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Gorbachev's Glasnost The Soviet Media in the First Phase of Perestroika by Joseph Gibbs |
"Once the exchange of information between people anywhere progresses to a point where media start to exist, a measure of control and manipulation enters the mass communication process. A given society's mass media can be characterized by understanding how direct those influences are and to what extent journalists and ‘gatekeepers' collaborate, voluntarily or otherwise.In this light, much of the Soviet Union's seven-decade existence saw an extreme example of highly organized communication control. Media constraints were so centralized and thorough that serious alternatives to the official line of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on even a small scale, did not exist.
The picture changed significantly, though slowly and chaotically, with the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev as the Communist Party's general secretary in 1985. What specifically affected the Soviet mass media was Gorbachev's promotion of a concept (eventually an actual CPSU policy) called 'glasnost', a Russian word commonly translated in English as ‘openness.' Gorbachev aggressively promoted glasnost as a component of his program of reconstruction, or perestroika, of the USSR's sagging economy and inefficient governmental system."—from the Introduction
Glasnost, most commonly translated into English as "openness," was a key concept of Mikhail Gorbachev's administration as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This adapted tool of Leninist media control became not only a part of perestroika, Gorbachev's plan to rejuvenate Soviet ideology during the 1980s, but also an independent concept that redefined how the USSR's media were employed as an instrument of leadership.
In Gorbachev's Glasnost author Joseph Gibbs traces the development of glasnost as both concept and policy, from the Leninist idea of "criticism and self-criticism" to Gorbachev's attempt to modernize and reinterpret that doctrine to fit his own political goals and aspirations.
Using analyses drawn from primary sources and interviews, Gibbs examines how glasnost changed in definition and application between 1985 and 1988. Gorbachev's Glasnost shows how official reportage coincided with Gorbachev's political agenda and how, in his capacity as general secretary, he expanded media freedoms in order to employ the press against his enemies. Subsequent chapters detail how, with each move to broaden the power of glasnost to meet Gorbachev's political needs, the media simultaneously gained strength and the opposition found an avenue to be heard, irrevocably changing Soviet society and politics.
Gorbachev's Glasnost provides a clear, Western interpretation of what was perhaps the Soviet Union's most influential and controversial reform. Anyone interested in the events that led to the fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union, as well as those interested in the effects of mass media on politics and culture, will find it intriguing and solidly researched.
Journalist JOSEPH GIBBS holds a doctorate in policy and communication from Boston University. He is currently an associate professor of mass communication at the American University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates). He is also the author of Three Years in the Bloody Eleventh (2002) and Dead Men Tell No Tales (2007).
Number Nine: Eastern European Studies
Gorbachev's Glasnost
ISBN 0-89096-892-6
$27.95s
LC 99-18495. 6 1/8 x 9 1/4. 168 pp. Bib. Index.
Eastern Europe. Political Science. Media Studies.
Publication Date: October 1999.
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