The systems of public administration in the national republics have one significant difference when compared with other types of regional subjects ("oblast" or "kray") in the Russian Federation. These systems have governmental media (state media) founded by public authorities and these media outlets’ assets are in the ownership of these authorities. It gives a certain originality to both the national republics’ and Russia’s administrative practices and mass media functioning. It is common for experts to criticize the national republics’ public administrations for withdrawal from the libertarian model, but most often, this critical thinking does not clarify the reasons which could have looked "positive" from the libertarian perspective. These reasons are the major factor in making public authorities maintain state media.
The paper aims to synthesize the practice of governmental administration of mass media in the national republics and explicate the administration model by considering the example of Buryatia. The authors give their own definition to the concept of "state media"; identify public authorities’ and mass media’s interaction principles as well as institutional specifics of mass media’s functioning in the national subjects of Russia. The authors argue that state media’s functioning is justified. Being a political institution, state media experience a serious impact of various social factors including political, economic and legal ones. In the process of political management, their interference provides the mass media with a resource potential.
The state mass media in Buryatia is founded by its government and operates under the supervision of a special body in the Administration of the Head and the Government of the Republic of Buryatia. In practice, this body is an operator and manager of the mass media industry and it possesses all the resources it needs, including financial, to run the industry. All the state media outlets have been joined into "Buryaad Unen Publishing House", a state autonomous institution. It provides state services via the implementation of particular functions. One of these functions is conducting the state politics and policy that is the consequence of the political forces ratio on the regional and federal levels. The other functions include legitimization of law, publicizing activities of public authorities, and preservation and development of the national language (the Buryat peoples’ language). The latter state media function is of major importance in the national re publics.
The research approach is an environmental sociological analysis studying the influence of various social factors which are making an impact on the choice of government mechanisms for administering state media. For analysis of various aspects of state mass media’s transformation into a social subject of policy, the authors combine sociological with institutional and discourse research methods.