The Media and Intra-elite Communication in the USSR

Résumé du livre

This report tests basic assumptions used by Western analysts in interpreting the Soviet media by bringing to bear new information, derived from emigre interviews, about the structure and inner workings of Soviet media and the political mechanisms by which the media are controlled. Western Sovietologists have long considered the Soviet media to be their basic analytic source. They have based their analyses on the assumption that by reading properly "between the lines" one can pick up real echoes of Soviet politics in action. Are such beliefs justified? To assert that the Western analyst is picking up real echoes, rather than noise or disinformation, implies certain basic assumptions about the way the Soviet media are managed. The Kremlinological school of analysis has generally assumed that not only differentiated verbal behavior of top leaders but any media differentiation on politically significant subjects is related to leadership controversy. The implicit assumption underlying most Western Kremlinological analyses is that continuous conflict among the top leadership prevents any one element of that leadership, however powerful, from effectively utilizing the control/censorship mechanism to suppress partisan communication from other elements.