National minorities and the media situation in Georgia / Tobias Akerlund

Abstract

Media plays a central role in forming relationships between members of minority and majority communities. On the one hand there is access to information as key to the successful integration of minority communities, and on the other there is the portrayal of minorities in the media shaping the views of the general public. Issues related to the Georgian media and minority communities have received little attention from practitioners and think tanks working on minority-related issues. This working paper envisages analyzing issues related to media and national minorities in Georgia in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the current situation of minority media and of the impact of media on majority-minority relations. To gather data on this topic, 30 interviews with various media and NGO actors both in Tbilisi and the regions were conducted from October 2010 through April 2011.