4 - The Soviet Union and the New World Information Order

Summary

The contours of the various models for a New World Information Order (NWIO) or a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) became clear only in the course of the debate concerning the issues involved. The fundamental outline, however, had already been established before the term “New World Information Order” emerged in the mid-1970s. The existing or desired communication system of a given developing nation or political system is offered as a model for World Information Order, projected across the globe. Before we turn to a full discussion of the subject, some frequently ignored truisms concerning the role of communications in human affairs must be emphasized:

1. human social life depends on the exchange of information, on communication;

2. throughout history information has not only consisted of messages, but has also constituted a means of exerting influence;

3. no one can report about everything that happens or about everything on which information is available;

4. possessing information is a prerequisite for exerting influence, for power and information are intimately interrelated; and

5. the domestic information and communication policy of a country and its foreign information and communication policy depend on the given political and social system.

SOVIET MEDIA POLICY

If we wish to present the development of the Soviet concept of a NWIO, then we must investigate basic Soviet policy towards the mass media. Since 1917 it has been guided by the three functions Lenin defined for the press: those of collective propagandist, collective agitator, and collective organizer.