Scriptie Mike Hofman
4
English summary Background During the Cold War, Finland tried to deal with its adjacent superpower, the Soviet Union, without losing its sovereignty. This process is often referred to as 'Finlandisation'. The media, also, suffered under Finland's policy of 'active neutrality'. The subject of this thesis is media censorship in Finland. More specifically, the way the Finnish government tried to influence the media and interfere in their journalism.
Purpose To understand the role of the Finnish government in Finland's news coverage.
Method This thesis was conducted using both desk and field res earch. Desk research consisted of literature review, which was necessary to understand the country's political situation during the Cold War. Field research includes in-depth interviews with former correspondents and former policymakers, as well as archival research at the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Results
There are strong indications of government intervention in the media. Many of those interventions could be considered as censorship, according to human rights organisation Amnesty International.
The Finnish government and the Soviet embassy kept a close watch on media in Finland. They would make it clear to journalists if they were not satisfied with an article.
The government tried to influence foreign journalists in Finland.
There was a lot of self-censorship in Finland.Criticism of the Soviet Union was out of the question. There have been cases where critical journalists were dismissed by their editors.
The era of Finlandisation remains to this day a difficult topic to discuss. One of the reasons is that many people who were involved in the media censorship, are still active in politics or the media.