Page 239 - Communication Theory and Research
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                         occurs, one inevitably has to go down to lower levels and look at extra-media
                         practices of influence and at media routines.
                           Practices at the extra-media level in Russia are marked by the most dramatic
                         change since the Soviet period: a relatively unified agent of control (the Party-
                         State) has split into a number of competing actors. The most significant among
                         them were listed earlier.
                           The most heated public discussion in Russia in the early post-Communist
                         years has been centred around economic agents (owners and advertisers). Their
                         influence has surfaced after the abolition of preliminary censorship. Censorship
                         had been the major mechanism of control in the Soviet period and that is why it
                         had been seen as the only obstacle to freedom (although, of course, the Soviet
                         system of control included an economic component, but this was ‘hidden’
                         behind its administrative exterior). Thus, since economic influence has come as
                         an unpleasant surprise, it has been described in largely negative terms. This atti-
                         tude resembles that of those European countries in which private television was
                         introduced relatively late, for example, France.
                           To describe specific traits of Russian media ownership, it is useful to introduce a
                         distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ owners, the latter meaning individuals
                         or groups whose major interests lie outside media business. In the West, when own-
                         ership is external to a media organization, it is usually in the hands of the state.
                         Private ownership is mostly internal; it means that owners possess media outlets
                         only, have no interests outside the media industry and thus do not use media as
                         a vehicle for promotion of those interests. Influence patterns within these two
                         formats have been widely studied: e.g. Schlesinger (1987) on government control,
                         and Tunstall and Palmer (1991) on business control. By contrast, cases of external
                         private ownership (like General Electric and NBC) are less well studied.
                           In Russia, however, nearly all media, including private ones, are owned exter-
                         nally, and the majority of them are unprofitable. Because Russian business and
                         political elites are extremely interdependent, both see media first of all as
                         weapons to gain political capital – a vital resource that later can be converted
                         into all other forms of capital outside the media domain.
                           Let us consider an example of Boris Berezovsky, who until recently was an
                         influential media mogul backing the first national television channel and a well-
                         known entrepreneur, in particular engaged in automobile sales. Obviously, he
                         was interested in a favourable legislative climate and privileges for his primary
                         business. Two basic strategies of approaching the federal authorities are avail-
                         able to a media backer like him: either offering them the loyalty of your media
                         outlet in exchange for favours, or ‘media blackmailing’, that is threat of refusing
                         to be loyal. There is no legally proven evidence on whether Berezovsky was
                         using one or both of these strategies, but some consequences of his successful
                         lobbyism are well known. High taxes for imported automobiles gave an enor-
                         mous advantage to Berezovsky’s firm Logovaz in selling outdated domestic cars.
                         Ironically, this measure, seemingly aimed at protection of domestic products, was
                         combined with privileges given to Logovaz to import the most luxurious western
                         car models.
                           Seeing their media outlets as instruments for non-media goals, such owners
                         are not always interested in the profitability of their media business, and often
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