Ownership in Russia

The broad strokes of Russian media ownership policy are relatively easy to identify: a commitment, expressed in statutory form, to mass media pluralism, marked by both state and private ownership. Beyond that however, the lines become blurred, as policy formulation becomes subject to competing demands. State domination and control gives way, but not without complex relationships to the past. In this chapter, we examine the process of change by attempting to identify the key elements of this hybrid system, focusing on several aspects of transformation, each of which, in some way, is connected to ownership. We shall first place these matters in historical context, and then describe the framework within which key decisions are made: the sources of law and policy.