Retreat from the Golden Age: Russian Journalists & Their World, 1992-2000

ABSTRACTThe overall processes in the first decade of independent Russian media can be divided into distinct phases. The first phase was characterized by a golden age of political independence in the early 1990s. This was followed by a shift toward partial government control and increased proximity to the ruling elites by the presidential elections of 1999. The final phase saw the transfer of power to Vladimir Putin in 2000. The authors argue that several factors contributed to the loss of independence in Russian media during this period, including the complicated economic realities of a transitional society, the growing interest of new financial tycoons (oligarchs) in media ownership, and the reassertion of political influences. Additionally, the specific understanding of professionalism among most Russian journalists played a significant role in the transformation from independent to controlled journalism.KEYWORDS: Censorshipfreedom of pressjournalismpost-SovietRussia AcknowledgmentOwen V. Johnson died August 6, 2022. His lead co-author completed the article, and it is being published posthumously with his family’s permission. For several years, Dr. Johnson was a reviewer/contributing editor of Journalism History. He is greatly missed by the division and this journal.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Alexander Filippov, “Sociologia Professii,” in Rossijskaja Sociologicheskaja Jenciklopedija (Moscow: Norma-Infra, 1998), http://sociology.niv.ru/doc/encyclopedia/sociology/fc/slovar-209–3.htm#zag-1115.2. Michael Quinn Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014), 103–106.3. 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Elisabeth Schimpfössl and Ilya Yablokov, “Power Lost and Freedom Relinquished: Russian Journalists Assessing the First Post-Soviet Decade,” Russian Review 76, no. 3 (2017).61. Aleksei Simonov, Zhurnalist i Zhurnalistika v Rossijskij Provincii (Sent’jabr’-Dekabr’ 1994) (Moscow: Nachalo Press, 1995), 4.62. Wu et al., “Professional Roles of Russian and U.S. Journalists.”63. Wu et al.64. Svetlana Juskevits. “Professional Roles of Russian Journalists at the End of the 1990s: A Case Study of St. Petersburg Media” (PhD dissertation, Tampere University, 2002), 186.65. Svetlana Pasti, “Concepts of Professional Journalism: Russia after the Collapse of Communism,” in Medien und Demokratie/Media & Democracy: Europäische Erfahrungen/Experiences from Europe, ed. Frank Marcinkowski (Bern: Haupt Verlag, 2006), 73–89.Additional informationNotes on contributorsRashad MammadovRashad Mammadov, PhD, is an associate professor at University of the Fraser Valley in Canada. His research interests focus on the history of government-media relationships, the implementation of mass communication theories to the media systems of countries with developing democracies, and media realities under different political systems. His track record of combined experience in higher education institutions around the world includes teaching both skill classes and courses covering global media and political communication.Owen V. JohnsonOwen V. Johnson, PhD, was associate professor emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research was focused on several areas, including Slovak mass media and nation in the twentieth century; the letters and columns of World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle; and the history of Russian journalists. His interests extended more generally to mass media in East Central and Eastern Europe, particularly from the historical perspective.