Some Features of Information Politics in 1990–1992 in Terms of Periodical Media
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15823/istorija.2022.128.4Keywords:
information politics, Supreme Council, daily “Lietuvos Aidas” (“Echo of Lithuania”), government, privatization, press, and government relationsAbstract
Abstract. When the Supreme Council of Lithuania announced the restoration of an independent state in 1990, the Law on Press and Other Mass Information adopted at the beginning of the year was already in effect. The adoption of the law was determined by the pressure of the public movement – Sąjūdis to abandon the censorship characteristic of the entire Soviet Union. Therefore, the transformation of the media system has already taken place since 1989 with the change of the communist model and the media becoming more independent from the authorities. This transformation covered several types of media legally published in Lithuania at the beginning of the year, divided by owners: belonging to the Communist Party and the communist government (such as the Lithuanian Radio and Television Committee, newspapers); dailies belonging to the Communist Party and administrative structures of different levels (such as the Supreme Council, the Council of Ministers, district councils of “people’s deputies”) and local regional periodicals (which belonged to the stateowned enterprise – the association of newspapers and magazines “Periodika”); media outlets established with their funds and/or released from the control of the Lithuanian Communist Party (LKP) and Lenin’s Communist Youth Union; media established by regional initiatives of Sajudis movement and / or media released from the subordination of Sajudis and newly established periodicals and radio stations. After the parliamentary elections, the leadership of
the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania and the new government began to form an information policy, initiating relevant legislation and allocating funds in order to be able to create media and / or change their status, influence media content. The purpose of the article is to investigate and discuss how this policy was implemented, by allocating and distributing financial and material support to the media, and what circumstances led to the conflicts. By applying the empirical method, documents about the decisions of the authorities were collected and analyzed, the analysis of which allows to evaluate the emergence of new media politics and publications in periodicals related to those decisions. These sources, testifying to the information policy, have not been examined so far.
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