Changing Channels: Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia - Hardcover

Mickiewicz, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195101634 ISBN 13: 9780195101638

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1997

Synopsis

At 7:20 pm on October 3, 1993, a nervous and shaky anchor broke into coverage of a soccer match to tell Russian viewers that their state television was shutting down. In the opening salvos of the parliamentary revolt against Boris Yeltsin's government, a mob had besieged the station's headquarters. A man had just been killed in front of the news director. Moments later, screens all across Russia went blank, leaving audiences in the dark. But in less than an hour, Russia's second state channel went on the air. Millions watched as Sergei Torchinsky anchored thirteen straight hours of coverage, often with the sound of shooting clearly audible in the background. Streams of politicians, trade union leaders, writers, television personalities, and other well-known figures braved gunfire to reach Channel Two's makeshift studios and speak directly to the nation. In one stunning moment, a famous actress extemporaneously pleaded with viewers not to return to the horrors of Stalinism. Boris Yeltsin, who had been glued to his television set like everyone else, later recalled, "For the rest of my life I will remember the anxious but resolute and courageous expression of Liya Akhedzhakova. . . her hoarse, cracking voice remains in my memory."
In that time of crisis, television bound the nation together, a continuing emblem of legitimate authority which lent an image of stability and credibility to Yeltsin's besieged government. "Television saved Russia," the Russian president said. Changing Channels vividly recreates this exciting time, as television both helped and hindered the Russian nation's struggle to create a new democracy. From the moribund, state-controlled television broadcasts at the end of the Soviet Union, through Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost, up to Yeltsin's victory in the most recent Russian presidential elections of 1996, Mickiewicz charts the omnipresent role of television, drawing on interviews, public opinion surveys, research, and the television programming itself. Analyzing the rise of political advertising (sometimes with controversial US participation), the birth of journalists as opinionated television personalities, and the changing news coverage of coups, elections, and wars, she shows both how the gradual development of private, independent stations has begun to make real pluralism possible and how the authoritarian legacy of the Soviet state structure continues to affect Russian television even today. With television in 97% of all Russian households, and the nightly news watched by a viewership matching that for the Super Bowl in the US, the struggle for control over television became the struggle for control over the nation. Mickiewicz illuminates the efforts of those both in and out of power to control the media.
Behind the momentous political changes are the stories of the men and women who chose to resist, test, or submit to the system. Mickiewicz offers brilliant sketches of these individuals: Yegor Ligachev, Gorbachev's second in command, a man of strongly held opinions who, in retirement, still orated loudly, even over tea; Boris Yeltsin, having not even put on his shirt yet, watching the early morning coverage of the attempted coup against Gorbachev; or the new breed of Russian journalists covering the war in Chechnya with footage of bombed out streets and charred corpses for privately owned NTV, despite continuing government intimidation. In vivid interviews, all the key players, including Gorbachev himself, offered Mickiewicz their unique insights and frank personal commentary. Drawing on these interviews and on her extensive research on the interactions of politics, economics, and society, Mickiewicz presents a rich and authoritative analysis of television in Russia. In many ways, Mickiewicz writes, no other country in the world offers television a greater opportunity and a greater role. Changing Channels tells the fascinating story of a truly modern phenomenon: the struggle to create genuine political pluralism, helped and hindered by the barrage of information, advertisements, and media-created personalities that make up modern television.

About this title

From the Publisher

“From the days when Leonid Brezhnev clung to power through the tumult of Mikhail Gorbachev and the election victories of Boris Yeltsin, Russian leaders have struggled over the control of television. In this fine and penetrating book, Ellen Mickiewicz traces those struggles and examines the larger question still ahead: whether a free and independent television can emerge that will bolster prospects for a stable, democratic nation. No one else has better captured this important saga.”—David Gergen, Editor at Large, U.S. News & World Report

“For those who care about Russia’s stormy evolution from dictatorship to democracy, here is an important story—the first extensive account of the crucially important revolution in Moscow television since 1985.”—Hedrick Smith, author of The New Russians

“This book will enthrall and enlighten its readers with its vivid revelations of political stratagems by politicians and journalists. . . . This is a definitive study, based on lengthy interviews with the movers and shakers in the world of politics and television by a brilliant participant/observer of the momentous changes-in-the-making.”—Doris A. Graber, University of Illinois at Chicago

“An important and fascinating story, elegantly told by Ellen Mickiewicz.”—Stephen Hess, author of International News & Foreign Correspondents

“When Ellen Mickiewicz combines her years of on-scene experience, range of contacts, academic credentials, and writing skill to address the subject of media power in Russia, the result makes must reading for anyone interested in today’s Russian power struggle—or the central role of media control in every society.”—Nicholas Johnson, former Commissioner, U.S. Federal Communications Commission

“[A] deep and detailed look at a long and occasionally fatal obsession with television’s power on the part of Russia’s political leaders.”—Ron Aldridge, Publisher & Editorial Director, Electronic Media

“A riveting look at the political struggle for control of television [in] the Soviet Union. . . . The policy debates detailed in Changing Channels have universal application to our digital communications future. They are explained with skill and competence by an author who is intimately acquainted with both the issues and the people involved.”—Bruce Christensen, former President and CEO of PBS

“It is difficult to imagine a more fair and thorough chronicle of television’s role in Russia’s ongoing evolution.”—Phil Kloer, tv critic, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

From the Back Cover

'Television saved Russia, ' the Russian president said. Changing Channels vividly recreates this exciting time, as television both helped and hindered the Russian nation's struggle to create a new democracy.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0195101634
• ISBN 13: 9780195101638
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368