In 1991, the USSR fell. The led to drastic changes in Russia’s media system. 1991 saw the end of a single party system that was dominated by the Communist Party and the rise of more of a multi-party system with competitive elections. This drastically changed many elements of Russian media. The state gave up a lot of the control it had over the economy and Russian culture in general. More freedom of the press concepts were introduced and the Russian Constitution even started to protect both freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Censorship of the media was completely destroyed and journalists began to adopt more universal journalism practices. 1991 will go down as one of the most important years when it comes to the history of Russian media.
The Geography of Russia has affected its media in many ways. Russia is a very large country. There are eleven different times zones, seven different regions, and over one hundred different languages. The size and the multiethnic population of Russia have affected its media. The ability to get access to federal television channels has been almost solely based on geographic locations. The ethnic population of Russia has also placed a large premium on having many different minority populations present in the media. The United States geography is drastically different. The US is much smaller compared to Russia. This makes it much easier for media to be transmitted to all parts of the country much quicker. Also, the US speaks a majority of English. This has led to the majority of the media being in English with a few Spanish speaking media outlets sprinkled in compared to many different languages being present in the Russian Media. This difference in languages can make it much more difficult for the same information to be spread all across Russia. The ethnic makeup and the geographical makeup of both countries leads to many differences in media.
Print Industry
The print industries in Russia and the US have many similarities. First, the newspaper circulations have been declining in both countries. In Russia, the circulation dropped from eight million in 2006 to 6.8 million in 2016. In the US, circulation has dropped from almost 60 million in 2000 to roughly 30 million in 2017. The drop in circulation in both countries occurred because of technological advances. People are simply turning to more digital media to obtain their news rather than print media. Another similarity in the print medium is that both the US and Russian newspapers and magazines have national, regional, and local audiences.
https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/12/rightists-start-another-russian-media-outlet-in-serbia-04-11-2018/
https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/12/rightists-start-another-russian-media-outlet-in-serbia-04-11-2018/
Another similarity in print media is the interest in magazines. Magazines in the countries have been able to gain the attention of advertisers which have made them able to be successful. Russian magazines have a much more specific target audience as they focus on fashion, lifestyle, and cars. US magazines simply focus their attention on many more topics.
The biggest difference in print media between the countries can be seen in the ownership of the mediums. In Russia, many of the newspapers are owned by the state. This gives the state much control over the message that gets told about the Russian government and does not allow Russian newspapers to objectively report on the news. In the US, the vast majority of newspapers are privately owned. This allows for many different perspectives of the news to be told and for the government to be held accountable for their actions. Although the print mediums have many similarities, the differences in audiences lead to huge differences in the type of content that is produced in print mediums.
https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/
The biggest difference in print media between the countries can be seen in the ownership of the mediums. In Russia, many of the newspapers are owned by the state. This gives the state much control over the message that gets told about the Russian government and does not allow Russian newspapers to objectively report on the news. In the US, the vast majority of newspapers are privately owned. This allows for many different perspectives of the news to be told and for the government to be held accountable for their actions. Although the print mediums have many similarities, the differences in audiences lead to huge differences in the type of content that is produced in print mediums.
https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/
Radio
The radio industry in Russia and America have a few similarities. First, they have both local and national radio stations. They also both have AM radio. The first difference between the radio medium in the countries can been seen in the type of content they play. In Russia, the radios play mostly music with few talk shows that provide commentary. In the US, they play both music and provide commentary in the form of talk shows. This difference gives people in the US another medium to receive news in many different forms. This difference occurs because Russian does not want another medium to be used to broadcast news. Another difference can be seen in the types of radio stations. In Russia, there are a few central radio stations while in the US there are numerous amounts of radio stations. This once again gives the Russian government much control over the radio. The final difference can be seen in the ownership of the radio stations. In Russia, radio is owned by the state while in the US radio is owned by companies that specialize in radio. This difference once again allows the Russian government to exhibit much control over the radio.
http://vestiprim.com/radio_russia_prim.html
http://vestiprim.com/radio_russia_prim.html
Television
The similarities in with regards to TV deal with the immense popularity of the medium. In the US, 99% of households have at least on TV with many households having multiple TV’s. In Russia, TV is by far the most popular medium with 99% of the Russian population receives at least one TV channel. There are also many differences. In the US, the vast majority of TV owners have cable and even pay for subscriptions to more channels. This gives TV owners in the US much access to a wide range of content. In Russia, only 18% of TV owners have cable with a vast majority of the TV owners only having a total of ten channels. Another difference can be seen in the ownership of TV. In the US, most broadcast ownership is seen in CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. These companies own many of the channels and control much of the broadcasts. In Russia, TV is owned once again by the state. This gives Russian’s government a large amount of control over the message that is given to its citizens.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11678629/Russian-state-TV-reporter-fired-after-criticising-Vladimir-Putin.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11678629/Russian-state-TV-reporter-fired-after-criticising-Vladimir-Putin.html
Freedom House Scores
The final main difference between Russian and the US media can be seen in their Freedom House Scores. The US scored a 22/100 for Freedom of Net and a 23/100 for Freedom of Press. These scores correlate to a highly free press and internet. In Russia, the scores are much worse. For Freedom of Net, they scored a 67/100 and for Freedom of Press, they scored 83/100/ These numbers correlate to Russia having a press and internet that is heavily controlled by the government. These large differences between the US and Russian scores can be attributed to certain websites and apps, such as Telegram, being highly censored in Russia and because of Russia having high rates of violence on journalists.
https://juicyecumenism.com/2018/06/29/freedom-house/
https://juicyecumenism.com/2018/06/29/freedom-house/
Conclusion
The main difference between the US and the Russian media systems can be easily seen in the amount of government control that is seen in each medium. The US has zero government control in their media systems, while all of Russia’s media systems are state-owned. This leads to drastic differences in all of the mediums in the country. The US system that lacks government control has many cons. There can be competitive across all the medium which leads to innovation. In the US media system, there are also many different voices and opinions that can be spread. Russia’s media system has many cons. Since the media is controlled by the state, there is no competition which means that innovation does not take place. Also, the government control of the media means that only one message will get spread to the people.
https://qz.com/1330955/russias-missing-wealth/
https://qz.com/1330955/russias-missing-wealth/
https://medialandscapes.org/country/russia/media/television
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2018/russia
https://www.cima.ned.org/about/
https://medialandscapes.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_the_United_States
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/russia
https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2018/russia
https://www.cima.ned.org/about/
https://medialandscapes.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_the_United_States
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/russia
https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/