[Air-l] Belarusian Mass Media Online

[mikhail.doroshevich at e-baltic.org]

Belarusian Mass Media Online

e-belarus.org has recently conducted a survey of Belarusian online news sources.
The survey was carried out within the month period( January 6- February, 6,
2006). 10 websites have been selected to represent various styles and
approaches to online strategies, as well as different political attitudes. The
major quantitative criterion was the average number of visitors per day.

To understand users' perceptions and evaluations of online media, e-belarus.org
organized focus group discussions. The group consisted of 10 participants,
representing the core of Internet audience: individuals with a university
degree, aged from 20 to 35, living in Minsk or in a regional center with a
monthly income of more than USD 100.

According to the information provided by the Ministry of information, there are
8 press agencies, 1148 print media (748 newspapers (136 regional), 400
magazines), 54 TV programmes and 154 radio programmes registered in Belarus
[www.mininform.gov.by/main/massmedia/publishing].

e-belarus.org survey reveals that only 6% of them have their online avatars:
6 agencies (64%), 58 print media (5%) (11% national and 12% regional ) and
23 TV and radio radio programmes (11%). Tut.by front page is the most popular
news site with approximately 60 000 daily visitors. The other five top sites
are date.by, naviny. by, charter97.org, bdg.by, svaboda.org. 4% of the total
number of media are purely online projects.

Two major Belarusian catalogues have registered 52 online projects providing
news, including 21 national sites and portals, 8 regional, 19 specialized
resources, 2 internet radio projects and 2 news syndication sites.
Belarusian indymedia project http://belarus.indymedia.org/ launched in 2005
should be added to the list.

The analysis of 10 online news resources conducted by e-belarus.org (tut.by;
naviny.by; charter 97; eauramost.org; bdg.online; open.by; kraina.by; date.by;
Belaruski partisan; telegraph.by) revealed that 58% of total number of news are
taken form national online and offline resources, 37% - from foreign sources.
5% of news are presented without mentioning their sources.
This is especially characteristic for the information about PACE and OCSE
activities in Belarus, when no references to press-services of these bodies are
given. National press agencies provide 34% of news, 38% news are collected from
foreign news sources (27% - from Russian, 8% from press - departments of other
foreign media), 8% of news these sites borrow news from each other, while only
5% of the total number of news are editorial.

The major sources for Belarusian online media are national press agencies
Belapan and Belta, Russian lenta.ru, Interfax and Belarusian service of Radio
Free Europe website.

In spite of the new possibilities opened up by online tools and technologies,
Belarusian online media seem to have based their strategies on traditional
journalism techniques. The number and quality of Belarusian media online
initiatives shows them to be in the period of infancy. The overwhelming
majority of them fall within the category of news sites with very limited
editorial news and some form of participatory communication.
The demand for value added online media remains unanswered.

http://www.e-belarus.org/article/onlinemedia2006.html


Best regards,
Mikhail Doroshevich
E-Belarus.ORG
E: mikhail at e-belarus.org
U: http://www.e-belarus.org
B: http://www.i-policy.org