Media Use in the North Caucasus in 2009

News & Information agency Caucasus Times is offering its project Media Use in the North Caucasus to (donors)  and is asking to support this project for the period of the next 12 months.  

In its new project, Caucasus Times is going to investigate wide range of issues related to media consumption in the North Caucasus by conducting opinion polls with questionnaires including specific questions related to different aspects of media use in the North Caucasus.  

More specifically, survey questionnaires will include questions on what particular media outlets are used by the population as the most important and reliable for them sources of information; what media outlets are considered as the most trustworthy by the population, what media are consulted by the population in the extraordinary situations or in the situations of crisis and what are people’s attitudes towards central and local electronic and print media. Separate question on which media were used as a source of information about parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia will be asked. In addition, separate question on frequency of use of different media will be asked thus enabling to get ratings of major media outlets in the North Caucasus region.  

We are going to keep former research methodology, which proved to be successful, with sample size including 400 respondents, which would enable to decrease the margin of error. As previously, we are planning to involve in our activities a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations such as Czech Prague-based humanitarian mission “People in Need”; Moscow-based human rights center “Demos” and Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extraordinary Situations, which turned out to be very productive and successful.  

In addition to regular publications of the results of public opinion polls on media use on the web sites of Caucasus Times, we are going to publish the results of those opinion polls as a booklet after this research project is completed. This booklet under the title MEDIA USE IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS IN 2008 – MAJOR TENDENCIES will be distributed among Russian media outlets and media organizations, Russian officials and state structures, international organizations and NGOs as well as among foreign diplomatic missions in Russia.

2. GENERAL INFORMATION

 At present there are no independent public opinion research projects on media consumption going on in the North Caucasus republics. Occasional public opinion polls conducted in the area are usually ordered by various state structures and in most cases, information about the results of such public opinion polls remains closed for general public.

 Media use project in the North Caucasus is getting particular importance in connection with parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia . North Caucasus is at present a tight Caucasian knot consisting of various ethnic and confessional groups with different and often conflicting interests. As a result of Chechen war and long-lasting economic crisis in the area, social tension in the region is extremely high. Different perception of the ongoing events periodically causes deep contradictions within the local societies, which can potentially lead to emergence of new conflict zones in the Southern Russia . Present situation in the North Caucasus is marked by increasing social tension, ongoing conflicts in Chechnya and in the whole region, large-scale human rights violations by the military and law enforcement agencies and strict censorship of mass media.