Journalists in the Russian Regions: How Different Generations View their Professional Roles

Managed Mediocrity?

“…Although anecdotal data and research (Coman, 2000;Pasti, 2005b;Pasti and Pietilainen, 2008;Richter, 2008) suggest the region and its media examined in this study are not atypical in the context of other Russian provinces and post-Soviet territories, this study cannot be generalized to the rest of the country. Future investigation is needed to look at whether the attitudes of the older generation are variable across location, or are changing over time.…”

Commercial or public service actors? Controversies in the nature of Russia's regional mass media

“…Toepfl (2013) define journalist culture as 'the professional norms and wider political and social beliefs according to which the journalists of a country process information and interpret social reality' (p. 244). Considering the previous media regimes of Russia, the current professional norms and political beliefs of Russian journalists working for local media outlets should be carefully analysed (Pasti & Pietiläinen, 2008;Roudakova, 2017).…”

“…Significant changes in values occurred among Russian journalists during the first half of the 1990s. Due to political situation, journalists became indistinguishable from politicians (Pasti & Pietiläinen, 2008) and were treated as 'weapon[s] to gain political capital' (Koltsova, 2006). Roudakova (2009) described this period as the 'privatization' and fragmentation of journalism, addressing the collapse of trust in journalism among readers, listeners and viewers.…”

“…Beginning from the 2000s, relations between the state and local media outlets were often described as clientelist, 22 or close to it . Pasti and Pietiläinen (2008) argued that the oppositional role (i.e. criticizing the authorities) of local journalism has decreased, while 'a paternalistic relationship to the audience has retained its position' (p. 128).…”

“…However, political influence always goes hand-in-hand with economic factors (Erzikova & Lowrey, 2014. The professional culture of local journalists is considered another important element of Russia's regional media (Pasti & Pietiläinen, 2008;Roudakova, 2017). In the present research, I view all three elements (i.e.…”