In February Ilkhom Khalimzoda from the University of Jyväskylä will present his research “Does diasporic media serve the democratic society or strengthen the division? A comparative analysis of the Russian-language media in Latvia and Finland”.
Research summary: Tensions in media landscapes are commonplace, especially in bordering countries that historically experience strained relations or simply favour different positions in international politics (Marcus, 2018). This paper focuses on two such cases, Latvia and Finland, both of which share a border with Russia and hold a different worldview than Russia does.
The study sets three sub-goals to explore: (1) to analyse the historical formation and development of Russian-language media in Latvia and Finland, (2) to map out currently available Russian-language media and (3) to evaluate whether diasporic media serve the development of a diverse democratic society or they are used in strengthening divisions within these societies. This study suggests that on one hand, diasporic media serve the needs of the Russian minority and at times play an important normative function in a democratic society, on another hand, the mediatized conflict between Russia and the West often may serve as a dividing factor.
Moderator: Olga Dovbysh (Helsinki University)
Online talks will be organized in Zoom February, 9 from 12:00 to 13:30 (Finnish time). If you want to participate and get emails about the next online talks, please leave your contact information here until February, 8 noon: registration form.
Speaker’s bio: Ilkhom Khalimzoda is a doctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, Department of Communication Studies. He is a member of the editorial board at the journal of intercultural communication and member of the board at the society for the study of ethnic relations and international migration (ETMU). His dissertation deal with the media use and adaptation of Russian immigrants in Latvia and Finland. He is a non-resident research associate at the European Centre for Populism Studies (ESPC) and contributor at various platforms such as European Journalism Observatory, Politurco and Jylkkari.
Online talk on Russian Media is a collaborative initiative between Russian Media Lab Network and Tampere Research Center for Russian and Chinese Media.
Photo by Марьян Блан | @marjanblan on Unsplash