News Media and Power in Russia The end of communist rule in the Soviet Union brought with it a brave new world of media and commerce. Formerly state-owned enterprises were transformed, often through private ownership, and new corporations sprang up overnight to take advantage of the new atmosphere of freedom. Until now, most research on media and news production in Russia has focused on the scope of government control and comparisons with the communist era. However, extra-governmental controls and the challenges of operating in a newly capitalist environment have been just as important – if not more important – in the formation of the new media climate. News Media and Power in Russia fills this gap, examining the various agents who “make” the news, and discussing the fierce struggle among the various agents of power involved, including news producers themselves. Drawing on existing theories and scholarship, the book provides a wealth of detail on the actual daily practices of news production in Russia, arguing that power relations in newsmaking are not just external intrusions into the pure process of the reflection of reality, but that the interaction of vari- ously motivated agents is an intrinsic part of the news production process. Original research is combined with compelling first-hand accounts of news production and dissemination to provide an incisive look at the issues and power structures Russian journalists face on a daily basis. The book will be useful for scholars and students of media studies and Russian politics, and essential for those wishing to have a deeper under- standing of the post-Soviet media world in Russia. Olessia Koltsova is currently an associate professor in mass communica- tion in the Department of Sociology of the Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg. During the last nine years she has been researching Russian news production and post-Soviet media transformation. BASEES/Routledge series on Russian and East European studies Series editor: Richard Sakwa, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent Editorial Committee: George Blazyca, Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University of Paisley Terry Cox, Department of Government, University of Strathclyde Rosalind Marsh, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath David Moon, Department of History, University of Strathclyde Hilary Pilkington, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham Stephen White, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, high- quality, research-level work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social science subjects. 1 Ukraine’s Foreign and Security Policy, 1991–2000 Roman Wolczuk 2 Political Parties in the Russian Regions Derek S. Hutcheson 3 Local Communities and Post-Communist Transformation Edited by Simon Smith 4 Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe J.C. Sharman 5 Political Elites and the New Russia Anton Steen 6 Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness Sarah Hudspith 7 Performing Russia – Folk Revival and Russian Identity Laura J. Olson 8 Russian Transformations Edited by Leo McCann 9 Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin The baton and sickle Edited by Neil Edmunds 10 State Building in Ukraine The Ukranian parliament, 1990–2003 Sarah Whitmore 11 Defending Human Rights in Russia Sergei Kovalyov, dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969–2003 Emma Gilligan 12 Small-Town Russia Postcommunist livelihoods and identities: a portrait of the intelligentsia in Achit, Bednodemyanovsk and Zubtsov, 1999–2000 Anne White 13 Russian Society and the Orthodox Church Religion in Russia after communism Zoe Knox 14 Russian Literary Culture in the Camera Age The word as image Stephen Hutchings 15 Between Stalin and Hitler Class war and race war on the Dvina, 1940–46 Geoffrey Swain 16 Literature in Post-Communist Russia and Eastern Europe The Russian, Czech and Slovak fiction of the changes 1988–98 Rajendra A. Chitnis 17 Soviet Dissent and Russia’s Transition to Democracy Dissident legacies Robert Horvath 18 Russian and Soviet Film Adaptations of Literature, 1900–2001 Screening the word Edited by Stephen Hutchings and Anat Vernitski 19 Russia as a Great Power Dimensions of security under Putin Edited by Jakob Hedenskog, Vilhelm Konnander, Bertil Nygren, Ingmar Oldberg and Christer Pursiainen 20 Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940 Truth, justice and memory George Sanford 21 Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia Philip Boobbyer 22 The Limits of Russian Democratisation Emergency powers and states of emergency Alexander N. Domrin 23 The Dilemmas of Destalinisation A social and cultural history of reform in the Khrushchev era Edited by Polly Jones 24 News Media and Power in Russia Olessia Koltsova News Media and Power in Russia Olessia Koltsova First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Olessia Koltsova This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0-415-34515-4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-53697-5 (ebk) ISBN13: 9-780-415-34515-6 (hbk) ISBN13: 9-780-203-53697-1 (ebk) Contents List of tables x Preface xi Acknowledgments xiv PART I Theories, methods and historical context 1 1 Catching the wind: theoretical approach to the study 3 Post-socialist media: conceptual problems 3 Power in media studies: gaps and bridges 6 A dynamic approach to power in media 8 Types of agents and team formation 16 Summary 18 Note on sources and methods 19 2 Russian media system: historical background 22 Soviet media system 22 Transformation 29 Summary 42 PART II Agents of power 45 3 State agents 47 Privatization and feudalization of the Russian state 47 Practices based on access to public resources 49 Practices of creation of rules 54 4 State and non-state agents of violence 60 Demonopolization of “legitimate” violence 60 viii Contents “Hard” violence practices 63 “Mild” violence practices 66 The story of radio Titan: return of consolidated state violence 69 Concluding remarks 71 5 Owners 73 Is “external” ownership – ownership? 73 ORT, RTR and NTV: the three differently owned giants 79 Toward a typology of media ownership in Russia 84 6 Advertisers 86 A meager pie of legal advertising 86 Hidden advertising: invisible market of visions 90 Political promotion: advertising or propaganda? 94 Owners, advertisers and sources: separate groups or a continuum? 95 7 Sources of information 98 Some concepts: sources as disclosers, hiders, and producers 98 Sources’ professionalization and stratification 100 Production of positive information 102 Production of negative information 104 Production of absence of negative information 109 Concluding remarks 116 8 Rank-and-file journalists 118 Newsmaking: fixed practices 119 Newsmaking: contested practices 128 Newsmaking dualities: journalists’ attitudes 131 Journalists dealing with sources 134 Journalists’ attitudes toward external influences 138 Concluding remarks 141 9 Center and periphery of power: media top managers as power mediators 143 Media executives and journalists 143 Media executives and owners 149 Media executives and audience: an excluded actor 154 Media executives defining their clients: media as means of intra-elite communication 156 Concluding remarks 159 Contents ix PART III Special studies 161 10 Regional media landscapes: diversity of power configurations 163 Spatial decomposition of the Russian state: historical context 163 Toward a typology of regional media configurations 165 Monocentric configuration 171 Pact configuration 174 Conflict configuration 176 Yekaterinburg: democratic success or concealed pact? 180 Concluding remarks 183 11 The story of Peterburg – 5 Kanal 184 The rise of Peterburg – 5 Kanal 185 The difficulties of Peterburg – 5 Kanal 186 Struggle for transmitters 188 Epilogue 190 12 The story of NTV 192 The rise of NTV 192 The first problems 194 Arrest of the oligarch 196 Search for foreign aid 199 The fall of the fortress 202 Epilogue 203 13 Change in the coverage of the Chechen wars 205 Historical context 206 No coverage: toward the first war 207 The first Chechen war: the media against the military 208 Between the wars: unlinked stories about “unrelated” events 214 The second war: the government dominates the media 217 Concluding remarks 224 Conclusion 226 An example of an annotated transcript of an interview 230 Chronology 233 List of interviews 237 Glossary 240 Notes 244 Bibliography 252 Index 265 Tables 1.1 Agents and their resources 16 2.1 Evolution of major agents of power in post-Soviet Russia 34–5 5.1 Types of media ownership 84 6.1 Advertisers – sources continuum 95 6.2 Hidden advertisers – external owners continuum 96 7.1 Ericson’s practices of sources 99 7.2 Purposeful production of information by sources 117 8.1 Subjects and sources of news at STV (an example) 124–5 8.2 Subjects of news stories broadcast by PTV (July 1998–January 1999) 126 8.3 Genres of events and news stories broadcast by PTV (July 1998–January 1999) 127 10.1 Gelman’s scenarios of exit from indeterminacy 168 10.2 Regional media-political configurations 170 Preface The initial goal of this study was to shed some light on the way news is really made.