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This thesis examines the development of Soviet journalism between 1953 and 1968 through a case study of the youth newspaper Komsomol’skaia pravda. Stalin’s death removed the climate of fear and caution that had hitherto characterised Soviet journalism, and allowed for many values to be debated and renegotiated. This study examines these debates within their wider professional, social, and political contexts, and thus illuminates the possibilities and limits of reform in the post-Stalin era. In a period of rising educational levels, a widely-perceived crisis of youth values, and growing mass media saturation both from within the Soviet Union and from outside, Komsomol’skaia pravda journalists’ understanding of themselves as protectors and educators of the public came into conflict with the belief that the press should be entertaining and informative. Moreover, there were continued tensions between the requirement for the press to be a beacon of social change, which journalists enthusiastically embraced, and the need for it to ensure social stability. This led to the collapse of the Stalinist ‘propaganda state’ model. The thesis comprises five short thematic histories, each discussing different facets of the newspaper’s work. It arrays a wide range of sources, from memoirs to Agit-Prop documents, but its main sources are the newspapers themselves and the transcripts of editorial discussions and Party meetings, which together explain not only what was published, but why. By examining the press from the point of view of its producers, this study challenges previous interpretations of Soviet propaganda. It shows that Soviet journalists were not wholly subservient to Party dictates, but were not dissidents either. Instead, the thesis suggests that the professionalization of journalism and relaxation of political controls allowed journalists to develop shared norms and establish priorities that borrowed from, but differed from those of the Party, leading to frequent conflict and confusion.

The thesis evaluates existing discourses on ‘civil society’ as mediated in the Belarusian press from 1991 until 2010, the former date corresponding with the country’s independence after the collapse of the USSR. It provides a chronological account of the concept’s use in Belarusian print media, an objective not addressed previously, and demonstrates how the articulations of ‘civil society’ in the media shifted over time and in response to contextual conditions. Drawing on the notion of ‘dialogue’ derived from Bakhtin’s studies, it reports on the multiplicity of voices and points of view that formed and informed ‘civil society’ discourses. By highlighting the different semantics given to the concept of ‘civil society’ when used in the Belarusian press, the thesis emphasises the ambiguity of the term that allows it to be used by various actors holding disparate ideological views. It argues that while the use of the concept can instil ideas that facilitate the promotion of democracy, it can also serve as an ideological foundation for authoritarian regimes. It may serve as a tool to promote nation-building and solidarity, the concept may also provoke divisions and alienation in society. Another key argument of this thesis, which has been overlooked in research, is that the meaning of ‘civil society’ is determined by the type of its mediating institutions and their communication practices circumscribed by contextual factors. Drawing on a diverse representative selection of Belarusian print media, the thesis examines the style and discursive practices employed in the mediation of ‘civil society’ in the Belarusian press whilst locating the debate in a broader socio-political context. It is within this context where the concept of civil society is constructed, legitimised, transformed, and deconstructed. In view of this, the discourse of civil society constitutes a language system that can be understood through Critical Discourse Analysis. It is these contextual factors and discursive practices that shaped the unique media environment that make my case different from other post-Soviet nations, while allowing comparisons to be drawn with the developments witnessed in the post-Socialist regions and globally.

The purpose of this thesis is to establish the contribution of the Soviet weekly, Literaturnaya gazeta, to the debunking of official dogmas during the Brezhnev years. Launched in 1967, the second section of Literaturnaya gazeta has frequently been dismissed as a mere safety valve, highly controlled by the authorities, to placate the educated middle classes demoralized by the conservative backlash. It is argued in this study that, although the paper accepted the political parameters of the post-Thaw conservative leadership, as evinced, in particular, by the extreme limitations of the economic debates and the absence of any material investigating the country’s Stalinist past, it nevertheless succeeded in promoting values which ran counter to the official ideology. The paper reflected the demoralization of Soviet society and its inability to change within the existing structures. Soviet society emerged as being morally corrupt, riddled with individualism, suspicion and petty authoritarianism. Individuals were shown at the mercy of faceless bureaucracies and overpowered by a judiciary system dominated by the state procuracy. The paper actively promoted a more individual-centred type of society by overtly challenging the collectivist ethos, campaigning for the recognition of consumer rights and arguing the case for a fairer judiciary system.