358 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 addition to the literatureon the parliamentunder El'tsinthat has shown it to be less redundantand uselessthan was predicted at the end of I993. Department ofPoliticsandPublic Administration NEIL ROBINSON University ofLimerick Zassoursky,Ivan. MediaandPower inPost-Soviet Russia.M. E. Sharpe,Armonk, NY and London, 2004. xi + 269 pp. Tables.Figure.Notes. Bibliography. Index. fI.50 (paperback). THE relationshipbetween the media andpower is one that deservesthe closest scrutinyin any state, especially in one tryingto recover from the devastation of totalitarian Communism. In the Soviet period the analysis of this relationship was much easier: the media, initially the press, and eventually radio and television, were the instruments by means of which the party transmittedallegedly superiorwisdom to the massesand defended the regime from internal and external ideological foes. After I99I things became a lot more complicated, as Zassourskyshows in MediaandPower inPost-Soviet Russia. The author covers a great deal of ground:the role of television;discussionof the conceptual relevance of the fourth estate in Russia;the impact of the two Chechen wars(I994-96 and 1999-2000); the corrosiveuse of kompromat in the press; the various power struggles to control the television networks; the Internetin Russia. Zassourskyargues that television 'carriesfull responsibilityfor the collapse of the Soviet system' (p. 229), and that Gorbachev was the first Soviet politician who really understood the medium. Now, Gorbachev's skill in manipulating television is indisputable, yet I would suggest that the real significance of television and Gorbachev was that he was the first Soviet politicianwho realizednot so much the potential of the medium surelythat was obvious even to Brezhnev -but that liberalizingthe print media made no sense without liberalizing television and dispensing with the predictable Soviet models of both. Once that happened one might regard the Chernobyl disaster(i 986) as the turningpoint events moved very quickly. By the mid i 980s the Soviet Union, no matter how ably the last General Secretaryof the CPSU manipulated the media (Westernand Soviet), was fast heading towardsoblivion in any case. It was the combination of a liberalized press and television that accelerated the Soviet Union's firstcollapse. On the nature of television in general, however, Zassoursky offers some valuable insights.Thus: 'Television',he asserts,'does not appeal to reason,but to faith' (p. 70); 'As for television, the only people able to believe in the victory of reason on the airwaves are those who think the law prevails every time in court' (p. 72); and 'The influence of television leads to the personificationof the political process, to its assimilation in a way that is emotional and to a large degree irrational'(pp. 103-04). One of Zassoursky'sbest chapters is that which deals with the Internet in Russia. The author provides information and data which suggest that much of the talk of how the Internet would change the whole political process was overstatedsince, as he points out, 'The Internetcannot have a seriousimpact REVIEWS 359 on the political process without the aid of the mass media' (p. I83). This is a good point with regard to Russia where Internet use remains low but somewhat misleading when applied to the US. Nevertheless, he sees an importantrole for the Internetin Russia:'Combining the role of samizdat with a social communications industry, the Net is perhaps required by a vocal minority than by a silent majority.But in some cases (thewar in Chechnya), this is already very important, since it leaves a window of freedom in the communications system'(p. I84). The book's only serious shortcoming is the failure to discuss in any detail the main pieces of primary and secondary media legislation, which were enacted throughout the I99os: h7he Mass MediaLaw (I992); TheSecrecy Law (I993); TheReporting Law(I994); TheInformation Law(I995); TheCommunications Law (I995); 7The Law of Information Exchange (I996). Some knowledge of this legislationis criticalto understandingwhat tookplace in the Russianmedia in the I990s. The authormakesa couple of referencesto TheMassMediaLawbut this is inadequate given the book's theme, especially as interpreting TheMass MediaLaw was one of the main problems in media disputes in the i990s. Indeed, one reason why the image of a more competent Russia in the second Chechen war was possible was because information flows were...