By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
A June 2005 IREX report, quoted by the Southeast Europe Times (SE
Times), analyzes the media in countries in transition from Communism
by measuring parameters like free speech, professional standards of
quality, plurality of news sources, business sustainability and
supporting institutions. It concludes that "most transition
countries in Southeast Europe have made progress in the development
of professional independent media". The Media Sustainability Index
(MSI) for 2004 begs to differ: "...(F)ully sustainable media have
yet to be achieved in any of the countries.
Karl Marx decried religion as "opium for the masses". Yet no divine
worship has attained the intensity of the fatuous obsession of the
denizens of central and east Europe with the diet of inane
conspiracy theories, gaudy soap operas and televised gambling they
are fed daily by their local media. There is little else on offer
except the interminable babble of self-important politicians. It is
the rule of the abysmally lowest common denominator.
In Macedonia, it is impossible to avoid a certain entertainer, a
graceless Neanderthal hulk with a stentorian voice, deafeningly
employed in a doomed attempt to appear suavely quaint and
uproariously waggish. The natives love him. Private, commercial, TV
in the Czech Republic - notably "Nova" - has surpassed its American
role models. It has long been reduced to a concoction of soft porn,
soundbite tabloid journalism and Latin American "telenovelas". Jan
Culik, publisher of the influential Czech Internet daily, Britske
listy, once described its programming as "sex, violence and
voyeurism ... a tabloid approach".
The situation is no different - or much improved - elsewhere, from
Russia to Slovenia. As Andrew Stroehlein, former editor in chief of
Central Europe Review, so aptly put it - "Garbage in, money out".
This sad state of affairs was brought on by a confluence of economic
fads (such as privatization, commercialization and foreign
ownership) and technologies of narrowcasting - satellites, video
cassette recorders, cable TV, regional and local "stealth" TV
stations and, in the not so distant future, Internet broadband and
HDTV.
Writing in Central Europe Review about the Romanian scene, Catherine
Lovatt observed that "television was one medium through which
Romanians could vicariously experience the 'Western' dream. The
popularity of programmes such as Melrose Place indicates a
preference for certain lifestyles - lifestyles that are as glamorous
as they are out of reach. The seemingly unabating craving for
commercial TV has been fuelled by the need to escape the Communist
past and the stresses of today's reality."
Grasping its importance as a tool of all-pervasive indoctrination,
television was introduced early on by the communist masters of the
region. Still, tortuous stretches of personality cult and blatant,
laughable, propaganda aside - monopolistic, state-owned communist
TV, not encumbered by the need to compete, offered an admirable menu
of educational, cultural and horizon expanding programming.
It is all gone now. The region is drowning in cheaply produced mock
talk shows, hundreds of episodes of Latin American serials, hours on
end of live bingo and lottery drawings, tattered B movies, pirated
new releases and sitcoms and compulsively repeated newscasts.
>From Ukraine to Bulgaria, commercial channels are prone to featuring
occultists, conspiracy theorists, anti-Semitic "historians", hate
speech proponents, racists, rabid nationalists and other
unadulterated whackos and have taken to vigorously promoting their
pet peeves and outlandish conjectures.
The intrigue-inclined postulate that this visual effluence is
intended to numb its hapless recipients and render them oblivious to
the insufferable drudgery of their dreary, crime-infested,
corruption-laden and, in general, rather doomed, lives. It is
instigated by unscrupulous politicians, they whisper, eyes darting
nervously. It is a form of state-sponsored drug, also known as
escapism.
How to reconcile this paranoid depiction of a predatory state with
the fact that most private television stations throughout the region
are owned by hard-nosed, often foreign, businessmen?
The suspicious point to the fact that "local content" and "cultural
minimum" license requirements are rarely imposed by regulators.
National broadcasting permits were granted to cronies and insiders
and withheld from potential "troublemakers" and dissidents.
It is also true that, as Stroehlein puts it, there is a
massive "repatriation of profits generated from newly private
stations to Western firms." As a result, "local production companies
are losing out, and the loss of funds damages the domestic
entertainment and arts industry and the economy as a whole."
And the collusion-minded have a point. The dumbing-down of audiences
is as dangerous to newfound political and economic freedoms as are
more explicit forms of repression. Both democracy and the free
market will not survive long in the absence of an informed, alert,
intellectually agile public. It is hard to retain one's critical
faculties under the onslaught of televised conspicuous consumption
and the unmitigated folly of mass entertainers.
Many scholars and media observers believe that the battle has
already been lost.
Péter Bajomi-Lázár, associate professor at the Communication
Department of Kodolanyi University College, Budapest-Szekesfehervar
in Hungary, wrote in January 2002 in a comparative study
titled "Public Service Television in East Central Europe":
"The transformation of public service television from a tool of
agitation and propaganda into an agent of democratic control has
been but a partial success in East Central Europe. Public service
television channels have failed to find their identities and
audiences in a market dominated by commercial broadcasters. Some of
them are underfunded and their journalists encounter political
pressure."
But even where public broadcasters enjoy the proceeds of a BBC-like
television tax - like in Macedonia - they fail to attract
spectators. The stark reality is that when people are faced with a
choice between intellectually demanding and challenging programs and
easily digestible variety shows they always plump for the latter. It
is easy to condition people to complacent passivity and inordinately
tough to snap out of it once exposed. The inhabitants of central and
east Europe are mentally intoxicated. The hangover may never happen.
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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,
PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International
(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health
and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and
Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com