Abstract:

This paper sets out to argue the case for undertaking basic, benchmark research into media and marketing issues in the countries of the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. With the rapid pace of economic, political and social change in all these countries over the past few years, and the introduction of market economies, these represent a major potential marketplace which is largely unexplored in terms of basic, reliable and interpretable marketing-oriented research data. Importantly, the research which has and is being undertaken, often on a piecemeal basis, effectively imports Western European research methods and assumptions into an untested environment. This opens up the risks of misunderstanding conditions, and providing misleading information. Rather, a research-based understanding of these countries needs to built up from relatively basic principles and methods, carefully applied.