Abstract
Drawing on a recent nationwide survey, this chapter explores the ways media audiences in the Baltic country of Latvia make sense of the country’s public media institutions—and by extension, media and journalism more generally—amidst tensions between Russia and the West that have been accompanied by “information disorder” (Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H., Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Council of Europe, 2017). The chapter examines the footprint that the current information environment—characterized by abundance, complexity, and manipulation—has left on the attitudes towards and perceptions of the Latvian public radio and television organizations, former Communist-era state broadcasters who today operate as state-owned and state-funded but editorially autonomous public service media institutions. The chapter concludes that while audiences of the ethno-linguistic majority and the large Russian-speaking minority are different in their news media preferences and geo-political sentiments, they are not that different in the ways they make sense of media institutions in times of geo-political crisis. Members of both ethno-linguistic groups approach media and journalism with a great deal of skepticism and even cynicism. In response, audiences of both ethno-linguistic communities have utilized the strategy of self-responsibilization in order to make sense of complex geo-political issues.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bērziņa, I. (Ed.). (2016a). The possibility of societal destabilization in Latvia: Potential national security threats. Centre for Security and Strategic Research, National Defence Academy of Latvia.
Bērziņa, I. (2016b). Perception of the Ukrainian crisis within Latvian society. Estonian Journal of Military Studies, 6(2), 171–205.
Bognár, B. (2018). A culture of resistance: Mass media and its social perception in Central and Eastern Europe. Polish Sociological Review, 2/202(18), 225–242.
Castro-Herrero, L., Hopmann, D. N., & Engesser, S. (2016). Parties, ideology, and news media in Central-Eastern and Western Europe: A comparison of media bias twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 30(3), 571–593.
Dougherty, J., & Kaljurand, R. (2015). Estonia’s “virtual Russian world”: The influence of Russian media on Estonia’s Russian speakers. International Centre for Defence and Security.
Hale, H. E., Shevel, O., & Onuch, O. (2018). Believing facts in the fog of war: Identity, media and hot cognition in Ukraine’s 2014 Odessa tragedy. Geopolitics, 23(4), 851–881.
Hoskins, A., & O’Loughlin, B. (2015). Arrested war: The third phase of mediatization. Information, Communication & Society, 18(11), 1320–1338.
Juzefovičs, J. (2017). Broadcasting and national imagination in post-communist Latvia: Defining the nation, defining public television. Intellect.
Juzefovičs, J. (2019). Public service media and society: Attitudes, views, and expectations. Study into audience of the Latvian Television and Latvian Radio. Baltic Centre for Media Excellence.
Kachuyevski, A. (2017). The “Russian world” and the securitization of identity boundaries in Latvia. In A. Makarychev & A. Yatsyk (Eds.), Borders in the Baltic Sea region: Suturing the ruptures (pp. 227–247). Palgrave Macmillan.
Kaprāns, M., & Juzefovičs, J. (2019). Reconsidering media-centrism: Latvia’s Russian-speaking audiences in light of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In M. Wijermars & K. Lehtisaari (Eds.), Freedom of expression in Russia’s new Mediasphere (pp. 159–185). Routledge.
Kaprāns, M., & Mieriņa, I. (2019). Minority reconsidered: Towards a typology of Latvia’s Russophone identity. Europe-Asia Studies, 71(1), 24–47.
Kiriya, I. (2019). New and old institutions within the Russian media system. Russian Journal of Communication, 11(1), 6–21.
Klimov, I. (2007). Socialnye vyzovy ‘privatizirovannogo’ televidenija [social choices of privatised TV]. In A. Kachkaeva & I. Kiriya (Eds.), Rossijskoe televidenie: mezhdu sprosom i predlozheniem [Russian TV: Between demand and offer] (pp. 9–22). Jelitkomstar.
Makarychev, A. (2019). Multifaceted nationalism and illiberal momentum at Europe’s eastern margins: An introduction to the special issue. European Politics and Society, 20(4), 387–392.
Meyen, M., & Nawratil, U. (2004). The viewers: Television and everyday life in East Germany. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24(3), 355–364.
Mickiewicz, E. (2005). Excavating concealed tradeoffs: How Russians watch the news. Political Communication, 22(3), 355–380.
Palmer, R. A. (2019). A “deep story” about American journalism. Journalism Studies, 20(3), 327–344.
Pjesivac, I. (2017). The effects of culture and performance on trust in news media in post-communist Eastern Europe: The case of Serbia. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 94(4), 1191–1214.
Pjesivac, I., Spasovska, K., & Imre, I. (2016). The truth between the lines: Conceptualization of trust in news media in Serbia, Macedonia, and Croatia. Mass Communication and Society, 19(3), 323–351.
Pjesivac, I., Spasovska, K., & Imre, I. (2017). Attribution of global ethical norms: Perceptions of journalistic independence and integrity in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia. Global Media and Communication, 13(2), 157–179.
Sotkasiira, T. (2017). “Sometimes it feels like every word is a lie”: Media use and social (in)security among Finnish Russian-speakers. Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 7(1), 109–127.
Surowiec, P., & Štětka, V. (2020). Introduction: Media and illiberal democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. East European Politics, 36(1), 1–8.
Szostek, J. (2018a). Nothing is true? The credibility of news and conflicting narratives during “information war” in Ukraine. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(1), 116–135.
Szostek, J. (2018b). News media repertoires and strategic narrative reception: A paradox of dis/belief in authoritarian Russia. New Media & Society, 20(1), 68–87.
Vihalemm, T., & Juzefovičs, J. (2022a). Navigating conflicts through the media: The skeptical and self-responsible repertoires of Baltic Russian-speakers. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 36(2), 423–445.
Vihalemm, T., & Juzefovičs, J. (2022b). “They say we are all zombies”: Rethinking the role of audiences in a mediatised conflict. Global Media and Communication (forthcoming).
Vihalemm, T., Juzefovičs, J., & Leppik, M. (2019). Identity and media-use strategies of the Estonian and Latvian Russian-speaking populations amid political crisis. Europe-Asia Studies, 71(1), 48–70.
Wagner, M. C., & Boczkowski, P. J. (2021). Angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed: The emotional experience of consuming news about President Trump. Journalism, 22(7), 1577–1593.
Wenzel, A. (2020). Red state, purple town: Polarized communities and local journalism in rural and small-town Kentucky. Journalism, 21(4), 557–573.
Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Council of Europe.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Juzefovičs, J. (2022). Making Sense of Public Media in Times of Geo-Political Crisis: Latvian Public Media and their Ethno-Linguistic Majority and Minority Audiences. In: Chakars, J., Ekmanis, I. (eds) Information Wars in the Baltic States. The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99987-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99987-2_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-99986-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-99987-2
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)