press freedoms

Sat Feb 3 02:09:35 UTC 2007

Sergey is right on the money again, IMHO: 
"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... "

Civil society and the other traits we associate with liberal democracy
didn't arise immediately with the rise of the middle class in most Europe,
either, so who knows what the future will bring in Russia. Once the middle
class becomes sufficiently comfortable economically, it may decide that it
wants a greater share of political power. If so, the real question is how
future regimes will respond to that. But one can also worry about what sorts
of institutional barriers to the redistribution of power arise in the
meantime. I recall reading some scholarship in college that spoke to a shift
to values beyond the economic once a certain degree of economic stability
had been achieved.  I wish I could remember the term.

Oh, well.  So much for socio-economic analysis by a literary scholar . . . .

Cheers,
David

David Powelstock 
Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures 
Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies 
Brandeis University 
GRALL, MS 024 
Waltham, MA  02454-9110 
781.736.3347 (Office) 

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu] On Behalf Of Sergey Glebov
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 8:50 PM
To: SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] press freedoms

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
>
>
>
>
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