Official media discourse and the self-representation of entrepreneurs in Belarus

Within the diverging realm of Eastern Europe, the Republic of Belarus demonstrates one of the most extreme examples of ‘distorted’ transition. In addition to preserving numerous elements of the former political, nepotistic and quota-based state-controlled system, the slow process of restructuring of the inherited communist institutions in Belarus is coupled with the state's attempt at conserving the phenomenon of ‘Soviet’ Belarus. In this context identity positions are more likely to be manifested in terms of the current state ideology, which leads us to consider the possibly anomalous case of business people. The question posed in this article is how officially sanctioned sets of meanings reflected in the official mass media inter-relate with the identity positions adopted by the emerging new societal stratum of entrepreneurs.