TV in the Post-Soviet Union

This is an excerpt from the paper...

In reviewing the article "Reports and debates: Television in a post-Soviet union" by Brian McNair, one is forced to confront almost at once the inherent weakness admitted by the author in his very first paragraph: that the delay between writing and publication makes much of the contemporary information anachronistic by the time it reaches public scrutiny. Although ostensibly an overview of both pre- and post-Coup television in the (ex-)Soviet Union, published less than six months ago, "Reports and debates'" primary claim to validity lies in its insight into future developments as affected by the past. Such insight must be seriously questioned when news headlines since Summer 1992 have noted the power struggle between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian Parliament - while McNair's report blithely states:

...Russian TV was and remains a broadcasting organization bound to a political institution - the Russian Parliament... so Russian TV was from the start allied with Yeltsin and his supporters (314-315).

One is left with an uncomfortable question: Did these developments occur after the article was written, or did the author seriously misinterpret the information he received about contemporary Russian television? An important and troubling caveat must be applied to all of McNair's current observations in light of this discrepancy.

In its overall plan, "Reports and debates" attempts to present post-Soviet Union television development within the context of i

. . .
ebates" fails to adequately consider the contradictions inherent within the media principles taken as a unit. It is a media theory whose conflicting principles serve to weaken, rather than enhance, the general purpose. Perhaps the weakest leg in the four-part system is the conception of partiinost within any theory that pretends to openness and objectivity. As described by McNair: ...partiinost was the 'conscious struggle of the ideologist, theoretician, journalist, artist, for the affirmation of the interests of the proletariat'. ... contrasted with the false 'impartiality and objectivism' of bourgeois journalism... (304). Recognizing the outright prejudice and anti-objectivity inherent in such a concept, the author goes on to subscribe (via extensive quotation) to conspiracy theories blaming individuals and interests groups for the failure of Lenin's media theory to maintain a core integrity: "partiinost and objectivity were supposed to coincide... That is basically true (reviewer's emphasis), but it is also true that certain groups and strata in the Party...had an interest in concealing the truth (305)." It is this reviewer's opinion that phrases such as "That is basically true" do not stand up to scrutiny. Indeed,
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian TV, Supreme Soviet, Stalinization Lenin's, Dostoyevsky Gogol, Brian McNair, McNair Reports, Russian Parliament, media theory, soviet media, reports debates, soviet media theory, mcnair's analysis, post-soviet union, russian parliament, soviet union, russian television, debates television post-soviet, television post-soviet, television post-soviet union, yeltsin russian, future development russian, development russian television,
Approximate Word count = 1772
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

TV in the Post-Soviet Union

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