I have just finished work on my new academic article where I introduce a media trend hypothesis. Axxording to it the media is interested in neither market equilibrium nor economic stability. Its major concern is the establishment of a trusted product that will sell for as long as possible. This is only manageable by establishing a story line – or major trend – which will remain unchanged throughout the weeks, months or even years and remain stable throughout the changes in the “real world”. As indicated in the research, the media are forced to react to the major events that contradict their arguments, but they always try to downplay the negative aspects of even most negative events, and then re-establish the major trend as soon as possible.
According to my research, it is not the political forces or elites that influence the media’s coverage; it is the underlying media logic itself that forces the media to keep the established trend for as long as possible, remaining incredibly unwavering to any outside factors. The development of a major trend and the commercial necessity of its support by any means damn the media to biased coverage of events and poses a great threat to democratic societies where the choices of the citizens increasingly and sometimes completely depend upon objective – and according to the commercial logic, nearly impossible – media coverage.
More about the article can be obtained in research section of this home page.
Zurich, 12.11.2009
This last summer, when the anniversary of the Russia-Georgia war was drawing closer, a fierce debate emerged among Georgian intellectuals and public figures. Some of them have noticed (surprisingly late) that in the city of Gori, which is situated in the heart of Georgia and was occupied for a short time by Russian forces last year, the statue of Stalin still stands.
Although, the statue has been there since Georgia gained its long-fought independence at the beginning of 1990, nobody really dared to raise the issue until Russia became more aggressive. The question of whether or not to remove the statue remained unconsidered – not because Georgians were afraid of Russian negative reactions (which would be quite acceptable, considering the re-emergence of Stalin’s cult in Putin’s Russia); but rather because Georgians have very ambivalent feelings toward the politician.
On the one hand, we all know that Stalin was a despot and is responsible for killing and torturing millions of people. On the other hand, however, Stalin is probably the best known Georgian worldwide. He was Georgian who managed one of the world’s most powerful empires, and then transformed it to the superpower. Denouncing him, according to us, would diminish the meaning of the Georgian nation as such. Read full text in Articles section.
Zurich, 25.10.2009
19/10/2009
My last post is quite old. I was working very intensively on the project details of which will be disclosed in the research section of this home page soon. Till then, bear with me...
25/07/2009
I would like to apologize in front of the readers of my site who despite missing regular updates are quite many. I was overly busy with working on my academic papers and developing a new project which will give a kick start to my activities in Swiss and German language media. As the project is very important to me I invested lot of time in it. Now, I have time and plan to continue working on my political (and sometimes economical) articles in the Georgian press. I am now working on the article called “Thought the Eyes of Pauper”. So, coming soon…
7/07/2009
My activities last two weeks were very scientific. I was visiting Munster for scientific reasons and then working very intensively on creating new database, editing my article and developing Media Moods Index. Details of these activities will follow soon. Therefore, I did not had time for my political columns and essays. In meantime, however, my last article Thirty Deaths of Isaiah Berlin was published in Georgian daily newspaper "24 Saati".