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MASS MEDIA IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BELARUSIAN SOCIETY

What place do mass media currently occupy among other institutions in the Belarusian society? What social transformation do they facilitate? These questions are complicated enough, because one can answer them from multiple points of view – the political perspective (the place of mass media in the political system), the economic perspective (their place in the economic system), the legal perspective (their place in the legal system), social and cultural perspective (their place in the cultural framework) etc. Let us try to answer these questions from a sociological perspective and explain how mass media are viewed by society, and what are the results of the interaction between the two.

An important indicator of people’s attitudes to various social institutions is the level of trust, which accumulates many other indicators (agreement, sympathy etc.). Let us see what place is occupied by government and non-government mass media in the system of social institutes by reviewing their index of trust (Table 1).

Table 1. Trust in major state and social institutions, %

Institution
Trust
Do not trust
I do not know/NA
Index*
Church
45.7
19.3
35.0
+0.275
Army
39.5
23.5
37.0
+0.167
Independent research centers
29.9
17.2
52.9
+0.133
State research centers
25.4
23.7
50.9
+0.018
President
36.0
37.6
26.4
–0.017
State media
34.3
36.0
29.7
–0.018
OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group in Belarus
20.2
22.4
57.4
–0.023
Free independent trade unions
21.6
26.1
52.3
–0.048
Constitutional court
24.3
32.2
43.5
–0.083
Groups of businessmen
18.1
28.4
53.5
–0.108
Non-state media
23.7
35.9
40.4
–0.128
Trade unions, which are members to the Federation of trade unions
12.8
28.0
59.2
–0.159
Courts
23.6
40.5
35.9
–0.177
Central election committee
16.8
38.0
45.2
–0.223
KGB
18.6
40.1
41.3
–0.225
Government
21.2
43.0
35.8
–0.227
National assembly
14.5
36.9
48.6
–0.235
XIII Parliament
12.0
35.5
52.5
–0.247
Political parties, which support the regime
11.8
41.0
47.2
–0.308
Local authorities
16.4
48.6
35.0
–0.338
Opposition political parties
8.5
43.4
48.1
–0.369
Police
20.5
52.9
26.6
–0.377

* The index of trust may be in the range of +1 to –1 and is a correlation between the sum of positive answers “I trust in them” and negative answers “I do not trust in them”, and the number of all respondents, who answered the question

It is seen, that first, the index of trust for mass media is higher than this index for many other important social institutions, including some as influential as the government, parliament, law enforcers and political parties. However media are not part of a group of institutions with the positive index of trust (i.e. when the number of people who trust them exceeds the number of people who don’t). Second, government media have a higher index of trust than non-government media. Over the four years of this kind of monitoring the relation between the index of trust for government and non-government media is stable (with the exception of the November 1999 survey), although they are getting closer over time (Table 2).

Table 2. Dynamics of trust in government and non-government media, %

Survey
Trust
Do not trust
I do not know/NA
Index of trust
Non-government media
Government media
Non-government media
Government media
Non-government media
Government media
Non-government media
Government media
11’97
25.4
43.7
24.1
21.0
50.5
35.3
–0.026
+0.351
09’98
19.6
41.8
32.6
26.0
47.9
35.2
–0.249
+0.233
03’99
21.8
39.1
32.6
31.0
45.6
30.0
–0.284
+0.026
06’99
19.5
39.8
34.9
31.0
45.6
29.2
–0.159
+0.091
11’99
34.4
32.2
26.1
34.7
39.5
33.1
+0.088
–0.026
04’00
25.7
38.5
31.9
31.6
42.4
29.9
–0.085
+0.072
08’00
28.0
34.4
34.1
34.7
37.9
30.9
–0.098
–0.004
11’00
23.7
34.3
35.9
36.0
40.4
29.7
–0.128
–0.018
Here we need to mention that lower trust for non-government media than for government media is not only due to constant oppression of the former by the government and state support of the latter, but also because of a few special things which characterize the development of non-government media, especially during the last two or three years. Because of the continual pressure from the government, many leading non-government media and journalists took the side of the opposition in the political struggle. On the one hand, this improves their authority and influence among supporters of the opposition. One the other hand, because of this readers see them as politically biased institutions. As long as even the majority of the democratically minded public does not support the existing structures of political opposition (Table 1), they take no interest in biased information and comments. It is interesting that non-government media aspirations for offering support for the democratic forces – even though they risk losing trust of their readership – meets criticisms of the opposition. For example, analyzing the results for the campaign of October 2000 parliamentary elections boycott, a member of the XIII Supreme Council L. Gryaznova wrote: “…The fact, that some journalists choose to be unbiased during a battle yields no-one. …An ineradicable intellectual wish to be different ran counter to the coordinated actions of the opposition and helped the authorities. …I would like to feel the support from journalists in our common business soon” (L. Gryaznova “The ship “Boycott-2000″ was heading in the right direction.” Narodnaya Volya, October 28, 2000). As a Russian proverb says: “If you say that you are one of us, you should act as one of us”.
It is necessary to pinpoint that in Belarus, the notion of the “state mass media” needs to be additionally explained. The thing is that, as it has already been stressed by many analysts, practically on all the territory of Belarus, the population prefers programs broadcast by Russian mass media more than those by Belarusian ones (Mass media in Belarus. BelaPAN analytical bulletin, May 7-15, 2000, pages 14-17).
To clear out the situation, respondents were asked a special question concerning their confidence to Russian, Belarusian state-run and non-state mass media, as well as to Western media, but only printed press was eliminated from the questionnaire, because Belarusians, as they mostly do not know foreign languages, hardly ever read it (Table 3).

Table 3. Trust in different mass media, %

Mass media
Trust
Do not trust
I do not know/NA
Index*
Russian TV
46.7
12.9
40.4
+0.355
Russian radio
34.2
14.4
51.4
+0.210
Russian newspapers
33.1
15.7
51.2
+0.183
Belarusian state radio
39.9
26.7
34.4
+0.137
Belarusian state TV
38.6
27.2
34.2
+0.118
Belarusian state newspapers
38.5
27.3
34.2
+0.115
Belarusian non-government radio (FM-channels)
25.4
22.1
52.5
+0.035
Belarusian non-government newspapers
20.9
29.9
49.2
–0.094
Belarusian non-government TV
16.4
25.4
58.2
–0.097
Western radio
12.7
28.1
59.2
–0.162
Western television
11.9
28.3
59.8
–0.174

* The index of trust may be in the range of +1 to –1 and is a correlation between the sum of positive answers “I trust in them” and negative answers “I do not trust in them”, and the number of all respondents, who answered the question

To research deeper into the situation, let us group respondents by their orientation on the listed kinds of mass media (it is understood, that we cannot merely add percentages, because, for instance, part of the audience of Russian TV also listens to Russian radio and read Russian newspapers).
It is seen from Table 4 that Russian media, primarily TV, are in first place. Belarusian government media are in second place with a somewhat smaller score. Next in the list are Belarusian non-government media, which are a lot less popular and Western media are at the bottom of the rating. However, this does not mean that Belarusians trust government media more than non-government media, or trust Russian media more than Western ones. As we have already mentioned before, the real picture can only be obtained by joining the indicator of trust and the indicator of use of mass media. For instance 29.4% of the adult population of Belarus read “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” and 26.3% trust it, 9.8% read “Narodnaya Volya” and 9.7% trust it, 90.5% watch the Russian TV channel ORT and 68.3% trust it, while 10.1% listens to “Radio Liberty” and 10.1% trust it. This means that the real trust in “Narodnaya Volya” is higher than in “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” and trust in “Radio Liberty” is higher than in ORT! This means that firstly, government media no longer have a monopoly in the information market, and second, their influence on people is almost level with the influence of non-government media.

Table 4. Media audience depending on trust in them, %

Different (if not contrary) views of different media inevitably influence the views of their audience. A comparison of social characteristics, values and behavior of different mass media shows that this influence has different results (Table 5).

Table 5. Social characteristics of media audiences, %

Characteristics
Western media (14.6)
Non-government media (36.8)
Government media (49.6)
Russian media (53.1)
Social and demographic characteristics:
Age:
– 16-29
– 30-39
– 40-49
– 50-59
– 60+
35.8
27.2
18.6
9.2
9.1
35.4
22.4
21.0
9.6
11.8
18.7
15.8
18.6
14.2
32.7
25.3
20.0
20.7
12.3
21.7
Education:
– elementary (up to 4 years at secondary school)
– unfinished secondary (up to 8 years at secondary school)
– secondary
– technical college
– higher and non-finished higher education
4.6
12.1
39.4
24.7
19.1
4.4
12.7
40.5
24.9
17.6
18.1
16.4
31.6
22.5
11.4
10.4
13.0
39.0
22.4
15.3
Social status:
– state sector employee
– private sector employee
– student
– senior citizen
– housewife, unemployed
44.6
19.2
14.0
15.2
9.4
47.9
17.3
12.9
15.2
7.8
43.0
8.4
7.6
37.7
4.3
47.2
12.5
9.3
25.9
6.4
Language of daily use:
– Belarusian
– Russian
– Belarusian and Russian
– a mixture of Belarusian and Russian
3.9
53.3
22.9
19.6
3.4
47.3
25.5
23.2
3.9
30.5
24.8
40.3
3.1
39.4
24.4
32.7
Place of residence:
– capital
– regional center
– large city (50 thousand people and more)
– small town
– village
17.0
23.2
15.9
18.0
0
21.5
16.4
16.2
17.3
28.3
11.9
15.1
11.6
20.5
40.7
14.3
16.2
14.6
21.9
32.6
Economical values and behavior:
Prefer the type of economy:
– market economy with little state interference
– market economy with heavy state regulation
– administrative economy
60.2
21.6
13.9
58.6
24.2
13.8
25.2
34.5
35.2
40.0
30.7
25.8
Most efficient form of ownership:
– private property
– state property
74.1
18.7
69.1
24.5
37.3
58.1
53.8
40.7
Would like to be employed by:
– a private company
– a state company
66.0
25.8
58.9
34.1
29.6
63.5
45.1
49.0
Material well-being over the last year:
– improved
– did not change
– deteriorated
3.8
35.6
60.1
5.3
35.7
59.0
6.3
39.5
53.9
5.7
37.2
56.3
Family income per capita in September (in thousands of rubles)
39.3
37.9
32.2
35.0
Political values and behavior:
The blame on the deteriorating economy is on the:
– president
– organized crime
58.8
10.7
48.1
11.1
19.9
18.8
36.7
14.8
Trust the president:
– yes
– no
15.6
60.4
23.3
49.6
56.6
17.3
38.8
35.1
Trust political parties:
– yes
– no
7.0
51.7
7.0
46.4
5.3
40.0
6.3
45.0
Trust independent research centers:
– yes
– no
45.8
16.6
42.4
15.6
19.3
18.6
31.0
17.5
Satisfied with the way, that A. Lukashenko has ruled the country for six years:
– rather satisfied
– partly satisfied, partly not
– rather not satisfied
12.1
29.8
57.6
13.4
37.3
48.8
34.9
46.7
17.4
22.7
40.3
36.1
The best relations between Russia and Belarus:
– friendly relations of independent countries
– union of independent countries
– merger into one country
47.9
28.3
22.3
45.5
30.8
22.1
24.8
31.4
40.8
33.2
29.9
34.8
Voting in a referendum about the unification of Russia and Belarus:
– for unification
– against unification
40.7
38.2
41.2
33.7
67.2
15.6
56.5
22.2
Think that Belarus should aim to integrate into Europe and aspire to:
– membership in the Council of Europe
– membership in the European Union
– NATO membership
47.0
45.2
10.5
43.0
41.4
9.9
31.7
26.0
6.8
37.9
35.6
6.9
If the powers do not satisfy people, they should be replaced by:
– ordinary elections
– large-scale non-violence actions (rallies etc.)
31.7
10.6
35.7
10.5
45.7
4.3
40.4
6.6
Attitude to “Freedom March-3”:
– positive
– indifferent
– negative
– know nothing about the matter in question
29.0
30.0
8.8
30.6
25.7
23.9
12.7
35.9
5.4
19.0
25.1
48.9
14.3
22.6
18.2
42.7
Would like to emigrate to the West:
– yes
– would not like to move anywhere
46.8
40.8
39.5
53.4
21.3
72.7
31.4
61.3
Took part in October 15, 2000 parliamentary elections
45.4
47.2
70.6
60.0
Would like the following person to be president of Belarus:
– single candidate of the democratic opposition parties
– representative of a different political party
– independent candidate
– A. Lukashenko
19.3
1.2
33.7
17.6
16.5
1.9
27.5
20.9
3.4
2.7
14.6
51.3
9.2
1.5
23.3
34.2
Think that the majority of voters would vote for the following person in the presidential elections:
– single candidate of the democratic opposition parties
– representative of a different political party
– independent candidate
– A. Lukashenko
13.5
1.4
17.6
34.9
10.1
1.1
6.8
37.3
2.2
1.1
9.4
52.8
5.6
1.4
17.6
34.9
If you had to choose between A. Lukashenko and M. Chigir, whom would you choose
– A. Lukashenko
– M. Chigir
– I do not know/NA
12.9
26.4
29.1
24.6
25.7
26.9
56.9
6.5
20.2
38.0
15.6
23.8
Ready to vote for A. Lukashenko in the presidential elections
16.0
22.2
54.2
36.2
Are members of:
– a political party
– an NGO
0.9
1.8
1.7
2.8
0.6
2.0
0.7
1.8
The analysis of the data from Table 5 allows making some relevant conclusions. First, it is obvious that the audiences of Western and non-state mass media are very close to each other (and even coincide, judging by many parameters), while the audience of state-run mass media, on the contrary, on the majority of parameters, is their antagonist. The audience of Russian mass media, as a whole, is intermediate between them, but on the majority of parameters, nevertheless, is closer to the audience of state-run mass media.
Second, the audiences of Western and non-state mass media mostly consist of younger, educated, economically active part of Belarusian society, who live predominantly in large cities. The audience of state-run mass media (and, in a smaller measure, Russian ones) mostly consists of elder, less educated and economically active part of society, who live in towns and villages. A special attention should be paid to the fact that the real incomes of these audiences do not differ principally (the maximum difference in the monthly income per member of a family does not exceed 7,000 rubles). It means that the choice of this or that mass media takes place accidentally.
Third, the audiences of Western and non-state mass media are marked by their obviously expressed settings on democracy, market economy, independence of Belarus, cooperating to international structures, and, accordingly, they rather critically judge the present authorities. Their antagonists prefer the centralized power, planned economy, union with Russia, they judge international structures with suspicion, and the authorities, on the contrary, with approval. It is also evident that the audiences of Western and non-state mass media are more sequential, logical in their actions: for example, one of the relevant reasons of their non-participation in the parliamentary election became the fact that they had no sufficient information on candidates and their programs. The absence of information did not prevent the audience of state-run mass media from participating in the election at all.
A special attention should also be paid to the fact that there are more supporters of Belarus-Russia union among the audience of Belarusian state-run mass media, than Russian ones. Truly, Belarusian state-run mass media (and the power, which is behind them) tend to be “more Catholic than the Pope of Rome!” It means that Belarusian state-run mass media represent a larger threat to Belarusian democracy and independence, than Russian ones! At the same time, it is necessary to say that some discrepancies are not for the benefit of the audience of non-state mass media: it seems to be much less assured of its positions (in particular, on reliance of voting on the future presidential election), than the audience of state-run mass media!
The next conclusion is that differences as well as common, fully or partially coincident characteristics of these audiences, which are on the whole antagonistic, have a great importance for a successful democratic transformation (including the activities of mass media) in this country. The audiences of these four types of media share mistrust in political parties, trust in independent research centers, dislike radical means to influence the powers and prefer elections. They basically ignore the activities of the existing social and political structures.
It is understood that not all the listed differences or similarities originate from media influences. Many people trust mass media because the ideas and values they advocate match their own ideas and values. But even in this case the ideas and values of these people are maintained, consolidated and expressed by mass media through the information that they provide.
Analysis has shown that in this country mass media are two different institutions, which in most cases co-exist, but sometimes start conflicting. The main reason behind this is not the “trouble-making character” of publishers, editors and journalists. The reason is that state and non-state mass media are part of the system of respective social institutions – state administration and civil society, which are very far from cooperating and interaction. Rather, they co-exist or enter into conflicts. And although the present potential in state mass media and state administration agencies which support them is a lot bigger than the potential of non-government media and civil society institutions, which support them, the position and influence of the latter in the Belarusian society is steadily increasing, which opens prospects for democratic social transformation. This transformation will result in efficient co-operation of state and society through mass media.
In conclusion let us answer another important question, which determines the place of mass media in the system of social institutions: who is the most reliable and promising partner to independent mass media in the process of democratic transformation of the Belarusian society and state?
To do this, let us look at the results of the November survey and see, which state and public institutions enjoy the trust of people, who trust government and non-government media (Table 6). The picture is amazing: a strategic partner for non-government media in Belarus (i.e. relatively steady and constant) is non-government research centers (also referred to as “think tanks”). Church and non-state trade unions may also be partners (because 45.1% and 42.1% of those who trust independent mass media trust them, relatively). Opposition political parties and the 13th Supreme Council, the activities of which non-government mass media continually cover, as we see, cannot be promising allies, because only one in five supporters of these media trusts them. What concerns the strategic allies for government media, we do not see anything special in the list. They are state administration institutions, church and army. This confirms the argument that government media in Belarus are an integral part of the system of state institutions, and non-government media – a part of the system of civil society.

Table 6. Trust in state and public institutions among those, who trust in government and non-government media, %

Additional analysis shows that the prospect of the formation of an alliance of non-government media and research centers is very realistic, because it reflects a steady trend rather than an accidental connection (Table 7).

Table 7. Audience of non-government media, who trust independent research centers


Table 8. Distribution of answers to the question: “Recently, mass media have often published materials contributed by Belarusian independent research centers. Which of those centers do you know?”

The reasons behind close interlocution of the audience of non-government media and research centers are clear: both institutions research the society and affect it, although to a different extent. The inner mechanisms of their activities are quite different, but the output is similar – information and analysis, aiming at the society. Moreover, an alliance of these groups of institutions within the civil society is mutually beneficial: information and analysis, offered by non-government media and based on the materials from think tanks become better reasoned and more convincing; think tanks become more well-known and respected when they get a direct connection with the society. As a result the standing of both institutions is getting stronger and their influence on society better. Moreover, there is already a number of such centers in Belarus, which are known both to elite and the general public (Table 8).