Mass Media and the Information Climate in Russia

Author(s): Hedwig De Smaele

Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 59, No. 8 (Dec., 2007), pp. 1299-1313
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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 EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES Routledge
Vol. 59, No. 8, December 2007, 1299-1313 Taylor&FrancisGroup

Mass Media and the Information Climate

Russia

HEDWIG DE SMAELE

Abstract
This article explores Russian 'information culture', asking how information is shared and used in
Russia. While the focus is on contemporary Russia, changes and continuities since the Soviet period
are also discussed. In the Soviet Union, information was considered a privilege rather than a right
while secrecy determined the general information climate. In post-Soviet Russia, the right to
information is legally guaranteed, censorship is forbidden, and 'state secrets' are limited by law. In
practice, however, secrecy and a lack of access to information is a problem much quoted by journalists
and citizens alike. This 'information culture' is part of the environment the mass media have to work
in, and have to cope with.

INFORMATIONAL BEHAVIOUR IN RUSSIA IS A CONSTANT WORRY for many media

professionals, including foreign journalists and press monitoring organisations among
others. Attitudes towards information in Russia have attracted much attention,
especially following the way in which the media and their audiences were informed
about such 'events' as the Kursk nuclear submarine tragedy in August 2000, and the
hostage-taking at the Nord-Ost theatre in Moscow in October 2002. Associations with
the recent past of the Soviet Union are never far away in discussions of the authorities'
style of handling information or of the lack of information they provide.
In this article we take a closer look at the attitude towards information in Russia.
Our goal is threefold: to describe the general attitude towards information in post
communist Russia in comparison with the Soviet Union; to explain this attitude by
describing the underlying societal values that 'cause' this attitude and resultant
information behaviour; and to assess the usefulness of understanding this attitude in
terms of the concept of 'informational culture'.

The attitude towards information in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was the prototype of a closed society. Its political elite kept the
borders closed to information from outside. Foreign radio stations became the target
of 'jamming'; the import of foreign books, journals and magazines was either
prohibited or allowed only in 'limited editions'; and foreign television programmes

ISSN 0966-8136 print; ISSN 1465-3427 online/07/081299-15 ? 2007 University of Glasgow

DOI: 10.1080/09668130701655168

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1300 HEDWIG DE SMAELE

(especially 'Western' programmes) were only marginally pre

Moreover, it was not only foreign information that met wi
also released only a slow trickle of 'internal information' to
prevailed as the norm and openness was the notable excepti
carefully selected and educated had extremely limited ac
first place, and even the information they acquired had to
political - ideological) filters before appearing in the n
information was the norm.
In addition, information was never available to everyone u
In sharp contrast to the theoretical ideal of a classless socie
characterised by a strong, vertical segregation of the 'elite'
terminology of Novosel (1995), 'first class' and 'second class
an elite, whose privileges were institutionalised by the nom
material privileges (such as housing, food, healthcare and ed
enhanced access to information from the right to watch
'forbidden' books' to receiving special foreign news bulletin
TASS official news agency and distributed on different colo
the degree of detail and the targeted readers (Lendvai 19
Although highly placed officials obviously could claim acce
they too received information on a 'need-to-know' basis (Ba
overall result was an information deficit. Information was on
commodities in the Soviet Union (Ellis 1999, p. 6). I
communication and rumours filled the vacuum (Bauer &
Bauer 1959, pp. 163-65; Banai 1997, p. 252; Chilton et al. 1
as 'informal adjustive mechanisms' (Bauer et al. 1959, pp. 74
networks and informal contacts to obtain sparsely ava
information and to side-step formal procedures, is indicated
or the term ZIS (znakomstva i svyazi, acquaintances and
p. 1). Parallel to the official information circuit and analogo
an unofficial information circuit (samizdat) was functionin

Attitudes towards information in the Russian Fede

When discussing the situation in contemporary Russia we

the de jure and the de facto positions. In post-communis
information and the inadmissibility of censorship
Constitution (article 29) and the 1991 Russian Federatio
(article 1). The Russian Constitution acknowledges the i
receive, transmit, produce and distribute information (arti
12 of the 1995 Federal Law on Information, Informatisa
Information guarantees the citizens' right to access state in
than security secrets. The Law on Mass Media assigns th
information directly only to the mass media, while Russian
receive true information on the activities of state organ

1 These were films and books considered not suitable for general dist

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 MASS MEDIA AND THE INFORMATION CLIMATE IN RUSSIA 1301

officials via the mass media (article 38.1). State officials, in turn, are obliged to inform
the media about their activities: both in a passive sense, by ensuring the transparency
of governance, and actively through press conferences and the distribution of
statistical and other materials (article 38.2). Refusing information is allowed only in
the case of state, commercial or other law-protected secrets (article 40.1), and refusals
must be clearly communicated (article 40.2). The Criminal Code (article 144) fixes high
penalties for unlawful refusal of information and for hindering the professional
activity of journalists (Zakonodatel'stvo 1999, p. 279).
However, notwithstanding the law, restricted access to information is still de facto
common practice. According to Andrei Richter, an IREX panel participant on
Russian media, 'media laws exist, but they are not observed'.2 The violation of the
journalists' right to information-denying information, refusing accreditation or
admission to press conferences and certain locations has been a highly quoted
problem in the annual reports of violations of journalists' rights compiled by the
Glasnost' Defence Foundation since 1993.3 According to surveys cited by Svitich and
Shiryaeva (1997, p. 157), it is especially difficult to obtain bare facts, figures and
documents, and little has changed in this respect since Soviet times. The executive
branch has the worst reputation with regard to openness of information, followed by
the security services, commercial, state and financial companies. State organisations
have generally become less transparent than they were in the Soviet Union, with less
clearly defined functions and competences (Svitich & Shiryaeva 1997, pp. 154-60).
According to the 1995 joint recommendation on the freedom of mass information and
the responsibility of journalists of the Presidential Judicial Chamber for Information
Disputes and the Union of Russian Journalists, only parliament is sufficiently open to
the press (Price et al. 2002, pp. 339-42): 'As far as the presidential structures,
government circles, and administrative offices are concerned, however, they are sealed
off from journalists; they are more closed than the former party committees' (Price
et al. 2002, p. 341). The numerous press centres, press services, press secretaries, 'and
others of their ilk' that have been established everywhere, did not break through this
tide. On the contrary, 'in theory, they were intended to facilitate journalists' access to
information. In practice, they have turned into insurmountable barriers and supply
only the information that is of interest to the given structure' (Price et al. 2002, p. 341).
Panellists of an IREX meeting to discuss the media situation in Russia in 2001 agreed
unanimously that 'access to some publicly relevant information is not free: authorities
continue to view information as their property, and want to control access'; and the
situation did not changed for the better in 2005.4 The theoretical and legal
'transparency of governance' collides with the stubborn idea of 'information
ownership' of political elites.

2IREX (International Research & Exchange Board), Media Sustainability Index 2005, available at:
http://www.irex.org/programs/MSI_EUR/2005/MSI05-Russia.pdf, accessed 20 February 2007.
3Data from 1998 onwards are available at: http://www.gdf.ru/monitor/, last accessed 8 October
2006. Earlier reports are published in book form (see Fond Zashchity Glasnosti 1997).
4IREX (International Research & Exchange Board), Media Sustainability Index 2001, available at:
http://www.irex.org/msi/index.asp, accessed 4 August 2003; and IREX, Media Sustainability Index
2005, available at: http://www.irex.org/programs/MSI_EUR/2005/MSI05-Russia.pdf, accessed 20
February 2007.

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 1302 HEDWIG DE SMAELE

Secrecy
Commercial and financial companies hide behind the new 'commercial secret'
(kommercheskaya taina) while state bureaucracies have 'state secrets' and military
structures 'military secrets' at their disposal. The vague notion of the protection of
'state and other law-protected secrets', including commercial secrets, thwarts and
subverts the general right to information as guaranteed by the 1993 Constitution and
the 1991 Law on Mass Media. Inadmissible misuse of freedom of mass communica
tion (article 4 of the Mass Media Law) includes, among others, the use of mass media
for purposes of 'divulging information making up a state secret or any other law
protected secret'. The Law on Mass Media gives no further description of 'law
protected secrets' but article 29.4 of the Russian Constitution stipulates that the list of
information constituting a state secret must be determined by federal law. Such a law
'on state secrets' was adopted by the State Duma on 21 July 1993 (amended in October
1997).
Article 7 of the law 'on state secrets' covers information that cannot be considered
secret, such as information on natural disasters that can endanger the health and
safety of the citizens, ecological and demographic data, information on privileges and
advantages of state functionaries, human rights violations, and information on the
president's health. In the Soviet Union, all this information was considered secret and
so making this information explicitly public can be considered a break with the past.
Article 5 of the law, however, contains a list of information categories that could be
classified as state secrets (Perechen' svedenii, otnesennykh k gosudarstvennoi taine).
These categories are, for example, military information, information on foreign
politics and economics, science and technology, intelligence (rasvedyvatel'noi) and
counter-intelligence (kontrrazvedyvatel'noi), the fight against criminal activities
(operativno-rozysknoi deyatel'nosti) and the organisation of the protection of state
secrets. Only broadly defined, these categories are open to divergent interpretations. A
reference to politics or ideologies does not occur any more, but the broad categories of
secret information do allow for a large measure of control. For example, any
information regarding the Ministry of Defence and the military-industrial complex
could fall under the rubric of 'military secrets'. Information in this area, therefore,
remains difficult to obtain and Ivan Konovalov (2002, p. 57), military correspondent
of TVS Television, even observes a change for the worse.
Article 9 of the law requires the president to elaborate and approve the list of
information already classified as a state secret via the publication of a public decree.5
As such, a clear-cut hierarchical system for classifying information as secret was
established in Russia: the federal law defines the list of information categories
comprising state secrets; the presidential decree defines its own list that outlines each
category of secret information indicated in the law. On the basis of the president's list,
ministries are permitted to restrict access to specific information under their control
(Pavlov 2000).

Presidential decree of 30 November 1995 (with amendments of 24 January 1998, 6 June, 10

September 2001 and 29 May 2002) extended the list of categories with, among others, information on
nuclear weapons and the preparation of international treaties (Aslamazyan 1999, p. 4).

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 MASS MEDIA AND THE INFORMATION CLIMATE IN RUSSIA 1303

Privileges and personal contacts

Konovalov (2002, p. 49) sees the only way of overcoming the secrecy rules as in
maintaining close and personal connections in his case as a military correspondent,
with the Defence Ministry and the security services. Other observers come to similar
conclusions from their own fields of experience. In business journalism, personal
networks are found to be extremely important due to lack of transparency in business
life. Press releases remain of minor importance (Koikkalainen 2006), but as a
respondent of Koltsova noted, within the framework of her study of journalists and
their sources, 'journalism is a very informal profession' (Koltsova 2006, p. 137). The
results of a research project in Voronezh during the last five months of 2002, clearly
showed that personal contacts and physical 'visits' to institutions and officials were
much more rewarding ways to obtain information than writing formal letters of
inquiry. Whereas 70% of written inquiries sent by citizens and journalists remained
unanswered, in only 36% of personal 'requests' was the information refused, although
the completeness of given information varied (Arapova 2003). The observation of
Vladimir Ermolin (2002, p. 7) is analogous: journalists don't receive rights by laws, but
by the personal preference of (state) officials and press services.
By law, the media are equal, but by preference some media are more equal than
others. Code words in the process of information gathering in Russia are 'trust,
relations, and integration' (Banai 1997, p. 242). Authorities grant some media
'privileges' to receive information unavailable to the rest of the media. Among the
'privileged media' in the Yel'tsin era were, according to Gulyaev (1996, p. 14), news
agencies such as ITAR-TASS and Interfaks, newspapers such as Kommersant and
Izvestiya, and weeklies such as Argumenti i Fakty. The most important private
channel, NTV, had changing relationships with the president and his administration
from 'neutral' or 'opposition' in 1994-95 to 'supporter' during the 1996 presidential
elections, and 'opposition' in 2000. With each phase, the levels of access to
information shifted accordingly. In the early years, when NTV adopted an
oppositional stand, access to the Kremlin was forbidden for NTV journalists on
occasions.6 In September 1996, however, as a 'collaborating' channel it received a
broadcast license for the entire fourth channel by presidential decree and enjoyed
privileges such as the same transmission rates as state channels and more access to
information. Acting in opposition again, the channel saw its privileges, and ultimately
its future, disappear. An almost caricatured illustration is provided by the Kremlin's
handling of the Kursk disaster in the summer of 2000. Media coverage was restricted
and only one journalist from the state-controlled television channel, RTR, was
granted full access to the scene. Konovalov (2002, p. 51) has identified the Kursk
disaster as crucial for dividing journalists into 'ours' (svoi) and 'others' (chuzhikh).
Journalists from state media, like RTR, are 'ours' and consequently enjoy enhanced
access to information. Konovalov also ranks the obedient media according to their
proximity to the Kremlin. For television stations, in declining order, they are RTR,
ORT, NTV and TV-Center.

60mri Daily Digest, 13 February 1996.

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 1304 HEDWIG DE SMAELE

Very few journalists or media organs claim their right to r

the courts (Svitich & Shiryaeva 1997, p. 160). They prefer to
barriers by other means, such as maintaining privileged rel
and openly purchasing information from them. And, 'if
them, they resort to fabrication and conjecture' according
Chamber for Information Disputes and the Union of Russia
'joint recommendation' (Price et al. 2002, p. 341). T
responsibility for the dissemination of untruthful informa
closed administration: 'Unreliability, incompleteness, and di
very often results from the inaccessibility of sources of inf
p. 341).

Towards a conceptualisation of information culture

In assessing the position of the media in society, on the one hand, they can be seen as
weak in relation to the state. The mass media are frequently portrayed as victims of
manipulating politicians and, without doubt, the authorities possess many means to
pressure the media. The president and the executive branch have direct control over
the media via institutions such as the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication7
and the appointment of media personnel such as the chairpersons of the television
channels ORT, RTR and Kul'tura. The possibilities for indirect control are even
greater. There is, for example, the financial dependency of the media on state subsidies
or corporate sponsorship, either open or secret. There is the dependency on state
facilities, such as printing houses, transmitters and satellites, and on state organs for
the issuance of licenses. Expensive court cases concerning slander and libel, and the
(all but transparent) accreditation procedure for journalists and even the use of
violence against journalists may be seen as effective control mechanisms. Also
significant is the legal insecurity, due to the rapid succession of presidential and
governmental decrees and orders, often containing contradictory measures, as well as
unpredictable changes in policy and practice. An important example has been the
changing situation concerning the taxation of the media, with a period of relative
tolerance of tax evasion followed by a period of extensive controls.
On the other hand, the position of the media cannot be seen as the exclusive
responsibility of the authorities. Media owners associate themselves voluntarily with
political or economic power groups to secure their own wealth, status and influence.
Individual journalists too, tend to support the system (Manaev 1995; Kuzin 1996;
Svitich & Shiryaeva 1997; Juskevits 2000). The majority of journalists accept the
instrumental use of the mass media out of material and normative considerations.
Journalists consider themselves, in line with tradition, as missionaries of ideas rather
than neutral observers. Finally, the public largely shares this idea as polls throughout
the 1990s and early 2000s repeatedly show.8 According to television presenter and

7Formerly the Ministry of Press, Television, Radio and Mass Communication (1999-2004) and
Federal Service of Television and Radio and Ministry of Press prior to 1999.
8A VTSIOM poll (Vserossiiskii Tsentr Izucheniya Obshchestvennogo Mneniya, All-Russian Centre
for the Study of Public Opinion) at the end of 2000, for example, shows that 34% of the Russian

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 MASS MEDIA AND THE INFORMATION CLIMATE IN RUSSIA 1305

journalist Evgenii Kiselev, 'In today's Russia, media freedom is... not the most
fashionable and popularly supported notion'.9 Similarly, Elena Androunas (1993,
p. 35) points to the Russians' lack of 'freedom as a state of mind'. In this view,
politicians, media-owners, journalists and the public at large share a common view,
common values and a common culture.

Information culture

The terrain of unwritten, unconscious behaviour and commonality is the terrain of

culture; it fills the gap between the dejure (or what officially happens) and the defacto
(or what really happens) (Widen-Wulff 2000). 'Culture' is a difficult concept to grasp.
There is always a danger of 'cultural determinism'. However, although the concept
may be difficult or even dangerous, that does not mean that it has no usefulness.
Culture provides a link between present, past and future (its vertical dimension) and
therefore it stresses elements of continuity rather than change; and at the same time it
links different subsystems within society (its horizontal dimension). We consider the
media system as an integral part of the broader societal system. The media system is a
social system, encompassing media institutions, media workers (such as journalists),
the public, the politicians and news sources as well as the relations between all these
actors, settled by laws, institutions and norms. On the one hand, the media system
operates according to intrinsic values and strives for autonomy; on the other hand,
and at the same time, it is not an isolated system but it operates in close connection
with the respective political, economical, and juridical systems as it is grounded in
basically the same 'culture'.
We consider culture as a set of values, norms and beliefs that shape behaviour, as
shared by a relatively large section of society and transmitted from one generation to
another. This conceptualisation is similar to both that of Kroeber and Kluckholm
(1952) as transmitted patterns of values, ideas and other symbolic systems that shape
behaviour, and that of van Maanen and Schein (1979) as values, beliefs and
expectations that members come to share. At the core of both definitions are values
linked to behaviour but while the latter stresses the horizontal dimension of culture
(that is shared between members of a society), the former stresses the vertical
dimension of culture (as 'transmitted' across generations). A useful conceptualisation
of culture, in our view, is also given by Jan Servaes (1989, pp. 6- 7) as 'a social setting
in which a certain reference framework has found its basis or is institutionalised and
which orientates and structures the interaction and communication of the people
within that context'.10 The link to communication is made here explicitly. This is also
the case in the view of Hall and Hall (1987) who define culture as primarily a system
for creating, sending, storing and processing information. 'Informational culture',
then, could be reduced to culture tout court.

population shares the idea that Russian media has to 'fully support' the president and no opposition is
necessary (RFE/RL Newsline, 10 November 2000). See also Wyman (1997).
interview with Jeremy Drukker, Transitions Online, 10 July 2000.
10By reference framework is meant a world view, a value system, and a system of symbolic
representation.

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1306 HEDWIG DE SMAELE

The concept of 'information culture', however, is mainly

contexts: first, in combination with information technolog
culture', in the sense of 'coping with new information tech
and often overlapping sense, of organisational culture or in
business contexts. Here we want to apply the concept
society, in a similar but more general way. Basically, inform
people use and share information, the society's valuation
information. The analogy with political culture might be cle
culture has taken hold strongly and is widely elaborated on
taught us that a certain political system or structure is-or
certain political culture as a set of attitudes, beliefs and val
information culture cannot be separated from culture as a
but while political culture deals with orientations and attitu
the distribution of authority, information culture deal
information and the distribution of information. These att
behaviour) are influenced by values. What are the value
towards information in Russia?

Universalism and particularism

We described the status of information both in the

communist Russia as a privilege rather than a universal rig
versus rights evokes an association with the cultural an
particularism versus universalism. The distinction comes do
human friendship, relations, and situations over rules (part
the precedence of general rules, codes, values and standa
and claims of friends and relations (universalism). In the or
universalism points to the belief that ultimately all human
grace. Particularism, on the other hand, holds that only th
the sociological sense, the pair universalism - particularism
from the dichotomic 'pattern-variables' of Talcott P
inherently patterns of cultural value-orientation, but
both in personalities and in societal systems. In the on
anthropological sense, as underlying the French Rev
enment, universalism sees all men as equal. Universalism th
persons alike based upon general criteria and not up
characteristics of the persons themselves' (Orum et
particularism is 'the treatment of people as special ind

1 Pioneering research on this topic was done by Gabriel Almond and S

however, is not new. Plato had already taught us that forms of gove
aristocracy and tyranny) differ according to the dispositions of men (S
Union, the concept was introduced by F. M. Burlatskii in the 1970s. Wh
politicheskaya kul'tura back to Lenin, and more recently to Brezhnev. B
communist Russia that the use of the concept is developing the mos
Biryukov (1993).

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 MASS MEDIA AND THE INFORMATION CLIMATE IN RUSSIA 1307

personal features, rather than as members of some broader class or group' (Orum
et al. 1999, p. 528).
Despite its theoretical 'universal' ambitions, Marxist Russia was particularistic
rather than universalistic:

Important features of the Leninist type were that it was not based on citizenship and that it
was not, despite its protestations, universalistic in the real sense of the word, because
entitlement to social benefits depended upon being a loyal worker or employee of the state.
(Mares et al. 1994, p. 83)

The sociologist Igor Kon (1996, p. 197) points to the priority of the 'particularistic
norm of group privilege over the universalistic principle of human rights'. The
Orwellian phrase 'all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others'
reveals the discrepancy between universal(ist) claims and a particular(ist) reality. An
empirical study based on the 1991 World Values Survey, exposes a weak score on the
value of 'universalism' in early post-communist Russia and confirms the failed
universal ambition of Marxism in Russia (Verbeeren 2000).12 The historian Geoffrey
Hosking (2001, p. 17, 26) points to the stark opposition of '(one of) us' and 'them'
throughout Russian history. The particularist orientation can, up until now, be found
in all aspects of societal organisation. Russian political life, for example, is highly
characterised by particular in-groups versus out-groups: different clans (whether the
cheka or oligarchs) fight each other while valuing their particular interests higher than
the common interest. In economics, personal, particularistic relations, often linked
with corruption and privileges, are still more important than professional, impersonal,
universal market relations, procedures and institutions (Bryant 1994, p. 70). As noted
above, journalists, in turn, rely on their own personal contacts and 'back doors' to
receive information while only rarely do they send formal letters of inquiry. The latter,
moreover, appears as highly ineffective in comparison with personal contacts and
'physical visits to institutions and officials' (Arapova 2003).
Particularistic cultures are in the terminology of Edward T. Hall (1976) high
context communication environments while universalist cultures are low context
communication environments. Context, in this sense, has to do with how much you
need to know before you can communicate effectively. In high-context cultures 'most
of the information is either in the physical context or internalised in the person, while
very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message'. In low-context
cultures, in contrast, 'the mass of information is vested in the explicit code' (Hall 1976,
p. 91). Consequently, high-context cultures communicate intensively within their

120n the basis of the World Values Survey of 1991 a variable 'universalism' was composed and
checked for 27 Western and Eastern European countries as well as for the US. The results show a clear
pattern: first, there was a striking East-West opposition, only broken by Austria (which had until the
1960s an ambiguous status) and Portugal (which suffered under a long political isolation). The
Northern countries (Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway) were the most 'universal', followed
by the central group (France, Great Britain, Belgium, West Germany, Ireland and the US) and, at last,
the Southern countries (Spain, Italy, Portugal). The ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe all had
lower values on universalism than the Southern countries of Western Europe (Verbeeren 2000,
pp. 6-15).

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 1308 HEDWIG DE SMAELE

in-groups, who are aware of the context, while out-grou

(particularism). Low-context cultures do not differentiate a
cultures between in-groups and out-groups; information is fr
group and out-group members (universalism). Information is c
right (for all individuals without distinction) in the universalis
and a particularistic right or a privilege (for certain group
particularistic, high-context variant.

Individualism and collectivism

The values of universalism and particularism seem to clu

individualism and collectivism. Hofstede (1994, p. 2) for
correlation between individualism, universalism, and autonom
collectivism, particularism, and dependency on the other. The
and collectivism express the relation of man to society. In an
the individual is a rational being and an end in itself, whose h
is the goal of society. In collectivistic theory, the individu
society, and not an end in itself. The group takes on a greater
through the group may an individual accomplish his or her p
1956, p. 1 1).
As for the Soviet Union, few dispute the collectivist nature of society expressed by
placing social loyalties (state, party, ideology) above individual rights (Kon 1996,
p. 188). Article 39 of the 1977 constitution guaranteed the Soviet citizens social,
economic, political and personal rights and freedoms, but also stipulated that citizens'
rights might not be exercised at the expense of the interests of society or the state.13
Individual rights and freedoms, such as freedom of speech and the press set out in
article 50, were awarded insofar as they accorded with the interests of the people in
general and helped to strengthen the socialist system. Like the Soviet Union, Triandis
(1995, p. 3) also places Russia in the 1990s among the collectivistic countries in his
classification of collectivistic and individualistic countries. Notwithstanding the
changing official discourse of the early 1990s, such as the constitution of 1993 with
its stress on individual rights and freedoms, the supremacy of the state is kept nearly
untouched by all reforms. Vladimir Putin's 'millennium speech' of 1999, with its stress
on traditional Russian values such as patriotism (pride in Russia, its history and
accomplishments), derzhavnost' (belief in a Great Russia), gosudarstvennichestvo
(etatism or 'the state as source and protector of order and as driving force of change')
and sotsial'naya solidarnost' (social solidarity) is a schoolbook example of the
preference of collectivism over individualism.14

13In Western liberalism, 'state' (government, president, army, security services) is considered as the
antipole of 'society' (civil society). In the official Soviet discourse, however, state and society were as
one, placed opposite the individual. Igor Kon (1996, p. 190) points out that neither the Soviet
'Philosophical Encyclopedia' of the 1960s nor the six successive editions of the 'Ethical Dictionary',
published between 1965 and 1989, had an entry on 'personal' or 'private' life. Private life was only
briefly touched upon, accompanied by the remark that it was not allowed to hinder public life.
14Vladimir Putin, 'Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheleti', 31 December 1999, available at: http://
www.government.gov.ru/government/minister/article-vvpl.html, accessed 6 March 2000.

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 MASS MEDIA AND THE INFORMATION CLIMATE IN RUSSIA 1309

A different appreciation of the individual in individualistic and collectivistic

societies affects the attitude towards information and the media as information
carriers. The rational individual has an individual and universal right to freely
available information through autonomous media. However, the individual as a 'cog
in the wheel' receives its particular part of the information, modelled according to
societal goals, through dependent and instrumental media. The lack of autonomy, and
consequently the instrumentality of mass media, is an element of continuity in Russian
history. The social subsystems of politics, economics, law and media have never been
clearly distinguished from each other. In tsarist Russia, the tsar represented legal,
executive, and juridical power (Malfliet 1999, p. 36) and was often personally engaged
in information matters. In the Soviet Union, the Communist Party took over these
tasks. The political, economic, juridical and media system were closely integrated and
connected by the ideology of Marxism - Leninism and the party organisation. The
mass media were considered instruments of the vanguard party. Lenin formulated the
task of the mass media as a collectivist propagandist, agitator and organiser (Bol'shaya
1952, p. 8). Journalists were party functionaries in the first place, but they also can
write (Lenin 1988, pp. 66- 67). Stalin not only used the term 'instrument' (oruzhie) but
also the word 'weapon' (orudie) to describe the mass media (Bol'shaya 1952, p. 8). The
most important principle, as listed in handbooks for journalists, was 'partiality' or
partiinost' (de Smaele 2001, pp. 38-42).
The instrumental view of the mass media survived communism. Mikhail Gorbachev
depended on the mass media to promote his glasnost' policy and to win the population
for his reforms. The media function of mobilisation was kept untouched, only its goal
changed slightly into dynamic socialism instead of stagnant communism. Boris
Yel'tsin was the self-appointed patron of press freedom, but in return he, too, expected
loyal support for his reforms from the media. Newspapers, favourably disposed
towards Yel'tsin's regime, were financially rewarded (Richter 1995, pp. 15- 16). In the
run-up to the presidential elections of June 1996, the mass media were massively
mobilised to secure Yel'tsin's second term as president (EIM 1996). Moscow students
of journalism throughout the 1990s were taught the lasting value of partiinost'
(Prokhorov 1998, pp. 157-88) and the educational, ideological and organisational
rather than the informational functions of the mass media (Prokorov 1998,
pp. 46-48).
The difference between Yel'tsin's Russia and the Soviet Union was that not all
journalists were instruments from one and the same government or party. Instead,
they were at the disposal of widely divergent 'patrons'.15 Hence, Yel'tsin's Russia
evolved into a corporate or oligarchic system with Yel'tsin as arbitrator among
concurrent power groups of politicians, bankers, media tycoons, business people and
bureaucrats. Due to the strong political - economic conflicts of interest of the elite, the
autonomy of the social subsystems, including the media system, remained limited. The
most well-known media magnates such as Boris Berezovskii and Vladimir Gusinskii,
but also Vladimir Potanin and many others, were not only media magnates but also
important players in politics and business. Their investments in the media were

15The use of the term 'patrons' refers to the patron-client relationships as discussed in Russian
history by Geoffrey Hosking (2001).

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 1310 HEDWIG DE SMAELE

inspired both by economic gain and political ambitions (V

to the corporate societal system, Yassen Zassoursky (19
Russian media system in the late 1990s as an 'authoritar
grandson, Ivan Zassoursky (1999, 2000), speaks of the 'm
labels point to the symbiosis of private capital, politics and
an independent, 'fourth power', but serve the political-econ
Yel'tsin's successor, Vladimir Putin, started to fight th
little to get rid of the traditionally instrumental media. The
the presidential spokesman, Sergei Yasterzhembskii, to j
newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, is testimony to a view of
media should take into account the challenges the nation
nation mobilises its strength to achieve a goal, this imposes
including the media'. 16 Like Gorbachev and Yel'tsin b
justification to curtail media autonomy in the unique socio-
(de Smaele 2006).

Conclusion
In the Soviet Union, access to information was severely limited and all information
had to pass several political and ideological filters before publication. In addition,
information received the status of a privilege. Party leaders attempted 'not only to
determine what information and ideas shall pass through the media, but also who shall
have access to what information and ideas' (Bauer & Gleicher 1964, p. 414). The
proverb 'knowledge is power' was put into practice and the majority was left
powerless, without information, while a powerful minority controlled the information
flow.
In post-communist Russia, democracy, press freedom, and a ban on censorship
were proclaimed. Access to information, however, remains severely limited in today's
Russia. References to political and ideological control have been replaced by the
broad denominator of confidential information and (state, military and commercial)
secrets. Whether information is restricted because it is regarded as politically incorrect,
ideologically sensitive or 'confidential' or 'secret', the result is a defacto ban on some
information.
Russia is far from the only (democratic) regime which sins against the transparency
of governance and the free flow of information, but it certainly has its recent past to
contend with, as habits die hard. Authorities do not easily trust media institutions and
journalists, and continue privileged and personal relations with some journalists, while
hiding information from others. This attitude can be labelled 'particularistic'. At the
same time, Russian society may be labelled 'collectivistic', which makes it easier for
those who govern to justify the lack of freely available information. Hence, societal
goals take precedence over individual rights, such as the right to information. In the
Soviet Union, censorship was justified by the utopian goal of building a society

16Quoted in Whitmore (2000), available at: http://www.freemedia.at/publicat.html, last accessed 16

August 2002.

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 MASS MEDIA AND THE INFORMATION CLIMATE IN RUSSIA 1311

according to the communist model, while in Russia, the justification is the process of
building a democratic society, as under Yel'tsin, or a strong Russia under Putin.
We have suggested the use of the concept of 'information culture' to describe the
dominant attitude towards information in a particular country. Useful values to
describe, explain, and classify the dominant attitude towards (the distribution of)
information in particular countries, are universalism and particularism as well as
individualism and collectivism. Insight into these basic values underlying society
assists an understanding of the political, economic, cultural, and media system of a
certain society and its internal coherence-as the same values are underlying all
subsystems of society. The concept of information culture, therefore, helps to
understand why things are as they are or more specifically for this article: 'Why is the
press as it is' (Siebert et al. 1956, p. 1). By exploring the values of universalism versus
particularism and individualism versus collectivism we find the answer that 'one has to
look at certain basic beliefs and assumptions which the society holds: the nature of
man, the nature of society and the state, the relation of man to the state, and the
nature of knowledge and truth' (Siebert et al. 1956, p. 2). Information culture, indeed,
links the present with the past.

Catholic University of Brussels

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