Lithuanian Media Research Articles

Diskurso prozodija: žodžio bachelor ir jo lietuviško atitikmens viengungis kolokatų semantika

The current study is an attempt to identify similarities and differences of collocates with the headwords bachelor and viengungis in free word combinations and collocations of the English and Lithuanian languages and identify what the speaker’s attitudes they express concerning the referent. English and Lithuanian media corpora containing free word combinations and collocations with the headword bachelor / viengungis manifest more similarities than differences in terms of semantics and connotation of collocates. However, the number of negative collocates with the Lithuanian word viengungis is proportionally bigger than in English which shows a more negative attitude of Lithuanian society towards unmarried men, which is expressed through the media.

Alkoholio kontrolės įstatymo pakeitimai žiniasklaidoje: atvejo analizė

[full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English]
 Political science and mass communication studies have proven long ago that media outlets can affect public opinion. This is especially important when political choices are made. The media can determine how the public will react to changes. In our case, we delve into a potential threat of a biased public opinion (favorable to certain business subjects, politicians or others parties) being formed. This relates to the media outlets or organizations stepping over the boundaries of ethics for a chance to make a profit from certain interested individuals, organizations or companies.
 This study addresses the problem of how the changes in the legislation of alcohol control have been reflected in the Lithuanian online newspapers 15min.lt, Delfi.lt and Lrytas.lt. Our study object pertains to how the changes in the law of alcohol control are being reflected. The aim of this article is to examine how these changes of law have been reflected in Lithuanian media.
 A qualitative case study was conducted using content analysis. The results of the research show that the abovementioned Lithuanian online newspapers reflected a rather one-sided evaluation of the law changes. Most of the changes were reflected in a negative way; there were more negative than positive publications informing about the changes.
 Although similar tendencies have been identified in all the online newspapers, Lrytas.lt happened to stand out. There were publications that had no clear sources of information; the authors of the publications were not mentioned as well. Furthermore, there were publications criticizing not the changes themselves but certain members of the parliament. The appliance of ethical norms was deemed to be more characteristic of Delfi.lt and 15min.lt.

Migrantų diskurso formavimas istoriniais pasakojimais Lietuvos naujienų portaluose 2015 metais

[article in Lithuanian; abstract and key words in English]
 In the year 2015 Europe was facing what appeared to be the worst migration crisis since World War II. Its coverage in Lithuanian media has spurred different voices to reach out for the audience: the country was facing the New Other, with whom there were no shared memories or experiences. Certain historic narratives and their motifs were invoked into discussion in order to embrace certain attitudes or actions while trying to comprehend the ongoing crisis: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, World War II and Soviet Occupation. 
 The two-staged research was done in order to reveal how historical narratives were used to comprehend the possible newcomers and project outcomes of positioning migrants. 7 major news portals were used as a source of research, chosen by its importance or audience reach on national and regional levels with key words “pabėgėlis” (refugee), “migrantas” (migrant), “nelegalas” (illegal person), “bėglys” (fugitive), “atbėgėlis” (arrival). At the first stage, trending discourses and keywords were revealed, while during the 2nd the usage of historical narratives while positioning the newcomers was analysed. Data is divided according to historic moments that were used. Matrices of positioning self-other, attributing the agency and the outcome with possible suggestion of what to expect from the Others and how to comprehend them were drawn.
 Results revealed that the multicultural GDL narrative was used for distancing and traumatic WWII and Soviet occupation narrations were the ones to bring migrants closer for a momentary lapse. Variety of historical passages highlights the ongoing struggle of creating the face of the New other. Narrations are done in homogenic manner instead of charging stories with ethnically diverse experiences, resulting in not giving migrants an historical time.

Metaphor and Irony in the Public Criminological Discourse of Lithuania

This article discusses metaphor and irony as discursive strategies employed by the Lithuanian media while construing the imagery of crime, criminal, and criminality. The method applied to analyse metaphor and irony in Lithuanian criminological discourse combines the framework offered by conceptual metaphor theory with corpus linguistics. First of all, metaphorical and ironical expressions were inventoried, and then conceptual paradigms were reconstructed from them. The conceptual-level analysis revealed that the relations between the conceptual domains of metaphor and irony are processed by different types of mapping (similarity [metaphor] vs. dissimilarity [irony]). Despite differences in the processing of cross-domain mapping, metaphor and irony realised in public criminological discourse carry out the same or very similar rhetorical and social functions. The main function of these discursive strategies is the vivid expression of emotional attitudes and values directed at the criminal—the text adresser evaluates the criminal and crime negatively, dissociates from the offender, and isolates him symbolically from our community. In this way, the contemporary Lithuanian media constructs and shapes the community’s approach to particular social phenomena—crime, criminal, and criminality.

Creating Otherness

This article contributes to the ongoing theoretical and empirical discussions within the studies of media and religion on the interaction of these social institutions in contemporary society. Firstly, we locate our research questions within the recent theoretical debates on relations between media and religion in contemporary society, the US, Western Europe and, particularly, postcommunist countries. Secondly, we discuss the representations of minority religions in Lithuanian media grounding on the empirical research of Lithuanian media in 2000-2012. Results of the empirical research showed that minority religions in Lithuanian media were represented mostly in a negative and scandalous context. The majority of articles contained various rhetorical strategies which strengthened the proposed viewpoints. Opinions of the members of minority religions, experts and society were the most common information source dealt with in the analysed articles.

The processes of animation and de-animation in conceptualizing socio-political events

Abstract The philosophical idea of anthropocentrism viewing human beings as the most significant entities has been put forward in various metaphor studies within cognitive linguistics. As Talmy (2002) claims, people choose to animate a very large part of their reality and this happens due to embodiment, as Lakoff (1987), and Lakoff and Johnson (1999) argue. Anthropocentricity can also be explained by Croft’s Extended Animacy Hierarchy system (2002) in terms of human beings outranking animate and inanimate entities, strongly implying that inanimate entities tend to be perceived as inferior. However, this paper argues that anthropocentrism is bidirectional, since not only do we ascribe human or animate qualities to inanimate objects or phenomena, but we also tend to “de-animate” human beings by attributing inanimate qualities to them. This paper further explores the idea of anthropocentricity by focusing on the metaphorical conceptualization of issues concerning the euro adoption in 2015 and the refugee crisis in 2015–2016, two real-life phenomena that have significantly affected social life in Lithuania. The paper thus aims to investigate how animation of the euro and de-animation of refugees is metaphorically conceptualized in the Lithuanian media and what rhetorical implications arise from this. The research is conducted within the framework of Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black, 2005/2011, 2014; Musolff, 2004; Hart 2010, etc.), which suggests that metaphors are used as an argumentative tool seeking to manipulate the audience. The paper therefore argues that the animation of the euro and “de-animation” of refugees carry serious rhetorical implications and reveal the attitudes of society towards the phenomena analyzed.

Media sentiment analysis for measuring perceived trust in government

This study employs sentiment analysis of articles published in popular Lithuanian media outlets in an attempt to determine the citizens’ trust in the Lithuanian government at a given time. Based on the classical political theory by Thomas Hobbes and contemporary political theories of divisionary politics and the “rally ‘round the flag” effect, it is hypothesized that with an increased sense of insecurity, the population puts more trust into their government. The hypothesis is tested by examining the sentiment expressed in articles concerning governmental affairs published in Lithuanian media and the user-generated comments published on Facebook for the period of six months prior to and after March 2014 – Russia’s annexation of Crimea, an event that created a sense of fear among the Lithuanian public. The analysis of the gathered data found that the decrease in sentiment towards Russia correlated with an increase in the sentiment towards the government of Lithuania in conventional media. The analysis of Facebook comments suggested the same result, but overall was inconclusive.

Media sentiment analysis for measuring perceived trust in government

This study employs sentiment analysis of articles published in popular Lithuanian media outlets in an attempt to determine the citizens’ trust in the Lithuanian government at a given time. Based on the classical political theory by Thomas Hobbes and contemporary political theories of divisionary politics and the “rally ‘round the flag” effect, it is hypothesized that with an increased sense of insecurity, the population puts more trust into their government. The hypothesis is tested by examining the sentiment expressed in articles concerning governmental affairs published in Lithuanian media and the user-generated comments published on Facebook for the period of six months prior to and after March 2014 – Russia’s annexation of Crimea, an event that created a sense of fear among the Lithuanian public. The analysis of the gathered data found that the decrease in sentiment towards Russia correlated with an increase in the sentiment towards the government of Lithuania in conventional media. The analysis of Facebook comments suggested the same result, but overall was inconclusive.

Conclusions

Almost thirty years ago, Lithuania became independent from the communist Soviet regime. This resulted in large social, economic, demographic and political changes. In addition to the substantial benefits that were brought by the restoration of independence and the ‘return to Europe’ (Kornai, 2006), major macro-level changes also resulted in extreme population decline. The geopolitical and economic position of Lithuania completely changed: from a relatively affluent and prosperous region in the Soviet Union, it became a relatively poor country on the periphery of the European Union. In parallel, from the receiver of large inflows of immigrants from other Soviet Republics, it started to lose its population due to large-scale out-migration to Western European countries. Today, Lithuania has one of the fastest shrinking populations in the world. Since the 2000s, the average annual population decline has been -1.2 percent (Statistics Lithuania, 2017). As this thesis has shown, population decline, where the main factor is out-migration, has been accompanied by changing residential patterns and increasing socio-spatial inequalities throughout the country. Until now, there has been very little academic research focusing on the processes and consequences of these socio-spatial developments in Lithuania. Moreover, the extent to which the existing literature properly captures the ongoing processes remains an open question. This thesis set out to fill the current knowledge gaps concerning the recent socio-spatial transformation processes and their consequences in Lithuania. The thesis aimed to contribute answers to the following questions: –– What are the main features and drivers of socio-spatial change in post-socialist Lithuania? –– Why, despite the growing economy and improvements in the standard of living, is Lithuania facing major challenges related to extreme population decline and increasing socio-spatial inequalities? ‘Lithuania Disappearing’, ‘Lithuania does not stop its decline’, ‘The threat of emigration’, ‘The forecast is bleak’ – such headlines have appeared on the front pages of the Lithuanian media almost daily in recent years. The focus of this thesis was not on the population decline per se, but on the social and spatial consequences that are related to this extreme decline. This thesis has highlighted some of the most problematic trends in socio-spatial development. Its main focus was on four interdependent areas of socio-spatial change: population decline, shifting residential patterns, processes of segregation and spatial inequalities. The emphasis was on the spatial dimensions of these processes. The thesis described the trajectories of the recent socio-spatial developments and examined why the scale and impact of the population change is exceptionally high in Lithuania. The thesis also showed how the Soviet-designed socio-spatial structures in Lithuania have adapted to the market economy environment. This study contributes to the existing literature by integrating the key processes of population decline, migration and segregation, which have been taking place in a rapidly changing post-socialist context. While the focus was on Lithuania, the results of this study will also be of value for other CEE countries, many of which have experienced similar trajectories of change during recent decades. The dissertation included five empirical chapters, with each chapter presenting different aspects of socio-spatial change and addressing specific research questions. Chapters 2 and 3 focused on the country as a whole. These chapters analysed the geographical patterns of population decline and the role of selective migration on population redistribution and growing socio-spatial inequalities. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 focused on areas where the socio-spatial transformations have been the most intense – the metropolitan regions and, in particular, the Vilnius metropolitan region. These chapters contribute to the limited knowledge concerning the processes of ethnic and socioeconomic segregation in Lithuania. These are also the first studies analysing how the levels of segregation have changed over time in Lithuania. The remainder of this concluding chapter is structured as follows. Firstly, the main findings of the five empirical chapters are summarised. Section 7.3 then presents an overall reflection and discussion of the research findings. In Section 7.4, the limitations of the thesis are discussed and, finally, Section 7.5 sketches some directions for further research.

(Im)politeness in the discourse on crime: naming of offender

By focusing on the study of naming of an offender in the media in one particular case when father killed his two children in Saviečiai, this paper provides a perspective on the discourse on crime as the discourse governed by the strategies of impoliteness. The face management theory (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987) and the insight of face attacking acts (Austin 1987) is considered here to be generally useful for the analyses of the discourse on crime which is, as a rule, about negatively evaluated persons and their actions. Having analysed 46 crime reports in the Lithuanian media published in the period of one month on January 2016, 36 different nominal references of the offender have been found. The results reveal that the level of politeness in the discourse on crime can be assessed considering the naming of an offender. In this discourse the naming of the offender is performed mainly as face attacking acts: 1) a naming word has a negative emotional evaluation or is an obvious insult or nickname which might be considered as a dysphemism (vaikžudys, smurtautojas, skriaudikas, žudikas, siaubūnas, antžmogis, monstras, budelis, išgama, degradas, navikas, alkoholikas, girtuoklis, chuliganas); 2) neutral naming words (vyras, tėvas, A. Beras, etc.) are modified by means of extended attributes that indicate the crime and the victims, the location of the crime. In fact, it often expresses a straightforward negative assessment. This type of naming of the offender with an additional indication of the time of the offense, the date of birth of the offender, the age and sex of the victims, is voluminous (up to 25 words) in this discourse. Such a naming becomes like a brief statement or a story in itself. Developing a discourse on this crime, this type of naming is continuously employed as if there were fears that readers won’t identify the offender. Such a naming or even a nickname substitutes the proper name of the offender in the titles of the articles. The term suspect, which might soften the assertiveness of a statement, is rarely used. The results disclose that to speak negatively in the media articles about crime (to use nicknames, insults, to emphasize the negativity and criticism, to lie in order to make an impression of the negativity) is the norm, so the discourse on crime can be seen as a discourse, allowing the strategies of impoliteness.

Teisės ir etikos problemos Šiaurės Lietuvos periodinėje spaudoje

Straipsnio1 tikslas – aptarti septyniuose Šiaurės Lietuvos rajonuose leidžiamų dešimt periodinės spaudos leidinių teisės ir etikos problemų aspektu, nustatyti dažniausiai daromų galimų pažeidimų tendencijas, palyginti leidinius.

Deficit of Trust and the Decline of Print Media in Lithuania

Since the turn of the 21st century, the global decline of print media has become a universally accepted inevitability, along with the broad consensus that this has been brought about by the internet and social media. The ascendancy of new media and the vicissitudes of digital transformation, along with shrinking advertising revenues and the sudden death of classified advertisements, have been piling up pressure on print media worldwide. In the meantime, there are some additional local factors at work in Lithuania that could propel Lithuania to be become one of the first countries in Europe to lose the printed press for good. The decline of Lithuanian print media has been caused not only by technological progress and new innovative media business models, but also by a rather flawed development of the traditional media, as the tested instruments of trust building have faced serious difficulties in taking root in the country’s print media culture. The downturn in the print media points to the limited ability of the Lithuanian press to strike a right balance between the public interest and the efficiency of the business model, as well as to a lack of willingness to create and uphold certain standards of transparency and journalist ethics. Reluctance to discuss deficiencies of the trade in an open way and weak motivation to develop an honest, efficient and credible media regulation environment have also been responsible for the print media’s decline. The vicious circle of the controversial business model which diminishes trust, and low trust which further undermines the financial viability of Lithuanian newspapers are in effect pushing the print media out of the market earlier than pure technological progress is asking for. The predicament of the press is making an impact on the Lithuanian media in general, by narrowing the advertising market. On the other hand, choices made by the public, unfavorable to the printed press, are giving the media valuable directions to move faster towards new forms of media that are more sensitive to the public interest and, accordingly, can command higher trust.

Vilniaus ukrainiečių tautinės bendrijos naudojimosi žiniasklaida ypatumai Ukrainos karo laikotarpiu

Šis straipsnis yra skirtas Vilniaus ukrainiečių tautinės bendrijos nau­dojimosi žiniasklaida, vykstant Ukrainos karui, tendencijoms pateikti, atspindint tris karo etapus: Maidano protestų, Krymo aneksijos ir esant ne­ramumams Donecko ir Luhansko miestuose1. Taip pat siekta apžvelgti, koks buvo žiniasklaidos vaidmuo formuojant bendrijos, atskirtos nuo Ukrainos įvykių ir visuomeninio gimtosios šalies gyvenimo, politines nuostatas. Sie­kiant atskleisti bendruomenėje vyraujančią situaciją, atlikti kiekybinis ir ko­kybinis tyrimai. Vilniaus ukrainiečių bendrijos nariai atsakė į klausimyno klausimus, kurie ir padėjo sužinoti respondentų žiniasklaidos naudojimo tendencijas, tai yra: kaip suintensyvėjo naudojimasis žiniasklaida per karą Ukrainoje, kokių šalių rengiama informacija bendrijos nariai naudojasi bei kokiais principais remiasi rinkdamiesi žiniasklaidos priemones. Atlikti tyrimai parodė, kad prasidėjus Ukrainos karui informacijos po­reikis Vilniaus ukrainiečių tautinėje bendrijoje žymiai išaugo. Keitėsi ir bendrijos narių elgesys, naudojantis žiniasklaida. Išaugo ukrainietiškos žiniasklaidos teikiamos informacijos paklausa, o Lietuvos žiniasklaidos priemonėmis naudotasi norint sužinoti kasdienes naujienas apie karą. Pa­aiškėjo, kad Vilniaus ukrainiečių bendrijos nariai naudojasi beveik vienodu lietuviškų ir ukrainietiškų žiniasklaidos priemonių kiekiu. Tapo svarbu išsi­aiškinti ir tai, kada bendrijos nariai renkasi naudoti lietuvių, o kada – ukrai­niečių žiniasklaidą. Be to, išryškėjo tendencija, kad bendrijos nariai gausiai naudojasi televizija, internetiniais dienraščiais bei internetine televizija, bet kur kas rečiau naudojasi spauda ir radiju. Tai rodo tarp bendrijos narių susiformavusią tradiciją skirtingų šalių ir skirtingų žiniasklaidos platformų priemonėmis naudotis skirtingais tikslais.

From poverty to sports achievements: the image of people with disabilities in Lithuanian media

From poverty to sports achievements: the image of people with disabilities in Lithuanian media

Perception of intertexts and identification of the cultural circle in publicistic texts by Rimvydas Valatka

The article analyses the strategies of employing intertexts –primarily, allusions – in contemporary Lithuanian media. The study relies on the idea that recognition of an allusion in text and its appropriate interpretation shows that both the author and the reader belong to the same cultural circle which can be identified on the basis of age, education, field of interests and other factors. In order to reach her/his audience, a publicist has to write in the language that the audience understands best. Therefore, if a reader fails to recognise allusions or s/he interprets them differently than intended, s/he is not part of the cultural circle.
 
 The selected method of the study was testing respondents in order to determine how effectively allusions are recognised and interpreted by a small yet significant segment of the readership, namely, students aged 18 to 20. The respondents had to identify and interpret allusions in fifty sentences collected from articles by Rimvydas Valatka, a distinguished Lithuanian publicist, whose writings are characteristic of rich rhetorical expression. The results demonstrate that only about one fourth of respondents interpret publicistic allusions adequately:
 Adequate interpretation – 27%, unreasonable interpretation – 25%, no interpretation – 48%.
 The statistics of the recognition and interpretation of allusions used in the texts fluctuates considerably in different areas of precedent texts: Biblical allusions – 37%, folklore allusions – 32%, historical allusions – 12%, cinematographic allusions – 49%, cultural allusions – 25%, literary allusions – 25%.
 It is possible to conclude that numerous intertexts used by Rimvydas Valatka are not targeted at the student-age audience, except for the obvious shift from the Soviet- and Russian-specific items (only 11% of precedent texts that belong to this category were identified by respondents) and that this segment of the readership remains in the periphery of Rimvydas Valatka’s cultural circle.

Reduction of liberalism in Lithuanian media policy

Lithuanian governments had been conducting liberal economic policies regarding media subjects for almost two decades, till the end of 2008. However, the economic crisis in 2008 influenced the Lithuanian government to apply the measures of fi scal consolidation: in similar fashion, liberal media policy was adjusted with the state gaining more power. The aim of this article is to analyze Lithuanian media policy decisions and their effects on media sectors, organizations and workers during the period of the economic crisis and since then. The article claims that essentially reduced liberalization of taxation, slightly reduced commercialization of the national media environment and reinforced overly bureaucratic system of media regulation resulted in a lesser degree of liberalism in the Lithuanian media policy from the end of 2008 to 2015.

Identity Tensions: The Case of Michail Golovatov’s Release

Abstract The aim of this article is to investigate what perceptions towards European Union, Austria and Russia exist in terms of Lithuanian identity. This question arises from a chosen case of Michail Golovatov’s release and intense discussions within Lithuanian media about this issue in summer of 2011. Although it seems that incident and later diplomatic conflict is directly related with Austria and judicial arguments, but Austria and its actions provoked broad considerations what Lithuania’s relations with European Union, its member states and even Russia are. First, article analyses theoretical significance of identity and its relation with foreign policy. Second, methodological tools of discourse analysis are formulated in order to analyse selected texts which compose the discourse of the case. Third, according to the meanings found interpretations explaining how Lithuanian identity is constructed through perceptions towards EU, Austria and Russia are presented.

Endowed Value or Imposed Heritage? Attitudes of Russian-Speaking Lithuanian Citizens towards their Native Language

So far there has been no detailed research done in Lithuania that would allow to analyze the attitudes of the Russian-speaking citizens towards their native language. In this article, an attempt is made to determine the subtle relation between the Lithuanian citizens of non-Lithuanian nationality and the Russian language which is considered to be native in their families, while they either are Russians or identify themselves as Russians.Certain questions concerning this problem are taken into consideration: do Russian-speaking citizens feel good about using their native language; do they feel affinity to Russia as their symbolic homeland or the mother country of their language; do they want their children to have a good command of Russian and consider it their native language; is their relationship with their native language affected by the manifestation of Russophobia in public discourse and mass media.The data of the sociolinguistic projects Language Use and Ethnic Identity in Lithuanian Cities (2007–2009) and A Sociolinguistic Map of Lithuania (2010–2012) focussing on Vilnius, Klaipėda and Visaginas is discussed. These cities have been selected as the ones with the largest Russian-speaking population as compared to other regions of Lithuania.The analysis of in-depth interviews reveals that for the Russian-speaking people in Lithuania the native language remains the only real indicator of their ethnic self-identification. Most of the respondents do not regard Russia as a country close to them in terms of lifestyle and mentality, they do not perceive Russia as a symbolic concept defining their self-identity; it is for them the space of their mother tongue. The respondents claim that they value their mother tongue, see it as emotionally closest and stress the relation between the Russian language and culture as well as the pragmatic value of knowing Russian nowadays. Young respondents declare that they intend to do their best to pass their mother tongue to their future children.However, the intentions of the Russian-speaking people of Lithuania to support the vitality of their native language, which requires more effort than is usual for people living in the environment of a different language. In the Lithuanian media and online comment sections, ethnic and linguistic intolerance towards local people who speak another language is livened up periodically. Therefore Russian-speaking residents of Lithuania need to be psychologically strong in order to resist the pressure of public discourse and to sustain their native language.

Medijų auditorijų aktyvumo raiška daugiaterpėje medijų aplinkoje

The purpose of this article is to present the research of the Lithuanian media users which revealed that audience activity and selectivity gain new shapes in the multimedia environment. Processes of media digitisation and convergence generate new practices for the use of media and models of activity and the selectivity of audiences. Audience participants have the opportunity to make their selections from various platforms and an array of content, although little is known about the ways in which individuals perform their selections in a multimedia environment, which has a totally distinct nature and operational logics than that of traditional media. The growing activity of the audience is one of the most important problems in the study of audience that may be associated with the corresponding characteristics of audiences. This encourages a more profound investigation of the peculiarities of a contemporary audience activity and the factors that determine them. An abundance of descriptions of contemporary media audience participants attest to the fact that their ope­ration in the multimedia environment is much more active and variable than in the previous stages of media development. If in the era of traditional mass communication, activity was primarily understood as selection performed by media users of what and when should be used, nowadays this activity has ob­tained new shapes. Moreover, a media user may well act as a creator, distributor, and consumer of the me­dia content, while the content that is generated by the media users becomes dominant in the electronic spa­ce. It has been stated that media users select media and their content, and compose them into a unified structure, in relation with a coherent behaviour stra­tegy which reflects the activity and selectivity of an individual and his/her loyalty to particular media and their content. Media users form their media reper­toires, selecting a definite number of channels and range of dominant content, align their use to a daily routine and combine with other activities.

Rusiško informacinio karo bruožai

This article discusses the Russian theorists’ approach to information warfare, its applicability to regain the Soviet Union “lost territories”. Reviewed is the juridical background to consolidate the electronic media in the hands of the Russian government. The process of elimination alternative political opinions in Russia is reviewed. Discussed are the thoughts of Russian information warfare theorists about the media used to collect the areas considered as their own. The ways how the media can create the imaginary reality are examined. Russia's state-controlled information space overcomes Russian boundaries and enters the global information space.The information war is not a very new phenomenon. The current military affairs have been led by information war activities. Protests against the former Ukrainian president Viktor Janukovich started in late 2013 and concluded in the open revolt and overthrow of the existing regime. Discontent with such events, Russia brutally intervened in the internal Ukrainian affairs, occupied and annexed the Crimean peninsula, then provoked mutiny in estern Ukrainian regions. The war broke out, and the Russian media have been exploited to legitimize Kremlin’s and separatists actions.The purpose of the article is, by using analytical and comparative methods, to scrutinize the information war problematic in Russian’s works. Information space exploitation is a crucial Russian politics’ part. The consolidated and censored internal Russian media space is designed to consolidate society to support nationalistic and imperialistic Moscow ambitions and to prevent other than Kremlin ideas’ circulation. The information war is used to penetrate into the former Soviet Union republics’ media space, to form the media agenda, and to shape, now independent from Russia states societies’ views. Even more, Russia creates channels for non-Russian speakers to attract them to their side. The Russian media directly or by exploiting close relationships with Moscow business, construct the image of the favourable reality. The complicated social problems have led us to the fact that decision currently is made on the media supplied facts’ preferences. The perceptions of ideas is constructed in the information war twilight.The article also draws attention to fact that Lithuania is abjectly prepared to react to the external information war threat from Russia. Russia wisely uses the EU legislation loops into the penetrate to Lithuanian media space and to guarantee the EU law protection and contrary to Russia internally wiped out media field from the non-Kremlin-controlled media. The juridical posed law makes obstacles for foreign capital to invest in the Russian media. And the media which get grants from abroad is claimed to be foreign agents. Lithuania is very concerned about the information war influence on society, but the internal media business practices, the principles of electronic media regulations, and being so late to react do not allow to take effective contra measures. Lithuania has successfully intergraded into political, military, and economic western alliances, but not to the western media space. This fact allows Russia still to fight for Lithuanian hearts and souls.