THE SPECIAL FEATURES OF GEORGIA’S POLITICAL MEDIA MILIEU AFTER THE ROSE REVOLUTION
Abstract
The formation of independent media is one of the main achievements of the many years of reform of the Georgian political system.
Georgia’s mass media is developing faster than other civil institutions. Despite the low level of election democracy, local self-government, and political parties, state-independent mass media organizations came into being after Georgia gained its independence. But—unfortunately there has to be a “but”—the mass media in Georgia have not only become the main lever in public opinion formation, but they are also a hefty weapon in the political struggle. Confirmation of this was the so-called Rose Revolution in November 2003, which not only raised the significance of the mass media, particularly television, but also revealed several shortcomings in their work. State-independent television played a very important, if not decisive, role both in forming public moods and in raising the wave of revolutionary protest.1 Until the parliamentary elections of 2003 (which escalated into the revolution), television companies could still deny their politicized nature and claim that they were trying to be objective; however, the revolution revealed and polarized their political views. The Rustavi-2 TV channel openly supported the revolution. Later, one of the popular anchorwomen on this television station admitted that the channel covered all the events of those days extremely tendentiously. So, Rustavi-2 turned out to be closely associated with the victorious political forces. It soon
Downloads
References
See: Map of Georgia’s Mass Media, Tbilisi, 2004,pp. 70-71.
[www.freedomhouse.org], 2007.
[www.newslab.ru/news/206350], 2007.
See: Vyzovy 21 veka dlia SMI na Iuzhnom Kavkaze, Part 1, Svoboda pechati v Gruzii, Vienna, 2005, p. 44.
See: M. Muskhelishvili, Svobodnye, no ne liberal’nye stredstva massovoi kommunikatsii i partikuliaristicheskiy sotsialnyy kontekst (quoted from the manuscript).
Georgian Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression of Opinion, 2004.
Law on General Courts of Georgia, Art 12, Amendment of 2007.
The Rustavi-2 Television Company. “Open Topic” Program, 23 March, 2006.
The Imedi Television Company, “Open Topic” Program, 5 July, 2007.
See: Map of Georgia’s Mass Media, p. 71.
The Imedi Television Company, Khronika Information Program, 5 December 2006.
See: Code of Broadcasters Ethics Draft, Art 14, Second Paragraph, 2006.
IRI, USAID, Baltic Surveys / The Gallup Organization, IPM, Georgian National Voters Study. February 2004.
[www.abanet.org/ceel/].
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2007 Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation .
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
