38 newspaper editions of the Zhytomyr region during the Second World War (1939-1945) was selected as the object of the study. The subject of the study is the conditions of origin of newspapers, the peculiarities of their operation and time of publication, as well as the features of the materials of these publications. Research methods are traditional analysis (qualitative); historical method; logical method; synthesis; generalization. It is expedient to divide newspaper editions into legal editions of the Ukrainian independence movement; official German publications; underground Soviet publications; underground nationalist publications. After the occupation, the first newspapers began to appear in the Zhytomyr region in late summer and early autumn 1941, and the most were influenced by the independence movement. Immediately, the occupying German authorities, using censorship, launched a propaganda campaign about the benefits of the "new order". From the end of November 1941, the publications came under the control of the occupying German government and became its main information and propaganda body. One of the tools of alternative propaganda influence on the local population was the underground Soviet periodicals. For some time an underground nationalist publication was published in the region but had no significant impact on the population. Since 1944 (the time of the return of the Soviet army) all publications of the Ukrainian independence movement, the German official press and nationalist periodicals have ceased to be published. Only one of the underground pro-Soviet newspapers, which became official, continued to be published. Comparison of the number of publications on the territory of Zhytomyr region in the war, pre-war and post-war periods gives grounds to hypothesize that the possible dependence of the number of publications from the degree of freedom of the press. The study of foreign language periodicals, in particular in Polish, remains promising.