№4-2023-01
DOI: 10.22281/2413-9912-2023-07-04-07-16
Alferova I.V.
RUSSIAN PERIODICALS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN THE CONTEXT
OF INFORMATION RESTRICTIONS
The article reveals some problems that arose between military censors and mass media during the First World War. The article is written on the basis of the materials of military censorship of the staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, censorship departments of military districts, as well as materials of periodicals preserved in Russian archives. Without pretending to make a final assessment of the effectiveness of such a comprehensive and important structure in the field of information support and information control, which was the Russian military censorship during the First World War, the article considers some features of its functioning. The author concludes that the conflict between the press and the structures that ensured its control was predetermined both by the imperfection of the censorship legislation, which gave censors the opportunity to evaluate the publications of newspapers and magazines at their discretion, and by the censorship omissions of periodicals that printed inaccurate news and posted information that could be used by the enemy. The result was the partial ineffectiveness of military censorship and the failure of the press to fulfill its important mission of shaping public opinion on the home front in the interests of the state. Interpretation of some of the problems that military censorship faced in its interaction with editorial boards of periodicals, as well as the ways of overcoming them, seems important for reconstructing a holistic picture of the processes that took place in the Russian information environment.
Keywords: World War I, military censorship, periodicals, Provisional Regulations on Military Censorship, propaganda, military secrecy, public opinion.
Academician I.G. Petrovskii Bryansk State University (Russia)
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