Academic articles

A brief history of news making in Russia

In this introductory article to our special issue on newsmaking in Russia, we provide a context for how the study of journalism evolved in Russia in contrast to Europe and the US. This brief historical overview helps make sense of the specific trajectory of journalism studies: from normative Cold War perspectives to a highly diverse and vibrant field that considers journalistic agency, the interplay of commercialisation and media control and the complexities of a rapidly changing media environment. The contributions to this special issue present nuanced approaches to self-censorship, the impact of digital technologies and political intervention.

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Post-socialist self-censorship: Russia, Hungary and Latvia

This article argues that today in Central and Eastern Europe self-censorship, journalistic freedom and autonomy are just as severely affected by economic constraints, oligarchic influences and new authoritarianism as they are by their Communist pasts.

Co-author: Ilya Yablokov, European Journal of Communication 35(1) 29–45
Published 10 February 2020

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Russian Philanthrocapitalism

RUSSIAN PHILANTHROCAPITALISM
Cultural Politics, Volume 15, Issue 1, 105-120.© 2019 Duke University Press

This article investigates philanthropic practices among Russia’s hyper-rich. It ponders whether and to what extent philanthrocapitalist concepts are compatible with traditional Russian approaches to elite philanthropy, which have been shaped and controlled by the country’s domineering state. Some of the multimillionaires and billionaires interviewed for this research have married philanthrocapitalist ideas with beliefs molded by their Soviet past and their self-perception as belonging to the intelligentsia. Such distinct and seemingly morally superior identities, together with active engagement in philanthropy, act as a lever with which to foster trust in the new social hierarchies and legitimize them across generations.

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Coercion or Conformism? Censorship and self-censorship among Russian media personalities and reporters in the 2010s

Federal television is a crucial element of the political system in Putin’s Russia. 88% of the Russian population use television news as their prime source of information, 65% regard the news reporting as objective and 51% trust television as an information source.[1] Television is, therefore, the primary and most effective tool employed by the political regime to influence its people. Since the onset of the Ukraine conflict and more hostile relations between Russia and the West, Russia’s main television channels have confounded the world with their ability to convince viewers of stories which are diametrically opposed to those shown in the West. What the Russian viewers see on state-aligned television is strongly shaped by the Kremlin. Particularly during Putin’s third presidential term, news reporting has become more propagandistic.[2]

Co-author: Ilya Yablokov (University of Leeds)
This is an updated version of an article published in Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 22/2, 2014, 295-311. It is republished in a special issue edited by Marlene Laruelle and Peter Rollberg on ‘Media in Eurasia’ in Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society.

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Power Lost and Freedom Relinquished: Russian Journalists Assessing the First Post-Soviet Decade

This article seeks a nuanced understanding of the troubled state that Russian journalism finds itself in today. As much as the Kremlin may be blamed as the source of these woes, it cannot be responsible for low ethical standards and lack of solidarity among journalists. This article explores what has hindered the journalistic community from developing stronger ethical standards over the past twenty-five years. Three significant events in the first post-Soviet decade serve as case studies: first, an early ethical code of conduct, the Moscow Charter of Journalists, produced in 1994; second, the 1996 presidential election campaign, which led to president Yeltsin’s victory over the Communist Gennadii Zuiganov; and third, the so called “information wars” between oligarchs, culminating in the 2001 demise of the television channel NTV. In unique interviews, conducted by the authors, thirty-five Russian elite journalists and media managers assessed the role they played in major political events and how these events impacted the freedom of media in Russia today.

Co-author: Ilya Yablokov (University of Leeds). The Russian Review 76/2, 2017, 526–41

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Introducing Russia’s Media Aristocracy

This collection of articles deals with the history and the current state of Russia’s media elite. It defines three groups of media elites; owners of media outlets, media managers and prominent journalists. All those groups are under pressure of being agreeable to the Kremlin and pleasing their audiences with their products and output. The Kremlin’s tightened control over the media forced some media professionals out, losing their jobs or emigrating. The majority, however, have kept their positions. They are reasonably well networked and integrated into the political system and successfully employ strategies partly inherited from Soviet times. The collection of articles provides insights into the inner working of Russian media, delivering a nuanced understanding of media control, censorship and self-censorship.

Co-editor: Ilya Yablokov. Russian Politics 2/1, 2017, 1-5

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Media Elites in Post-Soviet Russia and their Strategies for Success

Media managers are key in the relations between, on the one side the authorities, to whom they enjoy privileged access, and, on the other side the newsroom, the functioning of which they define. Contrary to the popular view, held both in Russia and abroad, that the Kremlin controls the majority of the country’s media, we argue that media managers have a fair bit of agency and are players in their own rights, able to shape their audiences’ attitudes and modify individual as well as collective behavior. To be able to exert this power they must, however, tread a very fine line: they have to demonstrate adekvatnost’ (literally adequacy, but better translated as appropriateness, or ‘the right feel for the game’) and demand adekvatnost’ from their journalists and editors. Focusing on two dimensions – elite theory and the concept of adekvatnost’ – this article analyses the data gleaned from interviews with a range of media managers.

Co-author: Ilya Yablokov. Russian Politics 2/1, 2017, 32-54

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From Soviet to Russian Media Managers

Smashing initial hopes for more radical and speedier changes in Russia, elements of the Soviet system of managerial and ideological control proved to be obstinately persistent. Certain practices reminiscent of the informal functioning of the Soviet nomenklatura continue unabated primarily in politics, but also in Russian media. This article argues that nomenklatura practices are still a fixed part in organization management in Russian media today, securing the loyalty of journalists and controlling the output of the news media. The analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews and three case studies, scrutinizing media managers’ professional biographies, directs to a non-intuitive development; namely, that it is not necessarily those who have experienced the Soviet nomenklatura closely and in person who were most active in applying and perpetuating nomenklatura practices, but also those who were either remote from these power structures or too young.

Co-authors: Vasily Gatov and Ilya Yablokov. Russian Politics 2/1, 2017, 7-31

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Russia’s Social Upper Class: From Ostentation to Culturedness

This article discusses examples of strategies employed by representatives of Russia’s new social upper class to acquire social distinction. By the late 2000s many of the upper-class Russians included in this study distanced themselves from the conspicuous ostentation ascribed to the brutish 1990s. Instead, they strove to gain legitimacy for their social position by no longer aggressively displaying their wealth, but instead elaborating more refined and individualized tastes and manners and reviving a more cultured image and self-image. These changes found their expression in various modes of social distinction ranging from external signs, such as fashion and cars, to ostentation vicariously exercised through the people these upper-class Russians surrounded themselves with.

British Journal of Sociology 65/1, 2014, 63-81

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Culture, Power and Social Disparity: Researching Russia’s Upper Class

This article explores the dynamics at play when conducting research on the contemporary upper class in Russia. It examines the effect of economic and social status divide between researcher and subjects on how to gain access to interviewees and how to handle the interview situation. Culturally specific expressions of power in social interaction are sought, their characteristics identified and their raison d’être explored. Furthermore, gender related issues encountered throughout the research are discussed; which commenced at the outset when applying to the ethics board and was evident at the end when presenting the data analysis.

This article has been republished by SAGE in their series Benchmarks in Social Research Methods: Barry Smart, Kay Peggs, and Joseph Burridge (eds): Critical Social Research Ethics, 4 Volumes.
Original published in Sociological Research Online 19 (4).

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