press freedoms

[Sergey Glebov]

Dear Alina,

I suppose it's not fair to compare Israel to a small and remote Siberian
town! I brought it up as an example of the existence of internet and its
availability even where most Russians wouldn't think there is any. There is
no doubt that Israel, or US, of Germany would have greater number of
internet users and sites than Siberian regions. However, the argument that
information via the internet is not available to people outside of Moscow or
St Petersburg is simply misleading (as much of the coverage of Russian
politics in the West which seems to follow some well established narrative
patterns).  
If you take websites from larger cities, like Novosibirsk, I guess the
number of sites and visitors will increase dramatically. But if in places
like Yakutsk things are available online, there can hardly be any discussion
about availability of information at all. 
As I said before, I am not trying to prove that there are no problems with
information exchange in Russia. I am trying to prove that the cause of the
problem is not in some limitations on the transmission of information
besides the national TV channels. It is in a profound disinterest that
people display.
There was an assumption that the growth of prosperity, access to goods and
information will automatically strengthen civil society and lead to a more
democratic and liberal setting. Now we know it's not the case. You can have
growing middle class, a lot of sources of information, free travel, and yet
a rise in xenofobia and support for a less democratic government... 
Who is to blame? Putin? Of course. But this suggestion really precludes any
meaningful analysis, an attempt to look at something bigger than a kremlin
conspiracy.

  
regards,

Sergey

On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 19:10:09 -0500, Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU> wrote:

>On Feb 2, 2007, at 6:34 PM, Sergey Glebov wrote:
>
>> Just a quick example - a very local website in Yakutsk (ykt.ru) has 50
>> million (sic!) hits, and this is in a town of just over 200 000
>> people.
>
>
>For comparison, a Russian portal in Israel http://msn.zahav.ru/ gets
>over half a million hits a day: http://top.mail.ru/stat?
>id=483135;what=hits;period=0, and this is not the only portal in
>town, so to speak. (There are 1.1 million Russian speaking people in
>Israel, five Yakutsks.)
>
>
>Alina Israeli
>LFS, American University
>4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
>Washington DC. 20016
>(202) 885-2387
>fax (202) 885-1076
>aisrael at american.edu
>
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------