Cjss second Issue: cjss second Issue qxd

F14 - function and role in reflecting ideas and messages of the National
Liberation Movement
F15 - function and role in writing the ‘true’ history.
Discussion
The descriptive analysis, chi-square procedure and factor analysis affirmed
the hypothesis 1: the perception by the new Georgian media leaders of their new
roles and functions was more likely to highlight the presence of ideological dom-
ination rather than to affirm the existence of free media. The four factors ex-
tracted in a result of the factor analysis: 1) political campaign and propaganda
(political struggle), 2) establishing free society, 3) strengthening free societal
thinking, and 4) distributing knowledge and education, from the perspective of
relations between the media and society, are more media-centric than society-
centric So, the hypothesis 2 is also accepted. 
The activeness of the factor ‘distributing of education and knowledge’
(F4) can be explained from the general and particular perspectives. The gen-
eral perspective can be traced back to the classical theory of mass communi-
cation, according to which ‘a central presupposition relating to questions both
of society and of culture, is that the media institution is essentially concerned
with the production and distribution of knowledge in the widest sense of the
word.’
5
The particular perspective concerns this factor as a specific project of
the transitional period. In that period when the old system (the Communist
system) codes were broken, the media created anew definitions of the polit-
ical, social and cultural phenomena. Spreading of knowledge, as a factor of
the new Georgian media roles and functions, as a factor of construing the new
media policy, captured in other correlated factors. For example, the meanings
and importance of the following factors, such as making the press antagonis-
tic towards the Communist press principles, reminding about nationalism as
an ideology and identity, hypothetically assumed as having a certain impor-
tance in the new media roles and functions, were highlighted only in the ro-
tated component matrix as having correlation (near to 1) with the extracted
factors. 
The results of factor analysis make it possible to retrace the impact of
glasnost on opinions of the Georgian media leaders of the 1990s. The ex-
tracted factors are characteristic of the glasnost policy, having imposed on
the media features of media theory of social changes and development.
6
The
media were considered an ‘engine for change’ in the context of development.
Despite that glasnost did not aim to awaken national self-consciousness,
‘the engine of social change’ made national ideology work as one of the main
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themes of media under the umbrella of declared principles. For example, in
the 1990s coverage of messages, ideas and activities of new political forces
and movements and of political campaigns and propaganda was not possible
without reinforcing nationalistic thinking. Writing about establishing free so-
ciety was not possible without considering ethnic and citizenry aspects of
human rights. The distribution of education and knowledge was not possible
without considering the inter-replacement of official and unofficial histories,
etc.
Conclusion
The conclusion captures the overall argument of this article: the Geor-
gian printed press served as a transmitter of ‘knowledge and truth’ for the
Georgian society, kept the ideology-affirming nature and media-centric per-
spective. Replacement one ideology with the other, for the media didn’t mean
conceptual and structural innovation. 
With simply replacing one ideology with other, the totalitarian principles
of structuring of media space were preserved.
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Footnotes
1
Maisashvili, Khatuna. (2008). ‘Homeland’s Soil and State Territory in Media
Representations’, in ‘Sitkva’ (5). p. 75-95
2
Volcic, Zala (2005) ‘The Macihne that Creates Slovenians’: The Role of Sloven-
ian Public Broadcasting in Re-affirming and Re-inventing the Slovenian National
Identity’, in ‘National Identities’, Vol.7, No. 3, September, pp. 287-308
3
Sources: media rating of the TV program ‘Meotkhe’ (1991-1992); ‘Survey on
the issues of freedom of press in 1990-1995 ‘ (1997) ‘Open Society – Georgian Foun-
dation’ 
4
McQuail, D. (2005).p.12
5
McQuail, Denis (2005). p. 81
6
McQuail, Denis (2005). p. 92
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