journalists from NTV have gone on to form TV-tsentr and TVC. Culture or Kultura channel is designed to promote Russian culture and education. Russian TV entertainment channels include STS, TNT, Ren TV (with movies, series etc.), Muz TV (with Russian pop music) and MTV.
Russia also has access to satellite television.Kosmos TV and Divo TV broadcast via satellite from Moscow. Other satellite channels that can be viewed in Russia include CNN, BBC, Discovery, Euronews and Bloomberg.
There is a variety of free Russian Internet TV Channels. These include Internet-MOST, ATV, TDK, Music Box and TV Plus.
Russian Film Industry - Growing Progressively
The film industry in Russia was previously not given much support since it was seen merely as a form of art and the potential economical impact of it was dismissed. Because of this rather unsupportive view that Old Russia had taken to the Russian Film Industry, many Russian film directors were not interested in the consequences of their work and so few looked for ways to improve current standards or start new trends. Fortunately some years ago the economic benefits of the Russian film industry were finally recognized. With this came a renewed interest in films and the film industry from the Russian public. Today the film industry in Russia is producing globally recognized works of the highest standards.
The entire Russian film industry, including the Russian film actors and the Russian film directors, were previously restricted by the local government who, up until recently, was the sole investors in the Russian film industry. This gave the government complete control over the scriptwriting and other aspects of filmmaking and often Russian film directors were forced to change or omit certain parts of their movies as the government saw fit. In 1996 the privatization of financial investments in the Russian film industry brought about new laws for Russian cinema. This law stipulated that taxation of private investors and the allocations made by the government be strictly reviewed. Not long afterwards, Russian film directors saw a massive boom in the financial sector of the industry. The result was a trend towards privately financed film productions and more and more freedom of expression and creativity in Russian films.
The year 2000 saw renewed interest in the Russian cinema and ended a long economic crisis that was hampering the production of films and restricting film directors. Unfortunately, the 1996 law only provided taxation privileges up until the year 2001. Thus both Russian film directors and film actors saw a dramatic reduction in support from the private investment sector in 2002. Although the Russian actors do not get paid nearly as much as Hollywood stars do, they still deserve a paycheck. In order to pay those involved in the making of local movies, many film directors turn to Germany and France for financial assistance.
To encourage and publicize the Russian film industry and to bring well deserved notice to the Russian film actors and Russian film directors, Russian film festivals such as the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and the Sochi International Film Festival are a vital part of the filming industry. Without these Russian film festivals, actors, directors and film companies would go without recognition. Even today the various film companies involved in the industry endue a constant struggle with insufficient funding for their movie projects, as well as a lack of equipment and unqualified personnel. However despite these problems, Russia has still managed to bring to light world-class directors and noteworthy films.
Russian Newspapers
Newspapers are usually a great source of first hand information regarding the political and economic situation in a country. Russian Newspapers are no different. Not only do the newspapers in Russia keep you up to date with all the latest news, but they provide information on things such movie and theatre times and dates, interesting news snippets of a lighter nature and much, much more. Of course, most of the Russian newspapers are printed in Russian and so few foreign visitors will be able to read them. However you should be able to find something available in a few other languages if you look hard enough. Such a search would be worth it for Russian newspapers are many and informative. Below is a list of the local newspapers in circulation in Russia. Where possible, a link to their website has been included for your convenience.
Izvestia
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text of national news and includes politics, business/economics, technology, and sports sections.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news updated daily. Includes politics, business/economics, sports, and searchable archive sections.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, local and national news targeted toward young readers. Includes sports, police/crime, politics, and business/economics sections.
Novayagazeta
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, local news from the capital and across Russia and also includes technology and sports sections
Nyezavisimaya Gazeta
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news.
Trud
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, local and national news with an emphasis on labor, industry, and unions.
Moskovskie Novosti
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news.
Kommersant
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news.
The Moscow Times
Moscow, Russia
Features full text, of national and worldwide news, that includes politics and business/economics sections.
Radio of Russia
Russian Radio is a very popular form of mass media. All the houses in Russia have a socket for radios. Because of the size of Russia, frequencies may vary in different cities. There are 2 378 radio stations in Russia, with music stations being the most popular.
Russia's main news stations are Radio Mayak (67.22FM and 549 AM); Radio of Russia and Echo of Moscow (91.2 FM in Moscow). The most popular music radio stations in Russia are Russkoe Radio (Russian pop); Maximum (international and Russian music); Europa-Plus (mostly pop); Dinamit FM (aimed at the youth); Radio Jazz (jazz and lounge music). Several international radio stations have been broadcasting in Russia via shortwaves band. These include Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
Below is a list of Russian radio stations along with frequencies and the cities in which they are broadcast:
MOSCOW
70.19 FM Radio ULTRA (alternative music)
91.2 FM Echo Moscow (news and talk shows)
103.7 FM MAXIMUM (rock music)
101.7 FM Nashe Radio (Russian rock music)
100.5 FM BEST FM (80's music)
105.7 FM Russian Radio (Russian pop)
106.2 FM Europa Plus (pop music)
1330 AM New Life Russian Radio (pop music, news and talk shows)
ST. PETERSBURG
105.9 FM North Capital Radio
104.0 FM Radio Modern
91.1 FM Radio Melodia
107.8 FM Super Radio
104.8 FM Radio Baltika
OTHER RADIO STATIONS
103.4 FM Radio Randevu (Novgorod)
102.3 FM Radio August (Toliatti)
104.5 FM Radio Rating (Obninsk)
104.0 FM Radio Volga FM (Kazan)
103.7 FM Radio C (Ekaterinburg)
102.7 FM Auto Radio (Perm)
104.3 Radio Samara-Maximum (Samara)
103.0 FM Radio MRC (Magnitogorsk)
101.7 FM Radio VBC (Vladivostok)
103.1 FM Radio Olimp (Khabarovsk)
101.9 FM Lider (Kiev)
107.3 FM Radio Mix (Dnepropetrovsk)
103.0 FM Radio Roks (Minsk)
105.0 FM Pyramid Radio (Bishkek)
Public Relations:
The practice of public relations increased in popularity during the 90s. The overall image
of the profession was influenced by public perception of electoral public relations and the
handling of the aforementioned political campaigns. The term public relations was widely
associated with the idiom “black PR,” a term that is still used today. Public relations
practitioners are most commonly enlisted for the planning and implementation of special
events. The profession is not as respected or specialized as it is in the United States, and
is generally less respected than advertising. Contributing to this is a lack of recognition
and esteem for the profession among journalists in Russia.
The emergence of public relations in Russia is usually associated with the collapse of the
Soviet Union. Globalization and the formation of business relationships between Russia
and the West helped spur the practice of public relations in the country. In addition, the
creation of international companies and brands has contributed to the development of
public relations.
The Moscow State Institute of International Relations became the first university to offer
public relations education. The public relations major, offered through the international
journalism department, was an effort to respond to the increasingly global marketplace.
Electoral public relations was an area of specialization that was developed rapidly. The
impetus were the presidential elections of 1991, and especially 1996. The elections of the
State Duma of Russian Federations in 1993, 1995 and 1999 also fueled this trend.
In 1991 the Russian Public Relations Society (RPRS) was founded as the pre-eminent
institution for public relations development in Russia. In 1994 the Declaration of
Professional and Ethical Principles for public relations practitioners was ratified by the
RPRS.
The introduction of democracy in Russia brought new business and greater diversity.
Technological advancements and opportunities also became more prevalent.
Advertising:
In 1914 the growth rate of Russian economy was higher than that of the United States. Russian industrialists and merchants were a good match to their foreign counterparts. And the Russian advertising of the day was fairly advanced. Browsing through the yellowed pages of old Russian newspapers and magazines one comes across some fantastic specimens. The Russian trade literature of the period carried good editorials on various aspects of advertising.After the Bolshevik revolution there was a short-lived renaissance of market economy in the 1920s, remembered by advertising historians for Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poster doggerels in his ragged style unreadable by barely literate post-revolutionary public.Some advertising lingered on for a while: then it vanished from Russian life for decades, to be regarded as one of the “villainies” of capitalist.
The only advertising agency in those days was Vneshtorgreklama (a Russian abbreviation for “foreign trade advertising”), an unwieldy and amateurish institution under the Ministry of Foreign Trade, which produced ads in foreign languages for the constellation of foreign-trade organizations.
Music
Russia's musical roots are buried in the distant past, but the few glimmers that emerge from the historical record paint an intriguing picture: a fresco of a dancing minstrel in one of Kiev's oldest churches, and 6th century Greek reports from of Slavic musicians strumming psalteries. Uniting Slavic tradition with influences from Byzantium, Scandinavia, the multiethnic Eurasian steppes, and the staggeringly diverse Caucasus, Russia's music has expanded from zithers, epics, and ritual songs to embrace the large number of instruments and genres still loved and played in the country today.
Much of what we know about Russia's traditional music was recorded by ethnographers and folklorists who began searching for Russian songs and folk tales in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The liberal children of noble families, these early ethnomusicologists sought expressions of the "Russian soul" and wrote down age-old lyrics and melodies. Their work inspired their contemporaries to incorporate traditional musical elements into their compositions, and composers like Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky brought pieces of Russia's musical traditions to the word.
Soviet-era musicians took Russia's traditional music from the fields and streets into the conservatory, creating large orchestras of modified folk instruments designed to parallel Western classical ensembles. Wild new forms, such as a balalaika the size of a contrabass, were born, and Soviet arrangers and performers carefully excised religious and other politically taboo material from the repertoire. A canon of Russian politically correct folk songs emerged, performed by everyone from the Red Army Chorus to guitar-playing students hanging out in university dorms. Many of these songs live on today, around campfires and on the airwaves. In reaction to this conservatory style, several innovative post-Soviet folk ensembles have attempted to return to the complex sonic textures, striking dissonances, and unusual instrumentation culled from the Soviet vision of Russian ethnic music.
A new interest in local language pop music has also struck Russia's ethnic minorities since 1990.The main pop arena, however, is Russia's two cultural capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, where clubs feature everything from avant-garde jazz to glossy pop to heavy metal. During Gorbachev's attempts to reform the Soviet system, these cities were incubators for innovative new groups drawing on everything from Asian mysticism to Soviet kitsch, Russian folk music, and Symbolist poetry, to the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple. Bohemian rock bands played concerts in cramped private apartments or small school auditoriums and criticized Russia's leaders and culture with a sly, lyrical wink. Passed informally from fan to fan on dubbed samizdat cassettes, these bands' songs became anthems for creative urban youth longing for new possibilities and social change.
When the change finally came, however, much of the rock scene's energy faded in the ensuing economic collapse of the early 1990s, though innovative music continues to spring from Russia's bohemian underground and diverse hinterlands. Russia's post-Soviet music industry has taken off as well, producing a number of high-quality commercial acts that have gained regional and international notoriety.
Internet
A System of Ensuring Investigative Activity, SORM, an amendment signed into law by Putin. SORM allowed law enforcement bodies to monitor Internet traffic and required ISPs to assist law enforcement in their investigations. In late 2000, Russian Supreme Court ruled that the law enforcement bodies are required to obtain a warrant and inform ISPs when law enforcement agents were using the system. Similar laws exist in most developed countries with large internet populations.
Censorship
The actual influence of Kremlin on the media space causes harsh debates between journalists of "liberal" (e.g. Shenderovich) and "patriotic" (e.g. Oleg Kashin) persuasions. According to journalist Maxim Kononenko, "People invent censorship for themselves, and what happens on some TV channels, some newspapers, happens not because Putin dials them and says: No, this mustn't go. But because their bosses are fools." However, political scientist Yevgenia Albats in interview with Eduard Steiner has disputed this assertion: "Today the directors of the television channels and the newspapers are invited every Thursday into the Kremlin office of the deputy head of administration, Vladislav Surkov to learn what news should be presented, and where. Journalists are bought with enormous salaries. In discussions they tell us then how horrible it is to work in the state television service."
According to 2005 research conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), the number of Russians who approve of censorship on TV has grown in a year from 63% to 82%; sociologists believe that Russians are not voting in favor of press freedom suppression, but rather for expulsion of ethically doubtful material (such as scenes of violence and sex: 57% for restricting of violence/ sex depiction on TV, 30% for ban of fraudelent businesses ads; and 24% for products for sex ads and 'criminal way of life propaganda' films).
Freedom of Press in Russia
The issue of the freedom of the press in Russia involves both the ability of directors of mass media outlets to carry out independent policy and the ability of journalists to access sources of information and to work without outer pressure. Mass media in Russia include television and radio channels, periodicals, and Internet media, which according to the laws of Russian Federation may be either a state or a private property. It may be difficult to evaluate the situation in general, as different aspects of media freedom are developed to a different extent in Russia, and the overall question of media freedom is highly politized.
In 1997 there were just over 21,000 registered periodicals, virtually no electronic media, and just under 100 television companies, more than half of which were owned by the state. As of 2006 there were more than 58,000 periodicals, 14,000 electronic media, and 5,500 broadcasting companies, and the states share in the newspaper and journal market is estimated to be less than 10%. Its share in electronic media is even smaller.
As stated by BBC, two of the three main federal channels Channel One and Russia TV are controlled by the government controls while state-controlled energy giant Gazprom owns NTV.
In 2007, a report by professor of politics Nicolai N. Petro reaffirmed that foreign companies owned shares in over half of all Russian broadcasting companies and not the state.[3] It was stated that critics concentrated solely on national television media, while "detailed statistics also demolish the myth that Putin dominates national television and allows no critical reporting". As reported, for the first time in modern Russian history independent media had become profitable.
Reporters Without Borders put Russia at 144th place in the World Press Freedom Index (from a list of 169 countries)
Assaults on journalists
Since the early 1990s, a number of Russian reporters who have covered the situation in Chechnya, contentious stories on organized crime, state and administrative officials, and large businesses have been killed. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, since 1992, 43 journalists have been killed in Russia for their professional activity (which makes it the third deadliest country for journalist in 1992-2006 period[4]): 30 while Boris Yeltsin was President, and 13 since Vladimir Putin became President, as of 2006.[5][6]
According to Glasnost Defence Foundation, there were 9 cases of suspicious deaths of journalists in 2006, as well as 59 assaults on journalists, and 12 attacks on editorial offices.[7] In 2005, the list of all cases included 7 deaths, 63 assaults, 12 attacks on editorial offices, 23 incidents of censorship, 42 criminal prosecutions, 11 illegal layoffs, 47 cases of detention by militsiya, 382 lawsuits, 233 cases of obstruction, 23 closings of editorial offices, 10 evictions, 28 confiscations of printed production, 23 cases of stopping broadcasting, 38 refusals to distribute or print production, 25 acts of intimidation, and 344 other violations of Russian journalist's rights.
On October 7, 2006, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, well known for her criticisms of Russia's actions in Chechnya and the pro-Russia Chechen government, was shot in the lobby of her apartment building. The death of this Russian journalist triggered an outcry of criticism of Russia in the Western media, with accusations that, at best, Putin has failed to protect the country's new independent media. [9][10]KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky believes that the murders of writers Yuri Shchekochikhin and Anna Politkovskaya show that the FSB has returned to the practice of political assassinations.
Journalist protection laws
A new law to be implemented at the beginning of 2009 will allow reporters investigating corruption in Russia to be protected. Under new legislation, they will be able to apply for special protection, like court witnesses. The new law is part of a grander national plan to fight corruption in Russia, an area that President Dmitry Medvedev has focused much of his attention on.
Police raids
On June 19, 2006, Russian police raided the Educated Media Foundation, a totally non-governmental organization that receives U.S. funding, seizing documents and equipment in a search its director said was likely linked to the government's growing distaste for Western-funded NGOs.
THE INFLUENCE OF MASS MEDIA ON THE LIFE OF RUSSIAN WOMEN
The problem under discussion is currently of such importance that it trivial. But the authority, strength of media influence grows together with the submission of people to mass media. It can be seen that the borders of mass media influence have already been erased. People see no other opportunity for dialogue except for that with TV or com¬puter. We can often find a mother communicating via the internet with her invisible «friends» and is cut off from the burdens of everyday problems. Children complain that mums do not prepare meals or pay any attention to them because of their living in a virtual world. Television plays a special role in media environment. It has become the Divine eye. All journalists' assumptions become true, everything is open for them, even if it is closed for others. People frequently trust almost everything. There are cooking lessons, lessons of domestic repair, design, and many other subjects concerning housekeeping on all Russian TV channels, instead of main vital problems such as the inflation, price growth, and increasing criminality. Instead of address¬ing the most ancient moral maxima, i.e., to respect one's parents and to take care of one's children, television replaces them with information on fast food preparation, and there is no need to learn anything from the adults.
The active penetration of mass media into our lives has another consequence: people stop to concern morally the events shown on the screen, and they often cause aesthetical response instead of ethical.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Russia"
Categories: Freedom of expression | Journalism
excerpted from Glenn E. Curtis (ed.) (1998). "Russia: A Country Study: Kievan Rus' and Mongol Periods". Washington, DC: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.
At 17,075,400 square kilometers (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than an eighth of the Earth’s land area; with 142 million people, it is the ninth largest by population. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and incorporating a great range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's greatest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is considered an energy superpower. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's unfrozen fresh water. The population is primarily Russian; minorities include Tatars and Ukrainians. Languages: Russian (official), various Turkic and Uralic languages. Religions: Christianity (mostly Eastern Orthodox, also Protestant); also Islam. However, about one-third of the people are nonreligious or atheist. Currency: ruble.
Russia established worldwide power and influence from the times of the Russian Empire to being the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world's first and largest constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower. The nation can boast a long tradition of excellence in every aspect of the arts and sciences. The Russian Federation was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Soviet Union. It has one of the world's fastest growing major economies and has the world's eleventh largest GDP by nominal GDP or seventh largest by purchasing power parity with the eighth largest military budget. Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, APEC and the SCO, and is a leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
Population and Ethnic Groups
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has experienced a decline in population. This is due in part to the difficult economic conditions the nation has endured, especially in the 1990s, which has led to a low birth rate, and to a reduced male life expectancy. The population drop has been slowed somewhat by immigration consisting mainly of ethnic Russians from other areas of the former Soviet Union.
There are at least 60 different recognized ethnic groups in Russia, but the vast majority of the population is Russians (80%). There are also Ukrainians (2%) and such non-Slavic linguistic and ethnic groups as Tatars (4%), Bashkirs, Chuvash, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts, Mari, Mordovians, Jews, Germans, Armenians, and numerous groups in the Far North and in the Caucasus. Russian is the official language
Religion and Education
The majority of Russia's population has no religious affiliation due to the antireligious ideology of the Soviet Union. The Russian Orthodox Church, headquartered in Moscow, has about 60 million adherents; the numbers have grown rapidly since the end of Soviet rule. There are also communities of Old Believers, a group that broke with the Orthodox Church in the 17th cent., as well as a large Muslim minority. Other religions include various Christian churches, Lamaist Buddhism, Judaism, and tribal religions. Partly in reaction to proselytizing by Protestant evangelicals, Mormons, and others, a 1997 Russian law granted superior status to the Russian Orthodox Church (and other older Russian religions).
Economy
Russian Federation inherited a Marxist-Leninist command economy from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Chief among the characteristics of the economy was an almost total absence of private productive capital. All enterprises were owned by the state, with each person receiving a salary for his or her efforts. Farmland was also almost entirely state-owned: 95% of all farmland was either state-owned or collectivized. All economic planning was done by government officials based in Moscow. Market forces played no part in their decision-making. The workforce was estimated at about 70 million persons in 1989.
The Soviet Union was officially disbanded at the end of 1991. The following year saw the introduction of stringent market reforms, which brought economic hardship to the general population. With a safety net no longer in place, beggars appeared on the streets. The countryside, in particular, suffered from insufficient food. Russia's economic problems were exacerbated by the crash of 1998, when the ruble lost two-thirds of its value. Still, the Russians are a resourceful people, and in the early twenty-first century the economy was back on its feet.
Government and Politics
The politics of Russia (or the Russian Federation) take place in a framework of a federal presidential republic. According to the Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is head of state, and the Prime Minister is the head of the government. The Russian Federation is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Federal Assembly. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which serves as the country’s highest supreme legal document and as a social contract for the people of Russia Federation.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
• Legislative: The bicameral Federal Assembly, made up of the State Duma and the Federation Council adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has power of impeachment, by which it can remove the President.
• Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
• Judiciary: The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Arbitration and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the president, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.
According to the Constitution, constitutional justice in the court is based on the equality of all citizens, judges are independent and subject only to the law, trials are to be open and the accused is guaranteed a defense. Since 1996, Russia has instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, although capital punishment has not been abolished by law.
The president is elected by popular vote for a four-year term (eligible for a second term but constitutionally barred for a third consecutive term); election last held 2 March 2008. Ministries of the government are composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma). The national legislature is the Federal Assembly, which consists of two chambers; the 450-member State Duma and the 176-member Federation Council. Leading political parties in Russia include United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and Fair Russia.
Mass Media in Russia
Russia has close to ninety officially registered television companies, 25,000 newspapers, over 1,500 radio programmes and 400 news agencies—over half of them independent, the rest entitled to full or partial government financing.The Mass Media Act, passed in December 1991, regulates their activities.Judging by opinion polls, 82 per cent of the Russian public see television as the principal information source, and prefer it to the press. Radio comes next with 24 per cent.The total number of subscriptions to publications exceeded 61~5 million in 1994, with newspapers accounting for 43.8 million. 78 per cent of Russians are regular readers of local periodicals whose total circulation accounts for 25.2 million copies, while that of national papers is 18.1 million copies.
The weekly Argumenty i Fakty leads the national press, with 36 per cent of the polled readership, and is the most popular among people with college and university degrees and those in managerial occupations. Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Moscow daily, is second in popularity, with a huge number of subscribers and sells like hotcakes on the newsstands. The youth weekly AIDS-lnfo and the daily Trud (Labour), a favourite with trade union bosses and blue collar workers, come after these two.
The respectable daily Izvestia (News) is a pronounced preference in cultural, research and business circles, 35 out of a hundred political activist pollees are also its regular readers. Of the Russian dailies, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Commersant Daily, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Pravda are also popular among political leaders, as are the weeklies Finansovaya Gazeta and Moscow News.
Opinion polls highlight the most popular TV programmes-"Wonderfield Quiz," "Topic," with its social and political charge, news programmes, and foreign serials.The Mir (World) interstate television and radio company, established in the middle of 1992, is jointly sponsored by Russia, Armenia, Tajikistan, BelaNs, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and some other Commonwealth countries.
Mayak (Beam), a round-the-clock radio station, which broadcasts news every thirty minutes, is most popular. Private radio stations—Europe Plus, Radio 101, M Radio, Moscow Echo, Radio Nadezhda (Hope), Nostalgie and others also have huge audience. They broadcast information, the analysis of the most important events and music. The new radio station Auto-Radio telling the audience about the situation in the Moscow traffic and about everything connected with cars has rapidly gained popularity.
ITAR-TASS and RIA Novosti, the two national news agencies, are followed by private and joint-stock agencies: Interfax, Postfactum.systems.
Media System in Transition
There is transformation of the media system in Russia which is moving away from the classical “communist” model. The dominant political science tradition has discussed post-communism as part of a more general theory of “ transitology”, seeing the processes involved in these cases as examples of world-wide transition from dictatorial regimes towards western style democracy. An alternative is to see the shift away from communism as an example of “elite continuity” in which the former bureaucratic ruling class attempts to restructure itself as the owners of private capital. It is demonstrated that transitology gives very little insight into the prevailing situations and that the theory of elite continuity accounts much better for major features of the media.
Television
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, "All three major television networks are now in the hands of Kremlin loyalists."Indeed, while "Сhannel Russia" was state-owned since its foundation in 1991, major shareholders of ORT and NTV (Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, respectively) sold their stocks to the government and Gazprom in 2000-2001. Moreover, TV6, a media outlet owned by Berezovsky, was closed in 2002 using a laws hole. In 2003 TVS channel which was formed mainly of former NTV and TV6 was closed due to financial problems.
Along with that, plenty of media outlets actively develop now while state participation in them is minimal ]. Private TV networks REN TV and TV Center which cover 80% and 64% of population respectively, broadcast independent analytical programms like "25th hour", "Week" with Marianna Maksimovskaya, "Postscriptum", "Moment of truth". REN TV remains perhaps the only major TV outlet with liberal views, easily unveiling themas of censorship or showing interviews with leaders of Other Russia.
In 2006 Putin commented that in the period of 1990s freedom of press in Russia "was indeed under threat, not from the former state ideology that once held a monopoly on expression, but from the dictates of oligarchic capital". Journalist Yevgeniya Albats has said: "Of course in the 1990s there were restrictions on freedom of expression but, due to the fact that the media belonged to different business structures, despite influence being exerted pluralism was preserved." When asked about media freedom in 2006 interview with NBC TV channel, Putin replied: "We have more than 3,500 television and radio companies here in Russia and state participation in them is decreasing with every passing year. As for print media, there are more than 40,000 publications and we could not control them all even if we wanted to."
As reported by Clifford J. Levy in New York Times article, all Putin's opponents are being made to vanish from Russian TV. They are blacklisted and not allowed to appear in TV shows. In one example, a presentation critical of Putin's policies has been digitally erased. As reported by Russian scientist Sergey L. Lopatnikov, information about "black lists" is nonsense; an argument was made that not less than 35-40% of participants of NTV-aired talk show "At a barrier" hosted by Vladimir Solovyov during the last two years represented the opposition (including Novodvorskaya, Ivanenko, Nemtsov, Hakamada); from January to May 2008, overt adversaries of Vladimir Putin participated in 9 of 16 (more than 50%) issues of the talk show.
Russia Television
Russian TV has come a long way. Many may expect Russian TV programming to be boring, but the fact is that many of the Russian TV stations are now broadcasting interesting talk shows covering a variety of topics. There are also channel s which offer international entertainment programs, series, comedies and so forth. Statistics show that 1 in every 2.7 persons in Russia has a television.
Television is actually recognized as Russia's most influential form of media. Interestingly
watching the Russian TV is greater value for money than purchasing a newspaper. Viewers do not pay for the national channels, only paying for power. During the Soviet period national programs were broadcast from the city of Moscow, hence Russian TV today has an excellent network for transmission.
The largest state involved Russian TV stations are ORT, All Russian TV and St. Petersburg TV. Public Russian Television or ORT reaches some 140 million viewers. ORT has 51% state involvement. On this channel you can view news from Russian reporters the world over and more. All Russian TV reaches about 50 million people and is completely state run. NTV is a private channel, but is still a designated national channel. NTV was originally owned by MOST Group, however, due to their extensive criticism of the Russian government they experienced many problems. The new owner provides programming which is both interesting and offers little criticism of the country's political situation. Journalists from NTV have gone on to form TV-tsentr and TVC. Culture or Kultura channel is designed to promote Russian culture and education. Russian TV entertainment channels include STS, TNT, Ren TV (with movies, series etc.), Muz TV (with Russian pop music) and MTV.
Russia also has access to satellite television.Kosmos TV and Divo TV broadcast via satellite from Moscow. Other satellite channels that can be viewed in Russia include CNN, BBC, Discovery, Euronews and Bloomberg.
There is a variety of free Russian Internet TV Channels. These include Internet-MOST, ATV, TDK, Music Box and TV Plus.
Russian Film Industry - Growing Progressively
The film industry in Russia was previously not given much support since it was seen merely as a form of art and the potential economical impact of it was dismissed. Because of this rather unsupportive view that Old Russia had taken to the Russian Film Industry, many Russian film directors were not interested in the consequences of their work and so few looked for ways to improve current standards or start new trends. Fortunately some years ago the economic benefits of the Russian film industry were finally recognized. With this came a renewed interest in films and the film industry from the Russian public. Today the film industry in Russia is producing globally recognized works of the highest standards.
The entire Russian film industry, including the Russian film actors and the Russian film directors, were previously restricted by the local government who, up until recently, was the sole investors in the Russian film industry. This gave the government complete control over the scriptwriting and other aspects of filmmaking and often Russian film directors were forced to change or omit certain parts of their movies as the government saw fit. In 1996 the privatization of financial investments in the Russian film industry brought about new laws for Russian cinema. This law stipulated that taxation of private investors and the allocations made by the government be strictly reviewed. Not long afterwards, Russian film directors saw a massive boom in the financial sector of the industry. The result was a trend towards privately financed film productions and more and more freedom of expression and creativity in Russian films.
The year 2000 saw renewed interest in the Russian cinema and ended a long economic crisis that was hampering the production of films and restricting film directors. Unfortunately, the 1996 law only provided taxation privileges up until the year 2001. Thus both Russian film directors and film actors saw a dramatic reduction in support from the private investment sector in 2002. Although the Russian actors do not get paid nearly as much as Hollywood stars do, they still deserve a paycheck. In order to pay those involved in the making of local movies, many film directors turn to Germany and France for financial assistance.
To encourage and publicize the Russian film industry and to bring well deserved notice to the Russian film actors and Russian film directors, Russian film festivals such as the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and the Sochi International Film Festival are a vital part of the filming industry. Without these Russian film festivals, actors, directors and film companies would go without recognition. Even today the various film companies involved in the industry endue a constant struggle with insufficient funding for their movie projects, as well as a lack of equipment and unqualified personnel. However despite these problems, Russia has still managed to bring to light world-class directors and noteworthy films.
Russian Newspapers
Newspapers are usually a great source of first hand information regarding the political and economic situation in a country. Russian Newspapers are no different. Not only do the newspapers in Russia keep you up to date with all the latest news, but they provide information on things such movie and theatre times and dates, interesting news snippets of a lighter nature and much, much more. Of course, most of the Russian newspapers are printed in Russian and so few foreign visitors will be able to read them. However you should be able to find something available in a few other languages if you look hard enough. Such a search would be worth it for Russian newspapers are many and informative. Below is a list of the local newspapers in circulation in Russia. Where possible, a link to their website has been included for your convenience.
Izvestia
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text of national news and includes politics, business/economics, technology, and sports sections.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news updated daily. Includes politics, business/economics, sports, and searchable archive sections.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, local and national news targeted toward young readers. Includes sports, police/crime, politics, and business/economics sections.
Novayagazeta
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, local news from the capital and across Russia and also includes technology and sports sections
Nyezavisimaya Gazeta
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news.
Trud
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, local and national news with an emphasis on labor, industry, and unions.
Moskovskie Novosti
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news.
Kommersant
Moscow, Russia
Features full-text, national and world news.
The Moscow Times
Moscow, Russia
Features full text, of national and worldwide news, that includes politics and business/economics sections.
Radio of Russia
Russian Radio is a very popular form of mass media. All the houses in Russia have a socket for radios. Because of the size of Russia, frequencies may vary in different cities. There are 2 378 radio stations in Russia, with music stations being the most popular.
Russia's main news stations are Radio Mayak (67.22FM and 549 AM); Radio of Russia and Echo of Moscow (91.2 FM in Moscow). The most popular music radio stations in Russia are Russkoe Radio (Russian pop); Maximum (international and Russian music); Europa-Plus (mostly pop); Dinamit FM (aimed at the youth); Radio Jazz (jazz and lounge music). Several international radio stations have been broadcasting in Russia via shortwaves band. These include Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
Below is a list of Russian radio stations along with frequencies and the cities in which they are broadcast:
MOSCOW
70.19 FM Radio ULTRA (alternative music)
91.2 FM Echo Moscow (news and talk shows)
103.7 FM MAXIMUM (rock music)
101.7 FM Nashe Radio (Russian rock music)
100.5 FM BEST FM (80's music)
105.7 FM Russian Radio (Russian pop)
106.2 FM Europa Plus (pop music)
1330 AM New Life Russian Radio (pop music, news and talk shows)
ST. PETERSBURG
105.9 FM North Capital Radio
104.0 FM Radio Modern
91.1 FM Radio Melodia
107.8 FM Super Radio
104.8 FM Radio Baltika
OTHER RADIO STATIONS
103.4 FM Radio Randevu (Novgorod)
102.3 FM Radio August (Toliatti)
104.5 FM Radio Rating (Obninsk)
104.0 FM Radio Volga FM (Kazan)
103.7 FM Radio C (Ekaterinburg)
102.7 FM Auto Radio (Perm)
104.3 Radio Samara-Maximum (Samara)
103.0 FM Radio MRC (Magnitogorsk)
101.7 FM Radio VBC (Vladivostok)
103.1 FM Radio Olimp (Khabarovsk)
101.9 FM Lider (Kiev)
107.3 FM Radio Mix (Dnepropetrovsk)
103.0 FM Radio Roks (Minsk)
105.0 FM Pyramid Radio (Bishkek)
Public Relations:
The practice of public relations increased in popularity during the 90s. The overall image
of the profession was influenced by public perception of electoral public relations and the
handling of the aforementioned political campaigns. The term public relations was widely
associated with the idiom “black PR,” a term that is still used today. Public relations
practitioners are most commonly enlisted for the planning and implementation of special
events. The profession is not as respected or specialized as it is in the United States, and
is generally less respected than advertising. Contributing to this is a lack of recognition
and esteem for the profession among journalists in Russia.
The emergence of public relations in Russia is usually associated with the collapse of the
Soviet Union. Globalization and the formation of business relationships between Russia
and the West helped spur the practice of public relations in the country. In addition, the
creation of international companies and brands has contributed to the development of
public relations.
The Moscow State Institute of International Relations became the first university to offer
public relations education. The public relations major, offered through the international
journalism department, was an effort to respond to the increasingly global marketplace.
Electoral public relations was an area of specialization that was developed rapidly. The
impetus were the presidential elections of 1991, and especially 1996. The elections of the
State Duma of Russian Federations in 1993, 1995 and 1999 also fueled this trend.
In 1991 the Russian Public Relations Society (RPRS) was founded as the pre-eminent
institution for public relations development in Russia. In 1994 the Declaration of
Professional and Ethical Principles for public relations practitioners was ratified by the
RPRS.
The introduction of democracy in Russia brought new business and greater diversity.
Technological advancements and opportunities also became more prevalent.
Advertising:
In 1914 the growth rate of Russian economy was higher than that of the United States. Russian industrialists and merchants were a good match to their foreign counterparts. And the Russian advertising of the day was fairly advanced. Browsing through the yellowed pages of old Russian newspapers and magazines one comes across some fantastic specimens. The Russian trade literature of the period carried good editorials on various aspects of advertising.After the Bolshevik revolution there was a short-lived renaissance of market economy in the 1920s, remembered by advertising historians for Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poster doggerels in his ragged style unreadable by barely literate post-revolutionary public.Some advertising lingered on for a while: then it vanished from Russian life for decades, to be regarded as one of the “villainies” of capitalist.
The only advertising agency in those days was Vneshtorgreklama (a Russian abbreviation for “foreign trade advertising”), an unwieldy and amateurish institution under the Ministry of Foreign Trade, which produced ads in foreign languages for the constellation of foreign-trade organizations.
Music
Russia's musical roots are buried in the distant past, but the few glimmers that emerge from the historical record paint an intriguing picture: a fresco of a dancing minstrel in one of Kiev's oldest churches, and 6th century Greek reports from of Slavic musicians strumming psalteries. Uniting Slavic tradition with influences from Byzantium, Scandinavia, the multiethnic Eurasian steppes, and the staggeringly diverse Caucasus, Russia's music has expanded from zithers, epics, and ritual songs to embrace the large number of instruments and genres still loved and played in the country today.
Much of what we know about Russia's traditional music was recorded by ethnographers and folklorists who began searching for Russian songs and folk tales in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The liberal children of noble families, these early ethnomusicologists sought expressions of the "Russian soul" and wrote down age-old lyrics and melodies. Their work inspired their contemporaries to incorporate traditional musical elements into their compositions, and composers like Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky brought pieces of Russia's musical traditions to the word.
Soviet-era musicians took Russia's traditional music from the fields and streets into the conservatory, creating large orchestras of modified folk instruments designed to parallel Western classical ensembles. Wild new forms, such as a balalaika the size of a contrabass, were born, and Soviet arrangers and performers carefully excised religious and other politically taboo material from the repertoire. A canon of Russian politically correct folk songs emerged, performed by everyone from the Red Army Chorus to guitar-playing students hanging out in university dorms. Many of these songs live on today, around campfires and on the airwaves. In reaction to this conservatory style, several innovative post-Soviet folk ensembles have attempted to return to the complex sonic textures, striking dissonances, and unusual instrumentation culled from the Soviet vision of Russian ethnic music.
A new interest in local language pop music has also struck Russia's ethnic minorities since 1990.The main pop arena, however, is Russia's two cultural capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, where clubs feature everything from avant-garde jazz to glossy pop to heavy metal. During Gorbachev's attempts to reform the Soviet system, these cities were incubators for innovative new groups drawing on everything from Asian mysticism to Soviet kitsch, Russian folk music, and Symbolist poetry, to the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple. Bohemian rock bands played concerts in cramped private apartments or small school auditoriums and criticized Russia's leaders and culture with a sly, lyrical wink. Passed informally from fan to fan on dubbed samizdat cassettes, these bands' songs became anthems for creative urban youth longing for new possibilities and social change.
When the change finally came, however, much of the rock scene's energy faded in the ensuing economic collapse of the early 1990s, though innovative music continues to spring from Russia's bohemian underground and diverse hinterlands. Russia's post-Soviet music industry has taken off as well, producing a number of high-quality commercial acts that have gained regional and international notoriety.
Internet
A System of Ensuring Investigative Activity, SORM, an amendment signed into law by Putin. SORM allowed law enforcement bodies to monitor Internet traffic and required ISPs to assist law enforcement in their investigations. In late 2000, Russian Supreme Court ruled that the law enforcement bodies are required to obtain a warrant and inform ISPs when law enforcement agents were using the system. Similar laws exist in most developed countries with large internet populations.
Censorship
The actual influence of Kremlin on the media space causes harsh debates between journalists of "liberal" (e.g. Shenderovich) and "patriotic" (e.g. Oleg Kashin) persuasions. According to journalist Maxim Kononenko, "People invent censorship for themselves, and what happens on some TV channels, some newspapers, happens not because Putin dials them and says: No, this mustn't go. But because their bosses are fools." However, political scientist Yevgenia Albats in interview with Eduard Steiner has disputed this assertion: "Today the directors of the television channels and the newspapers are invited every Thursday into the Kremlin office of the deputy head of administration, Vladislav Surkov to learn what news should be presented, and where. Journalists are bought with enormous salaries. In discussions they tell us then how horrible it is to work in the state television service."
According to 2005 research conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), the number of Russians who approve of censorship on TV has grown in a year from 63% to 82%; sociologists believe that Russians are not voting in favor of press freedom suppression, but rather for expulsion of ethically doubtful material (such as scenes of violence and sex: 57% for restricting of violence/ sex depiction on TV, 30% for ban of fraudelent businesses ads; and 24% for products for sex ads and 'criminal way of life propaganda' films).
Freedom of Press in Russia
The issue of the freedom of the press in Russia involves both the ability of directors of mass media outlets to carry out independent policy and the ability of journalists to access sources of information and to work without outer pressure. Mass media in Russia include television and radio channels, periodicals, and Internet media, which according to the laws of Russian Federation may be either a state or a private property. It may be difficult to evaluate the situation in general, as different aspects of media freedom are developed to a different extent in Russia, and the overall question of media freedom is highly politized.
In 1997 there were just over 21,000 registered periodicals, virtually no electronic media, and just under 100 television companies, more than half of which were owned by the state. As of 2006 there were more than 58,000 periodicals, 14,000 electronic media, and 5,500 broadcasting companies, and the states share in the newspaper and journal market is estimated to be less than 10%. Its share in electronic media is even smaller.
As stated by BBC, two of the three main federal channels Channel One and Russia TV are controlled by the government controls while state-controlled energy giant Gazprom owns NTV.
In 2007, a report by professor of politics Nicolai N. Petro reaffirmed that foreign companies owned shares in over half of all Russian broadcasting companies and not the state.[3] It was stated that critics concentrated solely on national television media, while "detailed statistics also demolish the myth that Putin dominates national television and allows no critical reporting". As reported, for the first time in modern Russian history independent media had become profitable.
Reporters Without Borders put Russia at 144th place in the World Press Freedom Index (from a list of 169 countries)
Assaults on journalists
Since the early 1990s, a number of Russian reporters who have covered the situation in Chechnya, contentious stories on organized crime, state and administrative officials, and large businesses have been killed. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, since 1992, 43 journalists have been killed in Russia for their professional activity (which makes it the third deadliest country for journalist in 1992-2006 period[4]): 30 while Boris Yeltsin was President, and 13 since Vladimir Putin became President, as of 2006.[5][6]
According to Glasnost Defence Foundation, there were 9 cases of suspicious deaths of journalists in 2006, as well as 59 assaults on journalists, and 12 attacks on editorial offices.[7] In 2005, the list of all cases included 7 deaths, 63 assaults, 12 attacks on editorial offices, 23 incidents of censorship, 42 criminal prosecutions, 11 illegal layoffs, 47 cases of detention by militsiya, 382 lawsuits, 233 cases of obstruction, 23 closings of editorial offices, 10 evictions, 28 confiscations of printed production, 23 cases of stopping broadcasting, 38 refusals to distribute or print production, 25 acts of intimidation, and 344 other violations of Russian journalist's rights.
On October 7, 2006, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, well known for her criticisms of Russia's actions in Chechnya and the pro-Russia Chechen government, was shot in the lobby of her apartment building. The death of this Russian journalist triggered an outcry of criticism of Russia in the Western media, with accusations that, at best, Putin has failed to protect the country's new independent media. [9][10]KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky believes that the murders of writers Yuri Shchekochikhin and Anna Politkovskaya show that the FSB has returned to the practice of political assassinations.
Journalist protection laws
A new law to be implemented at the beginning of 2009 will allow reporters investigating corruption in Russia to be protected. Under new legislation, they will be able to apply for special protection, like court witnesses. The new law is part of a grander national plan to fight corruption in Russia, an area that President Dmitry Medvedev has focused much of his attention on.
Police raids
On June 19, 2006, Russian police raided the Educated Media Foundation, a totally non-governmental organization that receives U.S. funding, seizing documents and equipment in a search its director said was likely linked to the government's growing distaste for Western-funded NGOs.
THE INFLUENCE OF MASS MEDIA ON THE LIFE OF RUSSIAN WOMEN
The problem under discussion is currently of such importance that it trivial. But the authority, strength of media influence grows together with the submission of people to mass media. It can be seen that the borders of mass media influence have already been erased. People see no other opportunity for dialogue except for that with TV or com¬puter. We can often find a mother communicating via the internet with her invisible «friends» and is cut off from the burdens of everyday problems. Children complain that mums do not prepare meals or pay any attention to them because of their living in a virtual world. Television plays a special role in media environment. It has become the Divine eye. All journalists' assumptions become true, everything is open for them, even if it is closed for others. People frequently trust almost everything. There are cooking lessons, lessons of domestic repair, design, and many other subjects concerning housekeeping on all Russian TV channels, instead of main vital problems such as the inflation, price growth, and increasing criminality. Instead of address¬ing the most ancient moral maxima, i.e., to respect one's parents and to take care of one's children, television replaces them with information on fast food preparation, and there is no need to learn anything from the adults.
The active penetration of mass media into our lives has another consequence: people stop to concern morally the events shown on the screen, and they often cause aesthetical response instead of ethical.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Russia"
Categories: Freedom of expression | Journalism
excerpted from Glenn E. Curtis (ed.) (1998). "Russia: A Country Study: Kievan Rus' and Mongol Periods". Washington, DC: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.
1 comment:
well this mass media thing is so so insane. I simply love it.
Beatles Fan
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