Lithuania's government has long been concerned that it is losing the hearts and minds of its Russian and Polish-speaking citizens. A new TV channel has been proposed to counter Moscow's media propaganda, but will it do the trick?
The Polish television network Telewizja Polska (TVP) is one of six Polish channels broadcast in the region around Vilnius, where most of Lithuania's Polish-speaking population lives. TVP Wilno, part of Poland's public broadcasting network, is focus specifically on the region.
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The aim is to counter the influence of Russian media on Lithuania's ethnic minorities.
“It’s working in our favour, we are competing with Russian propaganda,” says Ryszard Rotkiewicz, news reporter for TVP Wilno.
Surveys suggest that half of Vilnius region’s residents watch at least one of the six Polish TV channels, while four in ten prefer Russian channels. Even fewer people watch Lithuanian networks.
“It is clear that viewership intensity does not create a suitable environment for a proper informational background to emerge,” says Vygintas Gasparavičius, a vice minister of culture.
One of the proposed methods to counter Moscow's propaganda is a new Russian-language TV channel for Vilnius region. Research shows that people are bound to be less influenced by Russian propaganda when they watch channels others than those controlled by Russia.
“Their orientation towards the East is not that strong then, one can feel that. The task for the state now is to offer an alternative,” argues conservative MP Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chairman of the Committee on National Security and Defence.
However, according to Jolanta Butkevičienė, a town council member of Šalčininkai, the project may be too costly for Lithuania alone. Instead, all the three Baltic states should cooperate on a TV channel for their Russian-speaking citizens.
The Lithuanian government has been critised for its neglect of Russian and Polish-speaking regions of southeastern Lithuania.
“The southeastern region of Lithuania is too small to be of importance, and there are so many problems there that the majority of the governments did not want to get involved,” says Vaidas Augūnas, a member of Vilnius District Municipality Council.
MP Kasčiūnas says that while successive governments have discussed measures for countering Russian propaganda in the southeastern region for decades, there is still a lot left to be done.
Adamas Roževičius, analyst for the Vilnius-based Eastern Europe Studies Centre, observes that Lithuania's Polish minority tends to embrace the Russian language more and more, with Polish losing its appeal.
“What they find appealing is the Russian language, and it’s not just because of television, but also because of Russia’s soft-power in general,” says Roževičius. “If we won’t try to show that the Lithuanian and Polish languages are both appealing, and the cultures worth one’s attention, money alone won’t be enough to solve this problem.”
Analysts and politicians agree that more investment into education and good jobs in the region, which is currently among the poorest in the country, could help fight Russian influence even better.
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