First and Second Sessions:
Media law and the new media in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union

Professor Yassen N. ZASSOURSKY, Dean, Faculty of Journalism, Moscow State University, e-mail - dean@journ.msu.ru Fax: +7-095-203-28-89
Russian Communication Technology Policy as a Means of Overcoming Mass Media Crisis

1. As a result of mass media crisis Russians are confronting difficulties in their access to the newspapers and magazines. Television and radio are experiencing difficulties due to the lack of advertising. The number of people who do not read newspapers and do not watch television has increased. The study of consumers and non-consumers of mass media has provided data about attitudes towards traditional media and about new ways of acquiring news and information through new communication technologies .

2. Newspaper readers, television viewers, radio listeners are not satisfied by the quality and quality of the news and information they are presented with in the mass media. They are especially negative towards politization and bias

in Russian media .Many of them are losing their interest in the media due to these reasons in addition to economic difficulties – low incomes and comparatively high prices for mass media products.

3. The category of non-consumers of mass media can be divided into three categories: those who do not have the money to buy mass media products , those who lost enthusiasm for the media and those who found new and more efficient way of getting the news and information through new communication technology through INTERNET

and data banks. The third category has been a minority but it has been increasing dramatically and it includes most

intellectually active members of Russian society - researchers, educators, students, politicians , economists.

It represents a demassified approach to news and information - INTERNET and computer assisted .

4. One of the main advantages of the INTERNET assisted access to information is the ability of the user to get to the sources and roots of the news and information avoiding the mass media gatekeepers. This increases the quality of access to the events and concepts, and contributes to the formation among other thing s of a new intellectual elite much better informed. Under the conditions of mass media crisis new communication and information technologies information are becoming a key element of the new system of communication and information which can keep together the national Russian information space.

5 .With very few resources available Russia is developing a new communication and information technology policy

aimed at providing Russian population with an access to news and information both through traditional mass media and new media based on computer and INTERNET assisted technologies. The key elements of this policy and program of developing Information Society in Russia are providing each family with a computer, developing Russian contents for the INTERNET, computer education and access to the INTERNET of university students and schoolchildren.

6. Technologically it involves new digitalized and convergence approaches to the delivery and reception of news and information .Economically it is based on joined efforts of the state and private sectors.

Elena Vartanova, Associate Professor, Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism
Public Policy and the New Media: Freedom of Access in the Era of Digital Interactive Communication

New information and communication technologies could encourage the development of democratic and more open societies, provide better realization of human rights and freedoms, improve understanding within societies and between countries. Together with advantages the new media and the Internet bring about numerous problems of market competition, technical infrastructure, content production, etc. The problem of information inequality is becoming both common and urgent for various societies all over the world. Access to infrastructure facilities, content and services distributed via global interactive digital networks (the Internet) is viewed by many scholars as a key problem of transition to a new information age.

The European Union has recognised the need to avoid a ‘two-tier Information society’ in which some citizens are able to access new information and communication technologies and services, and some are not. However important this approach might be, at present its implementation is restricted to the practices of 15 Member States. Europe at large needs broader understanding and common effective mechanisms to ensure the overall transition to the Information Society. In setting up the agenda for the future coherent Information Society some other pan-European organisations might play a new role. The Council of Europe with its persistent efforts to focus on human rights in 46 Member States might provide a forum for debates on new understanding of human rights in the era of the Internet.

At the Council of Europe the 5^th Ministerial Conference one Mass Media Policy (December, 1997) underlined the need to meet the Information Society challenge in Europe by providing people with equal, easy and affordable access to new information and communication infrastructure and services. Documents of the Conference put forward the idea of a universal community service which might become the first step to bridge the gap between information haves and information have-nots both at the national and pan-European levels. The universal community service has not much to do with the universal access approach which has been traditionally used as the basis for the US and Western European national policies in telephony. The approach of the Council of Europe is extending the idea of access beyond technical considerations by attaching social dimensions to it.

It is clear that the role of the Council of Europe is rather limited by the very nature of the organisation itself. As a result, in specific national circumstances only states would define practical measures of the transition to the Information Society. Nevertheless, some common principles should be accepted by all states to avoid new discrepancies at national and pan-European levels.

Dr. Maria Loukina, associate professor, Faculty of Journalism, Moscow State University

Russian Media in the Web Context

This paper takes the view of the media developments of the Russian sector of Internet. Speaking on the Internet media professional media institutions are producing news in the net issues as well as in the Web versions of the traditional press, radio and TV formats.

Russian Internet backbone is overviewed as a part of the cyberspace with its specifically points concerning infrastructural, financial, demographical and political aspects. Though Russia has economical and an infrastructure problem it is not a country with little Internet penetration and the Russian Web maintains the diversity of formats and content. The density of servers in some regions is approaching European standards. And the informational density is even reaching American. But poor traffics, high prices of the services, the lack of the state support are influencing media behavior of the Internet users.

The paper is a result of the research undertaken with the teaching purposes and is the first stage of media classification in the Russian part of the Net Babylon. From an analysis of the sites that have been sampled, certain trends of Russian Internet media developments could be concerned. It is relevant to mention here the strong political interest that would be the most powerful motive for the Russian Internet media perspectives.

Today general mass media statutes exist in all NIS, but Estonia. Almost all of these statutes (with a notable exemption of Lithuania) are modeled after the 1990 USSR Media Statute. They stipulate the ban on censorship, notion of the founder of a mass media outlet — which is different from an owner, obligatory registration procedures even for the print media, a wide array of special rights and privileges for the journalists and editors, etc. The model statute was – at least on paper – extremely favorable to the journalists rights to the level unheard of in Western democracies.

The original wave of adopting mass media statutes was supposed to be followed by a similar wave of statutes on television and radio. That did not happen. Broadcasting statutes have been adopted just in six out of 15 FSU countries: in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. They come as an example of media legislation that looked for an example in other than Russia countries though trying to adapt it to the post-Soviet legal system. This is explained by the absence of consent between the executive branch and the legislature on the mechanism of licensing and control over the electronic media.

As to the telecommunications statutes, they are even fewer in the FSU. The two or three statutes I could find, either follow the Russian Communications statute of 1995 (e.g., the 1999 Telecommunication Statute of Armenia) or West European norms (Lithuanian Telecommunications statute of 1998). By the Russian model I mean a system of dual licenses for broadcasters, one of them provided by the Ministry of Communication, permission to privatize parts of the communications grid), the European model provides for the principles of universal access and competition.

Though the legal framework of statuary regulation of broadcasting and telecommunication shows numerous gaps, some trends are clear:

First. The strong executive power — and we have strong presidential republics in all CIS states — views the frequencies as its reclusive property. The June 1999 Russian governmental decree on tenders for radio frequencies, for example, has the following opening words: “In order to increase the efficiency of the use of the limited governmental resource — the radio frequency spectrum…”

Frequencies are allocated by various departments of the government without an outside control from the parliaments or a public control.

Private operators are typically shown by the authorities that they are just temporary nuisances or second-class players. Absence or vagueness of legislation makes way for corruption. Duration of the licenses is typically very short (3 years in Azerbaijan, 1 to 7 years in Kyrgyzstan) without providing a special position to operators when it expires which does not allow for serious investments in the business to take place and thus making private owners even weaker that the state-run entities. Licenses are issued without open and fair contests of various applicants. Regulations on licensing happen to be changed up to three times a year (1998, Kyrgyzstan). Whenever the authorities decide that enough is enough with shadowy allocation of frequencies, they abruptly adopt a system of tenders auctioning the right to use a frequency to the highest bidder. In Kazakhstan tenders were held for all frequencies, even those already licensed to local stations. Moreover, behind the front of purely economic competition fit for the market economy, one can still see the political ends. Governments try to tie the winner of such a tender to the governmental policy on the content of broadcasts through different mechanisms (like the statute On Languages in Kazakhstan, or special contracts on the contents to be broadcast with the Communication Ministry in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan). All that is aggravated by the poor state of the national economies, that means small revenues from advertising and in several countries breaks in transmissions because of power shortages. In Armenia, for example, even the national TV broadcasts for just 6 hours a day.

To be comprehensive I should note that whatever was said before fades in comparison with Turkmenistan where no private companies dealing with the broadcast media are allowed to exist.

Thus the governments continue to be reluctant to cede control over broadcasting, the major player in the struggle for the public opinion, extremely acute in the transitional democracies. Political manipulation is the major motivation here. No legal statutes are in the interests of the self-appointed gate keepers.

Governments do want to cede control over telecommunication lines and operators with the aim to earn as much as possible from such deals. Sometimes, like in Russia, the deals are made with little known Western companies that happen to have good connections in the governmental offices.

Second. Public broadcasting has been established by law and exists to some degree in: Estonia (where in 1999 private broadcasters even paid the public channel a compensation of almost three million dollars for its suspension of commercials), other Baltic countries, as well as Moldova. In the Ukraine relevant statutes were adopted by the parliament in late 1997, but remain paper rules since the licensing authority refused to allocate a frequency to the national public broadcaster. But the situation with public broadcasting is even worse in other countries where the governments are not interested to part with the state broadcasting, though from time to time paying a lip service to the notion of public broadcasting.

Third. Governments of the NIS generally support national telecom monopolies in order to sell them as most precious gems of the national property, almost in all cases to Western companies. Support is also provided to protect the national telecom entities from competition, even after privatization. The reason lies in the fact that the governments continue to keep an open or covert stake in them. That stake can be just 10 percent as in Armenia, 27 as is planned in Estonia, 40 percent as in Lithuania, or 49 percent as is planned in Kyrgyzstan. More important is though that the state typically retains a “golden share” in the company, giving it veto rights over strategic corporate decisions.

The governments protect the role of the national telecom operator by statuary means providing, for example, a dominant position in Armenia till 2012 and in Lithuania till 2003. Even when a Constitutional Court in the former country decided that such a monopoly contradicts the law of the land, the decision was of a conciliatory nature to the interests of the government appealing to the need “not to hamper foreign investments in the national economy”.

Jukka Pietilдinen, University of Tampere, Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Tampere, Finland, E-mail tijupie@uta.fi
Tel. office: +358 (0)3 215 7193, fax: +358 (0)3 215 6248.
Regionalisation of the media in Russia 1985-1999: aspects of content, legislation and control.

Regionalisation has taken place in Russian media during the last decade in different forms. The content of the media has become more local, a local legislation has been developed and the local authorities has tried to keep the control of media in their hands.
The paper analyses all of these aspects by taking the republic of Karelia  as an example although a more general approach will also be offered. The paper is connecting the media and society and tries to look for reasons and consequences for the regionalisation process.

Assia L. Ivantcheva, Ph.D. candidate, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. Tel. (202)-483-9086; e-mail: assya@hotmail.com; ai1766a@american.edu
Television Beyond the Iron Curtain: broadcasting policy in Bulgaria

The paper examines the process of television-restructuring in the context of democratization in one Southeastern post-socialist country, often neglected by media scholars -- Bulgaria. The main research question is whether the post-socialist Bulgarian broadcasting legislation and regulation is consistent with democratic principles.

After acknowledging previous research on the issue, the paper opens with a theoretical discussion, informed by critical theory, on major democratic principles pertaining to information, such as freedom of speech and publicity. The first part analyzes the 1991 Constitution and the 1998 media legislation, comparing it to preceding laws and regulations, to evaluate the freedom of speech guarantees. The second part discusses the media laws in view of the nationalist model of communication, detecting certain linguistic and religious provisions, which could serve as a barrier to information and participation. The third part examines the underlying reason for democratic deficiencies in the law -- the political and economic dimensions of the struggle for control over broadcasting. The conclusion emphasizes the lasting tendency of both old (BSP) and new (UDF) political elite to control television as a major source of information and power. The analysis also concludes with policy recommendations, which affirm the need to continue the effort of creating a television system that will reflect societal pluralism and that will be independent from both the government and the emerging market forces.

David Goldberg, School of Law, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ Scotland, UK; email: d.goldberg@law.gla.ac.uk fax:+(0)141 330 5140, tel: + (0) 141 330 5538 (office)
Restructuring Media in Transition: The Case of the IMC

Generally, analyses of media in transitional societies have focused on national structures, norms and players. Therefore, the unique situation in Bosnia-Herzogovia, where the Dayton agreement's creation, the Independent Media Commission, which has been trying to foster the conditions for the creation of a pluralistic and independent media environment, has been somewhat negelcted. The paper will describe the history and structure of the IMC and pose such questions as: Has it
accomplished anything? Can we use its work as an example of a model for
changing a totalitarian media to pluralism? Should it be criticised for the misuse of the mandate? Does its work show that only internal developments can produce results?

 Third Session

Susan Drucker , Hofstra University, Chair and Associate Professor, School of Communication, Hempstead, N.Y, and
Gary Gumpert, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Communication, Queens College of the City University of New York
The Right to Communicate: Jurisdictions Both International and Virtual

The problems and issues of freedom and access with regard to any new technology can be immense, but those of the Internet are almost incomprehensible - because of the uniquely converging and pervasive nature of the medium. Within the medium you will discover one medium enclosed within another enclosed within another. The Internet cuts across traditional boundaries demarking governing jurisdictions as well as distinctions between mass and interpersonal media. Traditional governmental and technological obstacles to dissemination and connection are easily circumvented challenging traditional regulatory schemes. Communication becomes increasingly internationalized, globalize and harder to govern by nation-states. Just as the Internet transcends boundaries, so too do the underlying principles behind the of Right to Communicate. The concept of the Right to Communicate has always been predicated upon the regulatory sovereignty of the nation state. This paper will explore the applicability of the Right to Communicate with regard to sovereignty of nation states and alternative international or cyber-jurisdictions. Further it will explore the evolution of the Right to Communicate from a concept linked to mass media to one addressing the micro media/interpersonal uses found within converging technologies.