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ety), Tavisupali Sakartvelo (‘Free Georgia,’ was a body of the political block
‘Round Table – Free Georgia’), etc. The similar practice was common not only
for the Post-Soviet but for the whole Post-Communist space. As Slovenian re-
searcher Zala Volcic wrote, ‘As in any other nation-state, the national media
in Slovenia provide a very powerful basis for the processes by which members
of a nation ‘unite’ and ‘homogenise’… As such, media ideology can be under-
stood as the ‘glue’ of the social world, binding people to the concrete practices
of daily life that reproduce a shared sense of national identity’.
2
After the elections of 28 October 1990, which resulted in the nationalist
forces coming to power, the official bodies of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Georgia and of the Central Committee of the Young Com-
munist League of Georgia, Komunisti and Akhalgazrda Komunisti changed
their names into Sakartvelos Respublika and Akhalgazrda Iverieli. The change
of names highlighted not only the changes in the social categories of identity
- from partial solidarity to national solidarity, but it reflected a shift in domi-
nant ideology.
As some Georgian scholars mentioned, in 1990 nationalists themes and
issues were those topics in frames of which the whole Georgian media were
acting, replacing Marxist-Leninist ideology with highly nationalist ideology,
and this unavoidable conjuncture reflected new shifting inside quasi-culture
(Andronikashvili, Z., Maisuradze, G. (2007). But some scholars (Surguladze, R.,
Iberi, E. (2003), Maisashvili, K. (2008)) argued that if one ideology was re-
placed with the other, for the media it might mean only facade change rather
than structural innovation. In this reference the most important item was
whether media did free itself from ideological domination, or just replaced
one ideology with the other. The same scholars argued that all the attributions
to freedom of press, such as themes and issues, dosage of freedom, questions
for discussions, type of sources, privileged communicators, were admitted by
the ideological conjuncture of transitional period. This conjuncture is evident
in emphasis on creation of master-identity for the members of the society -
to be a Georgian. Despite the importance of the individual identity for the
Post-totalitarian society, creation and evolution of the collective identity was
one of the challenges of the Georgian media in 1990.
To refer to the media practices of other Post-Communist countries, in
Georgia, like in other Post-Communist nation-states, the ‘nationalization of
discourse’ was aimed at reducing different scales of individual identity to
mostly national or ethnic belonging (Volcic, 2005. p. 293). 
In the early 1990s, the entire Post-Soviet space was marked with the
growth of newspaper circulation and with the gradually growing impact of
printed media. The quality, influence and freedom of the printed press made
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it the unconditional leader in the media. It was characterized by trust of the
readers, creative innovations, and the craving and efforts to overcome Soviet
inertia. It was in the printed media where new media leaders were formed. By
the Census of 1989, the literacy rate in Georgia was higher than 90%. As the
rating researches and polls in the field of media conducted in 1990-1992
showed, the only state-owned television (1
st
channel of the Georgia television)
was not able to compete with the printing press upon the degree of in-depth
analysis, by freedom and diversity.
3
What are the New Roles and Functions of the Georgian Media of 1990. The
Theoretical Arguments.
I posit that: a) the presence or the absence of the ideological domination
in media would be highlighted in examination of the perception by the new
Georgian media leaders of that period of the roles and functions of the media,
and b) the presence of ideological domination affirms the perspective of the
relationship of media and society to be media-centric than society-centric.
Under the construct ‘new media roles and functions’ are unified the fol-
lowing: new principles of agenda-setting and new communication effects.
The issues of the ideological domination of media can be best examined ex-
actly through examination of these principles because of its high internal and
external validity. The signification ‘new’ distinguishes between Soviet and
Post-Soviet practices. As for the need for ideological domination, I assume
that for the Georgians nationalist leaders and the nationalist intelligentsia in
Post-Soviet Georgia, the intervention in the sphere of media production was
so crucial as for the Georgian Communist leaders and nomenclature intelli-
gentsia who relied on the media as a provider of state propaganda.
As for the term ‘media-centric’ I use it in the meaning of the classic the-
ory of mass communication according to which media-centric approach sees
mass media as a primary mover in social changes 
4
.
The Hypotheses
Based on the above analyzed theoretical arguments, concepts and con-
structs, I guide two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1. The examination of perception by the new Georgian media
leaders their new roles and functions is more likely to affirm the presence of
ideological domination in media than to affirm existence of free (from ideology)
media.
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