Communication regimes of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: scientific discussion

Abstract

The materials of the scientific discussion contain basic ideas, pronounced by Russian and foreign participants in the International scientific discussion on the subject of “Communication regimes in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia”. The discussion was held by the National Research Institute of Communication Development (НИИРК). The Study of communication regimes, held by НИИРК based on author’s methods revealed the following in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: rigid regulation of all segments of communication and information content , bodies of self-government included ( having the opportunity to align contacts independently, for example, in the border areas), control over the communication participants taken at random, under the pretext of providing informational security, especially mass media and NGO; strive for the consolidation of the society on the basis of articulating of threats to the national identity and threats to ethnic national self-consciousness; dominating of the Russian threat to national security in information discourse; conscious policy of narrowing the Russian language informational, educational and socializing space; incomplete inclusion in the European information discourse and selective compliance with the principles of the EU relative to communication and information (codex of practices relative to misinformation); the beginning of the compaction of communication space by alternative actors, who appeared as a result of mistrust for the acting government and as a result of impossibility to realize their needs. In the course of the debates it was discussed: institutionalization of the countries communication regimes: role of historically shaped and contemporary practices in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia; actors models of communication regimes in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia; role of political institutes, mass media, institutes of civil society and business in shaping communication regimes; peculiarities of communication regimes relative to separately taken groups of the population, mass media, neighboring countries.