Changing Media in a Changing Society

Demokratizatsiya, Fall 2003 by Vihalemm, Peeter

The confidence crisis was at its worst in spring 2001 and continued until the governmental coalition changed in the beginning of 2002. The Estonian media was actively involved in the crisis. In March and April 2001, the situation in the print media started to resemble the days of mass movements, when journalists were directly involved in politics and used as active agents of civic protest. This time the new economic elite, not political forces, tried to manipulate the fourth estate to put government decisions under their control. Along with investigative stories that disclosed links between groups behind different privatization projects, newspapers published critical open letters and columns with appeals to change the government.

Various groups demanded a re-estimating of political decisions, one that considered human and social development rather than just stressing Estonia's economic success. This re-assessment was made unexpectedly and ironically during the presidential elections of September 2001. After a severe campaign between five candidates, Arnold Ruutel, the former ranking Communist Party official and ex-chairman of the Supreme Soviet, who represented the Rural Union, became president. The election of a former Communist as president initially was viewed by many as a serious blow to the further successful development of Estonia. Quickly enough, however, the post-electoral debate in the media acquired more relaxed tones. The new president was called to become a peacemaker between the winners and losers, the urban and rural, and the advanced and lagging parts of Estonian society. Soon after they lost the presidential elections, the coalition of the three pro-reform parties was dissolved, and the new center-right government was formed.

After this political reshuffling that brought to power the Center Party, which earlier was criticized almost unanimously in the media as anti-democratic, the media seemed to be a bit confused with the results of their own activities and softened their watchdog rage.

After almost a decade of support for reforms, the critical position of the media, inspired and supported by new elites, indicated that the transition model of the 1990s, based on neo-liberalism, monetarism, and open-market policy, had exhausted its legitimacy. A positive outcome of the confidence crisis was that the media had been challenged to prove that freedom of the press does not only mean commercialization of the media, but also an outlet for serious debate about social and economic problems, public interests, strategic goals of development, and common values for all society.

The confidence crisis of 2000-01 appears to be a sign that the post-Communist transition in Estonia is coming to the end. The breakthrough from the old (Communist) political and economic order to the new (capitalist) one, which was the main content of the reforms of the 1990s, will be completed with Estonia's accession to NATO and the EU in 2004. Estonia is becoming a normal democratic society, capable of self-improvement and self-regulation.