Looking at the blinking cursor, I can’t collect my thoughts. Strangely, it happens when I just finished reading “Media And The American Mind” written by Daniel J. Czitrom and an array of ideas simply stormed my mind. Starting with Samuel Morse and ending with Marshall McLuhan, a famous media theorist, the book sheds some light on previously unknown to me facts about mass communications and their role in our world. Perhaps, for the first time I looked at various media from different angles and perspectives. And yet my fingers routinely tap a delete key while I am trying to write down my reaction on this book, for my mind wonders far away.

17:26. March 19,2006. Minsk, Belarus
Charter97 reports that according to Ecoom, a “mysterious” center for surveys, by 12.00 pm, 84.2 per cent of the interrogated voters “voted” for incumbent President Lukashenka.
19:25.
At the press conference in Minsk, the information of exit poll held by Yuri Levada Center is announced. According to it, as of 4.30 p.m., Alexander Lukashenka won 47.4 % of votes, the single democratic candidate for presidency Alyaksandr Milinkevich – 25.6% of votes.
19:46.
People are starting to meet together in October Square in Minsk. Minsk hasn’t seen this for a long time. People are cheerful. Most of them are wearing jeans, many attached blue ribbons. The candidates for presidency Alyaksandr Milinkevich and Alyaksandr Kazulin called upon the Belarusians to come out on October Square in Minsk at 8 p.m. to sum up the real results of the voting. There are no policemen on the square.
20:45
People are arriving to the square. Now everybody phones friends and relatives and tell them to come to the square to defend their choice. Cars are honking in solidarity with the people on the square. The noise over the square is improbable.
There are at least 20,000 people on the streets near the square. Milinkevich’s headquarters activists preserve the order on the square, ask people not to go to the traffic area. (Radio Svaboda (Radio Liberty/Free Europe), www.charter97)

I would like to apologize here for taking so much space describing events that took place in Minsk, Belarus, on March 19, 2006. Some might find it totally unrelated to the mass communication topic and yet, don’t let your first impression to foul you, for those events have a direct link with media research, just re-phrase the title of the above mentioned book. Make it “Media and Human Mind” because some ideas voiced by media theorists in regards to American society directly correspond with Belarus and its people.

On March 19, 2006, Belarusians were ready to make a step forward and break away from the autocratic regime of the incumbent regime of Alexander Lukashenka. Initially, not many believed that opposition would win the elections. Not many envisioned 20-30 thousands protesters on the streets. But around 20:00 pm, the balance was about to tip off and for a moment, it seemed that Minds of Belarusians were ready to make a step forward. Nobody knew what will happen next and where popular public opinion and support would go. Reading the news, updating my blog, I was ready to slam walls in my house, thousands miles away from Belarus: I wished one thing- to be there, on October Square.

It seemed that finally, all layers of Belarusian society had finally waked up and Belarusian mind was ready to make a step forward. Although state sponsored mass media were going wild trying to divert attention from October Square, news of it spread out throughout the country. The ideas of the “Denim Revolution” were flying in the air, the only real question was whether they would reach enough people.

The next five days, Belarus lived in state of uncertainty. Young activists broke a tent camp on October Square trying to seize a moment. They were waiting for March 25th, which is traditionally celebrated by Belarusian opposition as the day of Independence. They stayed there for five nights, enduring freezing weather, lacking hot food, drinks and experiencing total blockade set up by Belarusian police. On March 24, early in the morning, the police cleared the Square from journalists and demolished the “Camp-Town”. (Radio Svaboda)

On the next day, a huge mass protest took place with thousands demanding release of political prisoners. What was initially a peaceful protest later turned out to be the bloodiest confrontation between Lukashenka’s regime and opposition. Scores of demonstrators were critically injured and at least one killed. It was over.
Although the much-waited message was sent, unfortunately, it did not reach enough recipients. Despite the fact that Minsk was going through revolution-like times, many cities and towns were not as nearly enthusiastic or aggressive. And following all these events, many pondered what went wrong?

Obviously, brutal tactics by regime scared some people away. And there is no question that with many opposition leaders arrested during the election; people were without much needed leadership. However, we should also consider dominance of the State media as a decisive factor. And while I tend to agree with all above-mentioned reasons, talking about media role, I think, many people often assigned to it a very narrow definition-Propaganda. And by doing so, many just simply scratch the surface of the problem, for in order to get more insightful analysis and understanding how mass communications might have helped the regime of Lukashenka to survive the elections, we should also consider other mass communication effects and factors such as public opinion and socio-economic background.

But first let me provide some basic facts about Belarus. The CIA world fact book says that: After seven decades as a constituent republic of the USSR, Belarus attained its independence in 1991. It has retained closer political and economic ties to Russia than any of the other former Soviet republics. Belarus and Russia signed a treaty on a two-state union on 8 December 1999 envisioning greater political and economic integration. Although Belarus agreed to a framework to carry out the accord, serious implementation has yet to take place. Since his election in July 1994 as the country’s first president, Alexander LUKASHENKO has steadily consolidated his power through authoritarian means. Government restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, peaceful assembly, and religion continue.(CIA, World Fact Book)

Belarus is slightly smaller than Kansas and borders with Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. It has population of 10,5 millions most of whom are ethnical Belarusians. Under the Soviet rule, Belarus was a subject of mass russification; its language was reduced to the second class, history re-written and generations of Belarusians grew up knowing little about their rich cultural and historical heritage.
And while Belarus gained its Independence in 1991, slowly embarking on the way to restore its genuine roots, the year of 1994 shifted the gears in reverse.

Ladies and Gentleman, welcome Alexander Lukashenka, the first elected President of Belarus.
Ovation.
Indeed, his regime deserves ovation for what Mr. Morse, the man who gave the world its first practical electromagnetic telegraph, described back in 1838:

“It would not be long, ere the whole surface of this country would be channeled for those nerves which are to diffuse, with the speed of thought, a knowledge of all that is occurring throughout the land; in fact, one neighborhood of the whole country.” (Daniel J Czitrom, 1982)

Of course, Mr. Morse was talking about unlimited possibilities of mass communications, namely telegraph, and, he definitely meant a different kind of knowledge that was about to diffuse throughout the world. However, what Lukashenka’s regime borrowed from his quote was an idea to use mass communication to channel his own political agenda throughout the whole country and to diffuse officially adjusted knowledge making sure that everybody receives an equal dose of it.

While Morse might have anticipated twentieth-century notions of the “global village”, Mr.Lukashenka successfully created a smaller scaled “State village”. By employing various modern communications his government managed to merge distant Belarusian villages and towns into one following his message entity called nowadays the Republic of Belarus. Perhaps, considering effects of such approach on Belarusians, the President might had ideas similar to those voiced by historian Laurence Turnbull:

“Although separated from us by thousands of miles of distance, they will be again restored to us in feeling, and still present to our affection, through the help of communications.”(Daniel J. Czitrom, 1982)

Sure, we can simply jump to word propaganda and say: hey, it explains it all. And yet, propaganda alone does not explain what made this President so powerful in Belarusian society. For some people, propaganda is simply half-truthful or maybe even totally deceitful information provided by government to manipulate people in favor of some certain causes. While we can view such explanation as less or more acceptable, there is one more definition of propaganda. That is Propaganda is a specific and in most cases politically oriented type of message with presentation directly aimed at influencing the opinions of people, rather than impartially providing information.(wikipedia.org/propaganda)

I would like to stress words “politically” and “influencing the opinions of people” for they provide us with a springboard into more broadly researched media field. Daniel Czitrom lists public opinion as “related but somewhat broader field than propaganda analysis”(Daniel J. Czitrom, 1982). In one instance, he refers to Walter Lippman and his concern that people act increasingly not upon their knowledge of the real world but in response to the ubiquitous “pseudoenvironments” communicated through the modern media. Maybe, it is a so-called “pseudoenvironment” that caused one belarusian tourist on vacation in New York to tell me that:

“While our President is a real …(here comes a curse), I will vote for him nevertheless”.
“I am sorry, but I thought you said he is …”
“I can’t really explain it, but I am cool with him”, a reply followed.
“Come on, you are a rational man. You are educated… you travel a lot… You are exposed to various information resources that are still available to Belarusian public…Can’t you see the difference between Belarus and the rest of the World?”

He just shrugged his shoulders and said that I lived in the States for too long to see the reality. Perhaps. Or maybe, here, we are talking about the pseudoenvironments created by mass communications.

This guy vehemently denied an influence of propaganda on his opinion. He argued that Belarus is such stable financially, socially and politically state that any, even democratically oriented government would only hurt such balance. According to this young man, Belarus was like a quiet island in the ocean of troubles and upheavals.
He pinpointed and ridiculed state-run propaganda, and yet at the same time, with each single argument, his view of the world resembled the one voiced by the State mass communications: it is much worse out there…Pity.
And unfortunately,( to me) such opinions were pretty common among Belarusians whom I met in the USA. To describe all of them would take a page or two and nearly all of them denounced Lukashenka’s regime and yet equally criticized the West, considering it far worst compared to Belarus!

How do we call it? Absurd? Brainwash? Or maybe, there is something else involved in it?

In the early 1940’s, besides propaganda and public opinion media researches, another avenue of inquiry was widely explored by media theorists. They concentrated on a social psychological approach in studying modern media. Conducting various tests and analysis some even came to conclusion that it is ‘personal contact, not media persuasiveness’ which counts. Their study assumed that it is not just all about politics but rather a combination of it with socio-economic, religious and area of residence factors that play a significant role in public orientation and reception of reality. (Daniel J.Czitrom, 1082)

For example, Katz and Lazarsfeld had a theory of the two-step flow of communication, based on a study of electoral practices of the citizens of Erie County, Ohio, during the 1940 presidential elections. They attempted to examine whether political propaganda prevalent in the media at the time during the campaign period plays an integral role in influencing people’s voting. The result of their study was that political propaganda served to re-affirm the individual’s pre-disposed orientation rather than to influence or change one’s voting behavior. (Wikipedia.org/propaganda)
Bingo.

Talking about “individual’s pre-disposed orientation” one should consider Belarusian socio-economic background. Seventy years of life in the Soviet Union left a deep mark on Belarusian society. The Soviet “pseudo environment” of stability and mass happiness never really left Belarus. And the only thing Lukashenka and his regime needed to do were to simply reinforce or keep such “pseudo environment” and nostalgic feelings in the people’s minds.

What are we talking about here? Just about anything what helps to control public by making them indifferent or passive to the life outside of their homes. Here, we should consider television, radio, and popular culture that includes music and movies…and all of these mediums carry one simple message: stay where you are, things are good.

Here is a profile of the only one TV Company in Belarus-The National State Teleradiocompany. It has three major channels, each single of which catering to the different missions. The First National Channel claims to be a classical, solid and unbiased broadcaster…acting exclusively within the boundaries of the law, whose first-rate product can be counted on by every person in the audience.

LAD is the first ever-family channel in Belarus. Its creed is to share kindness with others. LAD wittingly refuses to show violence and aggression, and propagandize pernicious habits. LAD creates series of programs devoted to culture, education, upbringing, and religion. And finally, Belarus-TV is the first international TV channel in Belarus, created by National State TV and Radio Company of the Republic of Belarus for foreign audience. (TVR.by/eng)

If one looks into programming of these channels, he will notice how basic and straight they are in their content. For example, the 1st channel airs programs such as “Good Morning, Belarus!” “Born in USSR” “Family Pie” “Farmer” “Arsenal” or “Health”. They promised to be delivered in an unobtrusive and optimistic manner, reveal links between generations, born on the same territory, but under different regimes and instill a feeling of patriotism among the youth.

LAD “boosts” culture, religion and education by airing “Delicious Morning” “Female Council” “Ardent Gardeners” “Handywoman” “Human Destiny” and “Cartoon club”.
At the same time, for those who prefer radio programs, the first channel offers “Episodes from the Great War”, ”The Best of Belarus” “Belarusian Album” and “Law Channel”. Other options include ‘Valor”, a program about Army, or “Exotica”, a mix of Latino character and Eastern romantism??? Plus, let’s not forget about programs like “Ministry of Foreign Affairs Informs” and “Agriculture in Belarus”.

Popular culture is reinforced with rosy and “cheesy” pop music a la Soviet style. Majority of movies played in movie theaters or on television follow the similar pattern: not much intellectually challenging or provoking. It seems that most of content featured with all these mediums was thoroughly combed from undesirable elements: for example, Belarusian or Western rock music, or movies such as “The DaVinci Code” and “V for Vendetta”…

The whole point here is not to ridicule the State mass media (many already did so), but rather to show the ways that help to shape public opinion favorable to the regime. Skillfully manipulating and playing on people’s mentality grounded and nourished in the Soviet times, mass media effectively suppresses desires to explore alternatives. In case of Belarus, Media’s messages don’t have to carry a political message; sometimes they only need to maintain illusions of the rosy present while in reality things are pretty much thorny.

There is no question that mass media communications have a great potential, however, their effects and results in the present even more astonishing. Granted they used in the system, their messages, obvious and hidden, might significantly alter the way people perceive reality, distinct between real and unreal.
And in order to see how the “agencies of mass impression”(Daniel J. Czitrom, 1982) operate in today’s society, one must consider propaganda, opinion analysis and social physiology as one entity called mass communications. By considering all of them and addressing “Why and Who says What to Whom with What effect”, we might see and understand the full power of a message communicated by mass media.

References
1. “Radio Svaboda”, http://www.svaboda.org/, News Coverage 03/18/06-03/25/06.
2. “Charter 97”, http://www.charter97.org/bel/news/, News Coverage 03/18/06-03/25/06.
3. “Wikipedia.org”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
4. “The National State Teleradiocompany”, Television, http://www.tvr.by/eng/tv1.asp,
5. “The National State Teleradiocompany”, Radio, http://www.tvr.by/eng/radiobr1.asp
6. “Media and the American Mind”, Daniel J. Czitrom, University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 12, 123, 125

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