DO INFORMATION SOCIETY, INFORMATION SPACE, AND INFORMATION POLITICS EXIST IN UKRAINE?

The world of today has reached an entirely new stage, in which information and the related economy play a qualitatively new role. Having become the linchpin of modern society, information processes have made this society not only stronger but also more vulnerable. The Ukrainian example of the cassette scandal vividly demonstrates this new role of information. The Russian examples of the Kursk submarine disaster and NTV management change coverage also show this new type of impact on society, such that a media crisis can be graver than a real one. The change of NTV shareholders is a crisis engendered by media structures; moreover, the only question is whether Yevgeny Kiseliov can only lay claim to the office of editor-in-chief, not that of general manager. Yet, passions run high all over the country because the information infrastructure has now become one of society’s raw nerves. Our cassette scandal is also a media crisis hyped to the extent that it has brought about political consequences and the sharp polarization of society, where everybody is carrying a label (pro or anti-presidential).

Today’s Ukraine still takes rather a dim view of the new realities of the information society: it does not even draw lessons from the cassette scandal. We do not have academic institutions working to this end, we still train only specialists in one direction like journalists, for example. They are no analysts, nor can they devise information campaigns or work in public relations. All this stems from the authorities being opaque to the public: they are still unable to communicate with their own people, unable to speak not only about their successes but also about their no less frequent failures.

What does the world have in this field? All countries are doing research on information wars (non-Ukrainian intelligence data show that at least 126 countries actively operate in this field). The US even has special anticrime and antiterrorist information programs conducted by USIA in conjunction with the Department of Justice and the FBI. There are more public relations experts than simple journalists in the USA, with the ratio between them being 150,000 to 130,000 in 1995. Hence the paradoxical figures that more than 40% of what we receive as news is in fact the result of the work of public-relations experts, i.e., specially organized news. On the other hand, we must have had 99.99% of this kind of news in Soviet times; we even managed to outstrip America in this respect. Still, according to some studies, in the US also 70% of media reports are by no means the result of a reporter’s free investigation. These are staged press conferences, deliberate information leaks, etc.

And what does Ukraine have? This field is either completely out of or under low-quality control by the state. For this reason the state must in principle alter the type of its presence on the information market, for it owns just 20% of all the media. In other words, the state should adopt a totally different strategy of information behavior, with due account of the entirely new realities of today. So far, formation of the Information Policies Council under the President of Ukraine is the only new sign. What is also new to some extent is that the Political System Reformation Concept now being developed is to have a separate chapter on the media role in social process and in the making of an open society. But all this is obviously not enough, for our informational space suffers from a very long neglected disease. Thus far, no specialists of this kind are being trained at either civilian or military higher educational institutions, nor is there any adequate support for this in academia. Bulgaria, for example, publishes an information security journal of its own, let alone the US, where dozens of books come out and the military is being retrained in the new realities of the information warfare, which is now radically changing its previous strategy and tactics.

We are very sensitive today to the political and economic problems of our life, which has somewhat frozen the discussion of them on the national and regional levels. And if we do not discuss them, they are preserved and remain with us. Ukraine is afraid of live broadcasts, blunt questions, and difficult answers. All this causes the authorities to become alienated from the population, which undermines the popularity of the authorities at all levels. Yet, the latest Ukrainian televised debates have shown an enormous potential of precisely this information genre. These were the live debates with Volodymyr Filenko and Roman Bezsmertny on “Taboo” (1+1 Television), with Komisarenko, Mr. Bezsmertny, Vadym Dolhanov, and Mykhailo Brodsky on “STB Midnight.” Dialogues with normal interlocutors, who have ideas of their own and are able to convince the viewers, are supposed to change the attitude of the Ukrainian toward politics and politicians. Incidentally, Bezsmertny is so far the only representative of the authorities who has dared to address the cassette scandal directly.

Criticizing UT-1 has become a clichО. Accepting all the principal points of this criticism, we must also remember that a state television outlet carries not only a heavier burden of responsibility than a commercial one (this is why they are not so easy to compare) but also shoulders a heavy burden of “valuable instructions” because the number of telephones to call there is far higher. All this pushes UT-1 to an entirely different format, thus putting it under an enormous barrage of critical arrows. It should also be noted that arrows of this kind have always been shot no matter who headed the National Television and Radio Company, so the blame falls on the structure chosen, not on personalities. It is possible that movement toward non-governmental television could become a way to meet the interests of all the interested parties.

What should the information space do that it is not doing now? It has to prepare a proving ground for new ideas and leaders, so that our substitution bench does not remain desperately short. It should provide full-fledged information on the ongoing events because the cassette scandal showed that not a single channel covered it without a certain tilt to one side or another. It turned out we do not have such thing as unbiased coverage of events, as all stories ran exclusively with exclamation marks. In general, we have no question marks, because journalists are always omniscient and never invite experts to make an analysis. Expert television is still in its infancy.

The state-run media should radically change its style of work because they are in the minority, with most publications and broadcast outlets under private ownership. They should learn to put out a quality product capable of defeating the other side’s product in competition, as is the case, for instance, with the White House Communications Service. This service even coordinates press releases of all federal departments, seeing to it that they come out, say, on a Friday, with the administration keeping silent other days.

The information space is called upon to perform various functions depending on the level at which this is being done. We can single out three distinct levels of this functioning, each having a totally different objective. These are the levels of the individual, society, and the state. As to the individual, he or she should have an as open as possible access to information sources and knowledge in the broad sense of the word. Every human action should rely on information that supports this action: this can be the question of commercial or political publicity, transparency of official decision making, and comprehensive information about what is going on in and outside the country. What appears very strange is the complete absence of foreign correspondents in the Ukrainian media: this should not be so in principle because we always receive news from abroad in somebody else’s, not our, interpretation. This means we have not yet been shaped as a single community of citizens with a common view about current events.

As to society, each of the political or any other forces (e.g., a non-governmental group) must have an opportunity to express its point of view. Regional interests, if they are as important as those national, should have a chance to be presented as fully as possible. News should not run counter to public interests.

As to the state, it should continue to ensure the functioning of the whole information infrastructure and defend it from information threats and information attacks. The state must pursue an information policy of its own in an as open a way as possible, providing all the interested persons access to unclassified information. Only the state can provide information to foreign audiences about the events going on in Ukraine. In other words, there are a number of functions to be performed by the state only but which nobody is performing today.

The main parameters of these three levels of interests can be summed up as follows:

Accustomed to seeing parallel processes unfold in Russia and Ukraine in a sequence from the big brother to, a couple of years later — the “little brother,” we do not seem to have noticed this tradition broken. The breaking point is that back in 1999, during the presidential elections, we Ukrainians in fact passed through a crisis similar to the one Russia is having over NTV. At that time our official leadership managed to do what the Putin administration is only trying to, i.e., bring under absolute control all information flows, including those produced by private television outlets. In many respects, our cassette scandal — a boil that has come to a head on the skin of society, deprived us of any possibility of openly (critically) heal our ulcers (problems) in the economic, political, and social spheres of life — was a reaction to that political fait accompli. Apparently, something of the kind is in store for Russia, while we, drawing conclusions from the Russian experience and our own crisis, have received a unique chance to correct our mistakes in a mature way, focusing our attention on the context and essence of real worldwide processes rather than the instincts and desires of those at the helm today or wishing to take over the helm tomorrow. It is this side of the matter that The Day’s regular contributor, Heorhy POCHEPTSOV, seems to be trying to reflect upon. We also suggest our readers join the debate by answering the question: “What kind of steps should Ukraine’s state and society take in the information field to find the best way out of the current crisis?”

The world of today has reached an entirely new stage, in which information and the related economy play a qualitatively new role. Having become the linchpin of modern society, information processes have made this society not only stronger but also more vulnerable. The Ukrainian example of the cassette scandal vividly demonstrates this new role of information. The Russian examples of the Kursk submarine disaster and NTV management change coverage also show this new type of impact on society, such that a media crisis can be graver than a real one. The change of NTV shareholders is a crisis engendered by media structures; moreover, the only question is whether Yevgeny Kiseliov can only lay claim to the office of editor-in-chief, not that of general manager. Yet, passions run high all over the country because the information infrastructure has now become one of society’s raw nerves. Our cassette scandal is also a media crisis hyped to the extent that it has brought about political consequences and the sharp polarization of society, where everybody is carrying a label (pro or anti-presidential).

Today’s Ukraine still takes rather a dim view of the new realities of the information society: it does not even draw lessons from the cassette scandal. We do not have academic institutions working to this end, we still train only specialists in one direction like journalists, for example. They are no analysts, nor can they devise information campaigns or work in public relations. All this stems from the authorities being opaque to the public: they are still unable to communicate with their own people, unable to speak not only about their successes but also about their no less frequent failures.

What does the world have in this field? All countries are doing research on information wars (non-Ukrainian intelligence data show that at least 126 countries actively operate in this field). The US even has special anticrime and antiterrorist information programs conducted by USIA in conjunction with the Department of Justice and the FBI. There are more public relations experts than simple journalists in the USA, with the ratio between them being 150,000 to 130,000 in 1995. Hence the paradoxical figures that more than 40% of what we receive as news is in fact the result of the work of public-relations experts, i.e., specially organized news. On the other hand, we must have had 99.99% of this kind of news in Soviet times; we even managed to outstrip America in this respect. Still, according to some studies, in the US also 70% of media reports are by no means the result of a reporter’s free investigation. These are staged press conferences, deliberate information leaks, etc.

And what does Ukraine have? This field is either completely out of or under low-quality control by the state. For this reason the state must in principle alter the type of its presence on the information market, for it owns just 20% of all the media. In other words, the state should adopt a totally different strategy of information behavior, with due account of the entirely new realities of today. So far, formation of the Information Policies Council under the President of Ukraine is the only new sign. What is also new to some extent is that the Political System Reformation Concept now being developed is to have a separate chapter on the media role in social process and in the making of an open society. But all this is obviously not enough, for our informational space suffers from a very long neglected disease. Thus far, no specialists of this kind are being trained at either civilian or military higher educational institutions, nor is there any adequate support for this in academia. Bulgaria, for example, publishes an information security journal of its own, let alone the US, where dozens of books come out and the military is being retrained in the new realities of the information warfare, which is now radically changing its previous strategy and tactics.

We are very sensitive today to the political and economic problems of our life, which has somewhat frozen the discussion of them on the national and regional levels. And if we do not discuss them, they are preserved and remain with us. Ukraine is afraid of live broadcasts, blunt questions, and difficult answers. All this causes the authorities to become alienated from the population, which undermines the popularity of the authorities at all levels. Yet, the latest Ukrainian televised debates have shown an enormous potential of precisely this information genre. These were the live debates with Volodymyr Filenko and Roman Bezsmertny on “Taboo” (1+1 Television), with Komisarenko, Mr. Bezsmertny, Vadym Dolhanov, and Mykhailo Brodsky on “STB Midnight.” Dialogues with normal interlocutors, who have ideas of their own and are able to convince the viewers, are supposed to change the attitude of the Ukrainian toward politics and politicians. Incidentally, Bezsmertny is so far the only representative of the authorities who has dared to address the cassette scandal directly.

Criticizing UT-1 has become a clichО. Accepting all the principal points of this criticism, we must also remember that a state television outlet carries not only a heavier burden of responsibility than a commercial one (this is why they are not so easy to compare) but also shoulders a heavy burden of “valuable instructions” because the number of telephones to call there is far higher. All this pushes UT-1 to an entirely different format, thus putting it under an enormous barrage of critical arrows. It should also be noted that arrows of this kind have always been shot no matter who headed the National Television and Radio Company, so the blame falls on the structure chosen, not on personalities. It is possible that movement toward non-governmental television could become a way to meet the interests of all the interested parties.

What should the information space do that it is not doing now? It has to prepare a proving ground for new ideas and leaders, so that our substitution bench does not remain desperately short. It should provide full-fledged information on the ongoing events because the cassette scandal showed that not a single channel covered it without a certain tilt to one side or another. It turned out we do not have such thing as unbiased coverage of events, as all stories ran exclusively with exclamation marks. In general, we have no question marks, because journalists are always omniscient and never invite experts to make an analysis. Expert television is still in its infancy.

The state-run media should radically change its style of work because they are in the minority, with most publications and broadcast outlets under private ownership. They should learn to put out a quality product capable of defeating the other side’s product in competition, as is the case, for instance, with the White House Communications Service. This service even coordinates press releases of all federal departments, seeing to it that they come out, say, on a Friday, with the administration keeping silent other days.

The information space is called upon to perform various functions depending on the level at which this is being done. We can single out three distinct levels of this functioning, each having a totally different objective. These are the levels of the individual, society, and the state. As to the individual, he or she should have an as open as possible access to information sources and knowledge in the broad sense of the word. Every human action should rely on information that supports this action: this can be the question of commercial or political publicity, transparency of official decision making, and comprehensive information about what is going on in and outside the country. What appears very strange is the complete absence of foreign correspondents in the Ukrainian media: this should not be so in principle because we always receive news from abroad in somebody else’s, not our, interpretation. This means we have not yet been shaped as a single community of citizens with a common view about current events.

As to society, each of the political or any other forces (e.g., a non-governmental group) must have an opportunity to express its point of view. Regional interests, if they are as important as those national, should have a chance to be presented as fully as possible. News should not run counter to public interests.

As to the state, it should continue to ensure the functioning of the whole information infrastructure and defend it from information threats and information attacks. The state must pursue an information policy of its own in an as open a way as possible, providing all the interested persons access to unclassified information. Only the state can provide information to foreign audiences about the events going on in Ukraine. In other words, there are a number of functions to be performed by the state only but which nobody is performing today.

The main parameters of these three levels of interests can be summed up as follows:

As of today, these levels do not work in practice. The individual is deprived of adequate information about current events. He or she sees only a narrow circle of persons onscreen and in the press. New ideas and trends have no chance to materialize: they are carefully filtered instead of being disseminated by the media. The media only concentrate on spectacular events, often avoiding the real problems and ailments of our society. Individuals (scholars or members of parliament) for some reason seem uninteresting to our society, although they bear a sizable load of new ideas. For example, the media give a very good coverage of the life of pop stars, leaving in the cold the real life of the thousands of other people. For instance, People’s Deputies M.Syrota, A. Chubatenko, and M.Balashov are trying hard (each on his own) to offer society new ideas. But who can hear these ideas? In fact nobody. Therefore something is rotten in the information kingdom of Denmark. We put up obstacles where we should as much as possible promote the proliferation of new ideas.

Every time we have a parliamentary or presidential election, the information space begins to be torn apart by many contradictory forces and demands. This could be caused by the failure to pass such bills as On Political Advertising, On Lobbying, and many others or perhaps by the absence of normal funding, which can only emerge within the system of a viable economy. Unable to exist at the expense of the advertising revenues alone, today’s television is being maintained by dirty (that is, from other fields) funds. In this respect, television translates financial capital into political, thus becoming an instrument of influence which, as a result, helps the owners of financial flows solve their own economic problems. This forms another circle going from and again returning to finance.

Financial flows - Information flows - Political results - Economic results - Financial results.

We believe this is a special kind of information barter, a certain informational feudal system out of control here. Perhaps this is the only correct way at present. But at the same time it is doing everything possible to distort information coverage to serve the interests of a financal owner. This was demonstrated especially vividly in Russia’s NTV case, when the ongoing replacements of general managers, caused by the desire of shareholders to clarify where tens of millions of dollars have vanished, sparked a nationwide media scandal. And even we, quite far away, could hear about this scandal from all Ukraine’s channels.

Strong government, a strong opposition, and strong media are the indispensable attributes of a sound society. If any of these components is weak, this will immediately deform social life in the country. This means both those in power and the opposition should be interested in strong media. This is doubly important for Ukraine, for the media is today the only thing that unites us all. The media makes it possible to formulate interpretations of current events, promote the political identification of individuals, and provide them with sample success patterns to be implemented in a certain society. These problems are so serious that nobody else can solve them more adequately and effectively.

Analyzing the causes of the USSR’s disintegration, Francis Fukuyama once wrote that economic competition forced the Soviet Union to put scientists and engineers in the foreground and to support a related infrastructure of education — and these people’s idea of democracy differed from that of Party functionaries. In other words, a smoothly running economy is also directly dependent on society’s democratic system, which is largely maintained by effectively functioning media. Today’s Ukraine receives new ideas with great difficulty and delay because foreign information flows in the shape of books and journals carefully bypass this country. It is also strange that, for ideological and political reasons, Ukraine has blocked the entry of Russian scientific books (the available minimum can be found on the marketplace, a thing hard to grasp in the twenty first century), although each of these books is worth funding an academic institution department. If we are unable to pay for the research done, we must at least facilitate purchase of the results of this research at the price of the paper they are printed on. If you compare the price of paper and the annual salary in an academic department, everything will become clear.

The information infrastructure can also speed up or slow down the passage of certain reports, whatever is in the best interest of society. This infrastructure must ward off destructive ideas and stem the tide of low-grade kitsch now being touted as the latest achievements of Ukrainian pop music, thus cultivating God knows what taste in millions of people. The journalistic environment has in fact lost the profession of critic, opening the door to that of hit-man. We have raised a good dozen of this genre’s specialists capable of overstepping any thresholds and not only to be in fashion. All this reflects the new types of objectives now arising, objectives of a destructive nature. Perhaps we will cure ourselves of them in time, but it will be difficult after this kind of splash.

The information infrastructure of society must develop, but this would be easier to do if we had a clear, generally understandable, and acceptable program of this development. What Ukraine needs is a certain “concept of its information infrastructure and how to reform it” similar to the concept of political system reform now being drawn up by a group of experts headed by Academician Ivan Kuras. This concept should single out a few directions in which development is possible even today, taking into account inadequate funding and the conflicts of political and economic interests in today’s Ukraine. Without this kind of concept, we will have to flounder amid endless problems and trail behind other countries for which the information revolution is a thing of the past. Russia has an information disputes chamber, an institution Ukraine undoubtedly needs badly. We must glean most carefully all this experience in order to reform our own information infrastructure. Ukraine’s further economic, political, and democratic development will be impossible unless the latter functions adequately.