Thread by Aleksandar Djokic (ΠΠ»Π΅ΠΊΡΠ°Π½Π΄Π°Ρ ΠΠΆΠΎΠΊΠΈΡ)
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- Dec 8, 2022
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A 𧡠on the mechanism of propaganda in Russia
First of all, I aim to write about the institutional, structural and functional side of Russian media, not about narratives or general discourse, that's a different topic. We have many examples of media narratives coming from Russia.
Second of all, wrong understanding of propaganda media institutions in Putin's Russia stems mostly from directly equating USSR and Russia. The Soviet system was more centralized and controlled, it had a cadre of professional party administrators in all spheres of society.
Putin's system is a state corporate mafia one. There are many corporations (in institutionalist, not in economic terms). These corporations have bosses and the bosses have to be loyal to Putin, but they have much free reign (like mafia captains, or feudal lords).
There are state-owned and (faux) private-owned media in Russia. If they're not banned now, they're part of some corporation, which owes its allegiance to Putin. These corporations differ depending on what their bosses aim to achieve and how they want to present themselves.
They can't go against Putin, but they can go against one another as long as that doesn't destabilize the system too much (if it doesn't rock Putin's throne). We have this in the media as well. There's no KGB list of guests Russian media must invite to their shows.
The corporation bosses decide who they're gonna place as their executives and these people make the program according to their level of competence and their boss's aims. There are general guidelines that they can't cross, such as criticizing Putin, his system of rule or the war.
In other respect they are free to indulge in various narratives with various guests. Such is the case even with Federal TV channels. Not every guest is approved by some mysterious security apparatus. The FSB plays the role of mafia enforcers rather than sophisticated agents.
This is important to understand when analyzing all sorts of statements coming from the (not banned) media in Putin's Russia. If some "expert" mentions nuclear weapons it's not a signal from Putin himself, he isn't curated by the Kremlin directly.
Nevertheless, for discourse analysis all these statements are very important. Every aggressive stance, or the one that tries to revoke Ukrainian national identity is absorbed by a big part of Russian society. But this isn't the topic of this thread.
Thirdly, and lastly, you must understand that the line separating private enterprise from the state one is blurred in Putin's Russia. Any influential entrepreneur must swear loyalty to Putin and his confidants, or else he will be forced out or killed (by the FSB or Kadyrovites).
This matters because we can't in all fairness speak about state and private media. They are all a part of Putin's mafia pyramid of power. But the relative autonomy of these corporations makes them susceptible to being divided when the central authority weakens.
This freedom of action also implies that the corporate bosses have not one camp, but several. They have their own alliances, their own bilateral relations. As such, they have different approaches and polices. Some are moderate, while others are overly aggressive.
Some like to act as respectable businessmen, their counterparts maybe like to think of themselves more as aristocracy, others act literally like mafia captains. This rubs off on the media structure as well.
Since Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, the level of aggression of some corporate bosses has risen, while others became willingly passive (as a strategy). That is why we can now observe incredibly evil statements on Russian media, these are a product of the new situation.
In summary, there are two main points:
1. The Kremlin doesn't control the media directly, unlike in the Soviet times. The media serve Putin, but they have their own corporate interests;
2. Russian media discourse is dangerous and corrupts the majority of the Russian society.
1. The Kremlin doesn't control the media directly, unlike in the Soviet times. The media serve Putin, but they have their own corporate interests;
2. Russian media discourse is dangerous and corrupts the majority of the Russian society.
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