The Media in Post Soviet Russia

One important yardstick of democracy and civil liberties is the freedom of the press. When a country is being run by an authoritarian regime, such as the Communist Party in the USSR, the media tends to be strictly controlled by the government in order to preserve the party line. One of the ideals necessary to democracy is freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Without these two basic liberties the state can control and manipulate what the citizens know and also silence opposition. One interesting question to consider is when a country transitions from a totalitarian form of government to a democratic one how does this effect the freedom of the press, and how long it takes for the media to cut the ties that it has with the government. Hopefully by studying this question it will make it easier to understand the process that Russia is currently going through by looking at the media as a microcosm of the evolution of Russia.