Local Media of

Post-Soviet Countries: Evidence from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine

An Introduction to the Special Issue

Olga Dovbysh

University of Helsinki, Finland

Katja Lehtisaari

University of Jyväskylä and University of Helsinki, Finland

The Importance of Research on Local Media and Journalism

Why do local media matter? In light of their role in supporting local communities and holding local authorities to account, such media are extremely important to local political participation and democratic processes.1 Today, in an era of misinformation and media fragmentation, local media are becoming even more important. Local reporters, who know their subjects and communities well, may help people to better understand what is happening in their towns and regions.

In a digital age, the concept of “place” as the domain of physical geography is now complicated by the idea of “space,” understood as demarcated geography or an abstract representation in which we view the social world, and which holds some social significance.2 Although the internet undoubtedly allows for instant connections between people across the globe and facilitates access to information from anywhere in the world,3 this placelessness inevitably contributes to problems that are common to many media today: challenges in connecting with the public and maintaining audience trust in news sources.4 Recent research recognizes the growing importance of locative journalism and connectedness to a place as critical for the trustworthiness of media and journalism, and indeed for social cohesion as a whole.5

The “local” or “spatial” turn in media studies detects the growing scholarly interest in the space-communication nexus and indicates the importance of geographic territories in local media practices and performance.6 The research argues for spatialized reorientation when theorizing media,7 for instance, reconsideration of the role of place in the news process and in journalists’ interaction with place and locality. With this special issue, we hope to highlight the importance of local media research in various socio-cultural settings and political regimes. There are weighty reasons for this. The challenges faced by local media in Western democracies may differ from those faced by local media in countries in transition, or in countries with non-democratic and authoritarian political regimes. Despite these differences, however, the local media of the post-Soviet countries8 have thus far been almost entirely excluded from studies of local media and journalism.9

What sets this special issue apart is that it seeks to explore the local media and journalism of post-Soviet countries as complex phenomena that, on one hand, develop within peculiar socio-political and economic regimes and, on the other, face the ongoing global transformations of media. Global tendencies such as digitalization and convergence of media, user involvement in news production, the growing importance of social media, and the platformization of media consumption are present everywhere. Besides offering a comparative perspective on the trajectories of local media development in different countries, the articles compiled for this special issue provide a more nuanced understanding of the functions of local media in the media system and for local communities in post-Soviet countries.

We consider local media to be not merely a subordinate part of the national media. Small-market media outlets often comprise the majority of a country’s media system. Moreover, the economic, political, and cultural environment is different for local and national media. Local journalistic practices also differ, not only between countries but also within countries.10 This gives rise to the following questions: How did local media adapt to shifts in the political and economic systems in post-Soviet countries? How have local journalistic culture and ethics been transformed in post-Soviet conditions? How do these media contribute to local democracies and public engagement? What value do local media provide to their readers (viewers), local authorities, and local communities today? These are some of the guiding questions for this special issue.

Transformation of Local Media and Journalism in Post-Soviet Countries

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a dramatic reconfiguration of media systems in the former Soviet republics.11 Changes occurred, not only in media regulation and financing models, but also, for example, in journalistic professional culture,12 the public image of journalists, the roles of mass media, and media consumption.13

In the nearly 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet countries have taken different routes toward democratization. Some countries, like Russia or Belarus, at first demonstrated progress towards democratization, but have since reversed course and taken a conservative turn that has seen them become more authoritarian regimes.14 A number of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, though they changed their names and economic models, remained highly authoritarian.15 With differing political, economic, and socio-cultural transformations, media institutions have developed in various ways in different countries in the post-Soviet era. However, in comparative perspective they share many common characteristics that differentiate them from normative (Western) media models. These include, for instance, the absence of a clear professional identity for journalists, a weak defense against the risks of sudden commercialization, and journalists’ habit of subordinating themselves to the needs of ownership and others.16

National media outlets and large media corporations have often been the central objects of transitional studies. Taking into account the power and control of national media over a country’s informational flows, these studies help to reveal the macro processes and features of a country’s media system. Local and regional media, while much less studied, have often been viewed as “younger brothers” and smaller copies of national media.

The investigation of national media alone does not, however, provide a full and nuanced understanding of a country’s media system and communication processes. More detailed investigation of local media and journalism in post-Soviet countries may, however, reveal significant differences between national and local media, determined by the peculiarities of local political regimes and power relations between federal and local authorities,17 journalistic practices and ethics,18 and the significance of culture for local identity.19

When turning our gaze to local media, we can also observe the societal role of journalism, including, for example, the presence of local patriotism and a possible critical watchdog role—these positions, though contradictory, have both been attached to local journalism.20 Earlier research has shown that it is typical for Russian regional media professionals to have a “dual” role, seeing themselves as both market and public service actors.21 In this issue, Erzikova and Lowrey continue their investigation into the professional values and roles of local journalists. Through a 12-year observation of media professionals in one Russian region, they show that financial struggles increase regional newspapers’ dependence on the regional government and explain how these relations affect journalistic professional values. The authors reveal that struggles to make personal ends meet have gradually undermined journalists’ attention to journalism’s larger logics and roles in the region, ultimately affecting local journalistic culture. Viewing government as benevolent, valuing moral education over news that might attract advertising, and increasing hostility to Western-style journalism shape journalistic practices and values, and channel media outlets’ behaviors in ways that are increasingly dependent on the region’s central administration.

Underdeveloped media markets with low advertising budgets, complemented by a powerful role for the state in regional media markets and media ownership, are typical of many post-Soviet countries (excluding the Baltic states).22 In Ukraine, this has resulted in the predominance of oligarchs as owners of media, making the latter politics-driven rather than market-driven. In Kazakhstan, where the majority of traditional and online media outlets are owned by President Nazarbayev’s family and an inner circle of politicians, the scant independent local media have very limited impact on public opinion. They lack adequate funding to provide news coverage and suffer under legislation that severely stifles their ability to conduct journalism.23 Similar situations in media markets that lead to different consequences call for detailed investigation of media control and its economic forms at the local level of a country’s media model.

In this issue, Dovbysh and Mukhametov dig further into the topic of state-media relations and financial dependence, conducting a nuanced analysis of state information contracts as a major tool of economic control over local media in Russia. The authors demonstrate that contractual relations influence not only media content, but also the professional practices of journalists and local media outlets’ performance in general.

Besides changes rooted in the legacy of specific Soviet developments, internet and digital technologies are probably the most important changes that have shaped local media and journalism over the last two decades. The internet has shown much promise for media development in post-Soviet countries, but this development is not universal. For example, many people still have only limited access to infrastructure and resources, although the situation has improved in recent years.24 In authoritarian regimes, one of the most powerful facets of the internet and social media is the potential to disseminate alternative information, whether shared between citizens or issued by organizations and alternative news outlets. For instance, in Azerbaijan, one of the most authoritarian of the post-Soviet states, the internet and social media provided the political opposition with an alternative space for campaigning and sharing information within a tightly controlled media system. However, scholars are pessimistic about the opposition’s ability to leverage social media to challenge the ruling political regime.25 The same is true in Kazakhstan, which has the highest internet penetration in Central Asia: the government uses effective tactics to limit social media’s potential to challenge political power by swiftly enacting oppressive media legislation, and is also beginning to monitor online activity.26

The article by Litvinenko and Nigmatullina in this issue explores how online media and social networking sites alter media landscapes in Russian cities, and how these changes contribute to the level of political criticism in mediated discussions. An important contribution of their research is interregional comparison, which suggests differences in media landscapes not only between federal and local media, but also between the local media of different regions.

Internet development also actualizes other changes in local mediated communication. A growing number of communication platforms, such as messaging apps, affect the organization of communication within local communities. For instance, during the COVID-19 outbreak in Russia, chats in messengers and local public groups became channels for leaking patients’ personal data, resulting in threats against—and harassment of—patients and their families.27

Another important aspect of local media often overlooked by scholarly discussion is the role these media play in the coverage of national—not just local—political issues.

In this special issue, Jon Roozenbeek explores how local media serve as curators of local identity through the discursive themes they discuss in their publications. He reviews the print media of the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine and their reporting before, during, and after the city’s 2014 occupation by militants of the so-called Donetsk “People’s Republic” (DNR), finding that the conflict fueled the replacement of local and regional identity discourse with a national (Ukrainian) one, even as the conflict itself receded from view as a topic of discussion.

Finally, Vasil Navumau studies how local media are used to disseminate a foreign political agenda. In Belarus, he explains, Russia-backed local online media disseminate propagandist and disinformation materials coming from Russia. The waves of disinformation materials mushroom ahead of and during important political events, such as top-level meetings between Belarusian and Russian leaders, negotiations on integration, etc. According to Navumau, Russian propagandists intentionally directed their efforts at the local level, where propaganda can quite naturally fill in the lacunae in the Belarusian media sphere left by the Belarusian authorities.

Toward a More Nuanced View of Local Media in Post-Soviet Countries

This issue also provides food for thought regarding future research in this area. The process of bringing the special issue together revealed that there is a significant imbalance in research, available data, and, consequently, academic and public knowledge about media in general and local media in post-Soviet countries in particular. Russian media studies traditionally dominate, distracting attention from other post-Soviet territories, whose local media models are often framed by default as “similar to Russia’s.” The high level of historical, economical, and cultural connections notwithstanding, this is definitely an overgeneralization: the media landscapes of these countries are not only different, but different in distinct ways. For starters, scholarly discussion has identified differences between authoritarian (Russia, Belarus) and competitive authoritarian regimes (Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia),28 which certainly affects the performance of local media in these countries.

Research on the local media of Central Asian and Caucasian countries is almost non-existent, especially at the international level. There is evidence of growing interest in these territories in terms of data collection,29 data journalism,30 and mapping the region’s media and communication landscape.31 Nevertheless, these media systems and local media deserve more detailed investigation.

After the Euromaidan and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, we have observed growing interest in research on local political processes in Ukraine.32 However, almost nothing has been said about local media in Ukraine. A similar situation exists in other post-Soviet countries, such as Georgia, that have recently gone through political uprisings and crises.33

While there is an overall need for studies on local media in certain post-Soviet territories, some topics call for particular further attention. These include the growing scholarly discussion on the importance of place, placeness, and locality in media and journalism studies. Emerging related issues, like so-called news deserts34—localities where there is no longer any proper journalistic coverage of events—must be conceptualised further. The individual contributions to this special issue take important steps in this direction by exploring several aspects of local media in post-Soviet countries and studying local media outlets and media professionals as substantive actors in a country’s media sphere rather than smaller copies of national media. We see the need for further theorization of how such notions as place and locality work within the different media landscapes, political regimes, economic milieus, and cultural settings of post-Soviet countries.

1 See, for example, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2015. “Introduction: The Uncertain Future of Local Journalism.” In Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, ed., Local Journalism. The Decline of Newspapers and the Rise of Digital Media. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1-25; Philip M. Napoli, Sarah Stonbely, Kathleen McCollough, and Bryce Renningen. 2015. Assessing the Health of Local Journalism Ecosystems: A Comparative Analysis of Three New Jersey Communities. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

2 Robert E. Gutsche Jr. and Kristy Hess. 2020. “Placeification: The Transformation of Digital News Spaces into ‘Places’ of Meaning.” Digital Journalism, digital first, 1-10.

3 Yochai Benkler. 2006. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.

4 Nikki Usher. 2019. “Putting ‘Place’ in the Center of Journalism Research: A Way Forward to Understand Challenges to Trust and Knowledge in News.” Journalism and Communication Monographs, 1-63.

5 Ibid.

6 Paul C. Adams and Andre Jansson. 2012. “Communication Geography: A Bridge between Disciplines.” Communication Theory 22: 3: 299-318.

7 Scott Rogers. 2018. “Roots and Fields: Excursions through Place, Space, and Local in Hyperlocal Media.” Media, Culture & Society 40: 6: 856-874.

8 Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are here called post-Soviet countries.

9 The recently-published The Routledge Companion to Local Media and Journalism (edited by Agnes Gulyas and David Baines, 2020) includes 46 chapters representing local media from around the world, from Australia to Kenya and from Japan to Colombia. The post-Soviet countries are represented only by Russia. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland, which are also included, can be considered as post-communist countries.

10 Nielsen, “Introduction: The Uncertain Future of Local Journalism.”

11 See, for example, Eric Freedman and Richard Shafer, eds. 2011. After the Czars and Commissars: Journalism in Authoritarian Post-Soviet Central Asia. East Lansing, MI: MSU Press; Karol Jakubowicz. 2007. Rude Awakening: Social and Media Change in Central and Eastern Europe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press; Ilya Kiriya. 2020. “Central and Local Media in Russia: Between Central Control and Local Initiatives.” In Agnes Gulyas and David Baines, eds., The Routledge Companion to Local Media and Journalism. Abingdon: Routledge, 167-175; Kaarle Nordenstreng, Elena Vartanova, and Yassen Zassoursky, eds. 2002. Russian Media Challenge, 2nd ed. Helsinki: Kikimora Publications.

12 Natalia Roudakova. 2017. Losing Pravda: Ethics and the Press in Post-Truth Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Bahtiyar Kurambayev. 2020. “The Causes and Consequences of Plagiarism by Journalists in Central Asia.” Asian Studies Review, 1-18.

13 Barbara Junisbai, Azamat Junisbai, and Nicola Ying Fry. 2018. “Mass Media Consumption in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan: The View from Below.” In Peter Rollberg and Marlene Laruelle, eds., Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World: Market Forces, State Actors, and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 139-168; Katja Lehtisaari and Galina Miazhevich, “Introduction. The Russian Media System at a Crossroads.” Russian Journal of Communication 11: 1: 1-5; Gunnar Nygren, Sara Leckner, and Carina Tenor. 2018. ”Hyperlocals and Legacy Media: Media Ecologies in Transition.” Nordicom Review 39: 1: 33-49.

14 Colin Sparks. 2018. “Post-Communism, Democratisation and the Media: (Nearly) Thirty Years On.” Javnost-The Public 25:1-2: 144-151.

15 Ibid.

16 John Downey and Sabina Mihelj, eds. 2012. Central and Eastern European Media in Comparative Perspective: Politics, Economy and Culture. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing; Peter Rollberg and Marlène Laruelle, eds. 2018. Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World: Market Forces, State Actors, and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag.

17 Kiriya, “Between Central Control and Local Initiatives”; Andreas Heinrich and Heiko Pleines. 2018. “The Meaning of ‘Limited Pluralism’ in Media Reporting under Authoritarian Rule.” Politics and Governance ٦: 2: 103-111.

18 Bahtiyar Kurambayev and Eric Freedman. 2020. “Ethics and Journalism in Central Asia: A Comparative Study of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.” Journal of Media Ethics ٣٥:١: ٣١-٤٤; Rashad Mammadov. ٢٠٢٠. “Political Activist, Citizen’s Helper, and Entertainer: A Study of Professional Role Perception of Journalists in Azerbaijan.” Journalism Practice, online first, 1-26; Olga Zeveleva. 2020. “Towards a Bourdieusian Sociology of Self-Censorship: What We Can Learn from Journalists Adapting to Rapid Political Change in Crimea after 2014.” European Journal of Communication ٣٥:١: ٤٦-٥٩.

19 Saara Ratilainen. 2020. “The Networked Architecture of Media Freedom in Contemporary Russia: The Case of Urban Online Magazines.” In Mariëlle Wijermars and Katja Lehtisaari, eds., Freedom of Expression in Russia’s New Mediasphere. Abingdon: Routledge, 77-95.

20 Nielsen, “Introduction: The Uncertain Future of Local Journalism.”

21 Olga Dovbysh. 2019. “Commercial or Public Service Actors? Controversies in the Nature of Russia’s Regional Mass Media.” Russian Journal of Communication 11: 1: 71-87.

22 Natalya Ryabinska. 2011. “The Media Market and Media Ownership in Post-Communist Ukraine: Impact on Media Independence and Pluralism.” Problems of Post-Communism ٥٨: ٦: ٣-٢٠.

23 Fergananews. “Who Owns Media in Kazakhstan?” May 16, 2017, At https://enews.fergananews.com/articles/3015.

24 On Russia, see Katja Lehtisaari. 2017. “Public Discussion on Information Society in Russia.” In Katja Lehtisaari and Arto Mustajoki, eds., Philosophical and Cultural Interpretations of Russian Modernisation. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 163-174.

25 Katy Pearce and Farid Guliyev. 2017. “Digital Knives are Still Knives: The Affordances of Social Media for a Repressed Opposition against an Entrenched Authoritarian Regime in Azerbaijan.” In Axel Bruns, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbo, Anders Olof Larsson and Christian Christensen, eds., The Routledge Companion for Social Media and Politics. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 235-247.

26 Gross, Peter. 2019. “Repackaged Authoritarian Policies: Kazakhstan’s ‘New’ Version of Media Controls.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 20: 1: 187-194.

27 Meduza. “We Should Know Them by Name.” April 23, 2020, At https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/04/23/we-should-know-them-by-name.

28 Heiko Pleines. 2019. “The Political Role of Business Magnates in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60: 2: 299-334.

29 Central Asia Data-Gathering and Analysis Team Research Project, At http://www.osce-academy.net/en/research/cadgat/.

30 Lampa. 2020. Online Conference on Data-Journalism, At https://lampa2020.tilda.ws/.

31 “Call for Book Chapters—Mapping the Media and Communication Landscape of Central Asia.” University of Helsinki (blog), At https://blogs.helsinki.fi/russianmedialab/2020/01/14/call-for-the-book-chapters-mapping-the-media-and-communication-landscape-of-central-asia/.

32 Oksana Huss, Max Bader, Andriy Meleshevych, and Oksana Nesterenko. 2020. “Explaining Variation in the Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Activism in Ukraine’s Regions: The Role of Local Context, Political Will, Institutional Factors, and Structural Factors.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization ٢٨:٢: ٢٠١-٢٢٧.

33 Bidzina Lebanidze and Kornely Kakachia. 2017. “Informal Governance and Electorate Perceptions in Hybrid Regimes: The 2016 Parliamentary Elections in Georgia.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization ٢٥: 4: 529-549.

34 Agnes Gulyas and David Baines. 2020. “Introduction: Demarcating the Field of Local Media and Journalism.” In Agnes Gulyas and David Baines, eds., The Routledge Companion to Local Media and Journalism. Abingdon: Routledge, 1-21.

This special issue was compiled with the support of Russian Media Lab Network, coordinated by the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/russianmedialab/.

Dr. Olga Dovbysh is a postdoctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, and coordinator of the Russian Media Lab Network initiative. She works at the intersection of media studies, economic sociology and political economy. Dr. Katja Lehtisaari is Senior Lecturer in journalism at University of Jyväskylä, Finland and Adjunct Professor (Docent) in media and communication studies at University of Helsinki, Finland. She is co-editor (with Mariëlle Wijermars) of Freedom of Expression in Russia’s New Mediasphere (Routledge, 2019) and (with Arto Mustajoki) of Philosophical and Cultural Interpretations of Russian Modernisation (Routledge, 2017).

Poverty and Morality: A Field Theory Analysis of Russia’s Struggling Provincial Journalism

Elina Erzikova

Central Michigan University

Wilson Lowrey

University of Alabama

Abstract: This study reflects on more than a decade of journalism in a Russian province through the prism of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. Qualitative data were collected each summer from 2007 through 2018. In-depth interviews and focus groups at three regional newspapers revealed that reporters and editors believed external (political and economic) pressure had increased in the province, leading to greater financial dependence on the regional government. Newspapers’ inability to survive without state subsidies in turn affected professional norms, resulting in a model of journalism reminiscent of the Soviet era: the regional government sets the agenda for newspapers and reporters focus mainly on what bureaucrats want to cover instead of what readers want to and/or should know. The study thus demonstrates that in Russia, the field of journalism is more heteronomous than autonomous, and its logic is fragmented, with age-old traditions and orientations channeling journalists’ agency in various ways.

The unique nature of Russian journalism has been shaped by numerous factors, including Russia’s geopolitical position, a turbulent history, and a rich, multiethnic cultural fabric.1 Since the era of Peter the Great, the Russian media system has been characterized by the state’s strong paternal relationship with journalists and media, with news media commonly viewed as an “innocent and obedient child.”2 For centuries, the media have been treated as an extension of the government or as an organ for state propaganda.3

The perestroika era (1985-1990) is regarded as a “golden age” of Russian journalism, providing a rare context in which “the child” was allowed to have a voice.4 During perestroika, journalists practiced within a field that was relatively detached from powerful institutions. The news media’s considerable degree of autonomy spurred the development of financial independence. In fact, after the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, ownership of many newspapers was transferred from the government to reporters and editors. In the mid-1990s, ownership by journalists was the most common form of media ownership.5

This level of autonomy would not last. The current study, which draws on 12 years of research on regional newspapers in one small province, shows a gradual shift away from modest journalistic autonomy around 2007 toward growing economic dependence on an increasingly iron-handed regional government by 2018. These dynamics are largely consistent with the dynamics of other Russian regions. While the early years of this 12-year period were not a time of strong press freedom, conditions were somewhat freer than today. The past 12 years have seen harsh economic conditions, increasing centralization of government and business authority, and a journalistic workforce that has become more fragmented and de-professionalized.

The three newspapers included in our study’s sample are legacy publications that were owned by staffers in the early 1990s. However, by the time our 12-year project started in 2007, only one of the three—the Traditional6—was even partially owned by staffers. In the early 2000s, a local business oligarch bought the Private and the regional government restored its ownership of the Government. In recent years, the Traditional, struggling mightily with recession conditions, pleaded with the regional government to become its financial sponsor, and the government finally took the Traditional under its wing in 2016.

People around the world are aware of the seismic shifts in Russian society and politics at the national level since perestroika, but Russian regions—and specifically their mass media—remain an under-researched area. This study contributes to the literature on local Russian journalism by providing insights about the last 12 years of journalism in a province through the prism of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory.7 Using data collected from journalists at the three newspapers via interviews and focus groups, the study examines perceptions of change and stasis in political and economic conditions, perceptions of change and stasis in the “logic” of journalistic practice, and the specific “positions” journalists have taken in response to these dynamics. The study’s findings are positioned within the context of widespread narratives about Russian journalists’ struggle in recent years.8

Literature Review

Vartanova argues that the Russian state has changed its policy and attitudes toward the media several times since the 1990s.9 In the early 1990s, many media organizations pursued privatization to earn profits and limit state interference. In the mid-1990s, the state attempted to establish control over the media, but this was unsuccessful because powerful players (industrial-financial groups, regional administrations, etc.) were not integrated. Political elites did, however, manage to use their connections with media owners to bargain for electoral support in exchange for favorable conditions for news organizations. Vladimir Putin’s election as president in 2000 signaled the start of the third period of state-media relations, during which the state (re)established control over most electronic news organizations and regional publications.

Since the early 2000s, the Kremlin has increased its political pressure on Russian media,10 mainly through economic and legal means.11 The screws were tightened following the mass protests against electoral fraud during the State Duma elections in December 2011 and the presidential elections in March 2012.12 Shortly thereafter, the two most popular online news outlets, Lenta and Gazeta, both of which had been critical of Putin’s government, were brought under common ownership and their editors were replaced by management loyal to the owner.13 As the result of the “loyal editor effect,” investigative stories (e.g., about legal injustice and corruption among the elites) were replaced with human-interest stories.14 Gatov et al. argue that by appointing trusted editors to private and state-aligned media outlets, the Kremlin has reinstated the Soviet-era nomenklatura model or a “system of privileged positions.”15 Corrupt protégés maintain loyalty and self-censorship in newsrooms through control and coercion, enjoying direct and indirect material benefits for doing so. These practices are mimicked at provincial levels as regional authorities, supported by different groups of federal elites,16 attempt to prove their efficiency and loyalty to Moscow by forcing local media to paint favorable pictures of their provinces.

To a certain degree, compliance with the authorities17 is fueled by fear of losing government subsidies. Though one recent study involving interviews with top Russian media executives suggested the Russian media system will remain advertising-driven over the next 10 years, this seems doubtful in the economically depressed provinces.18 Indeed, our earlier research19 indicated that advertising has never been the main source of revenue for regional socio-political publications, even during the relatively stable years before the Great Recession of 2008. Regional publications have long relied on a variety of revenue streams, including low-cost popular supplements and subsidies from the regional budget.

Just as a national publication like Komsomolskaya Pravda receives financial subsidies from the Kremlin,20 provincial publications accept financial aid from regional governments in exchange for positive coverage of officials.21 As Vartanova explains, “After the collapse of the daily Soviet newspaper system, Russia’s new regional/local press was either highly commercialized and sensationalized, or instrumentalized by informal state-business alliances.”22 According to a report by the official agency overseeing mass media,23 the Russian government allocated 55 billion rubles to support regional and local publications in 2018. This financial support had a pragmatic goal: to preserve the structure of important state and private media in the Russian regions.

Field Theory and Local Russian Journalism

The picture painted thus far has focused primarily on the political and economic challenges and pressures faced by regional news outlets. It becomes far more complex when we start to consider the history of the field and the traditions of regional Russian journalism. Our study adopts Bourdieu’s field theory24 to help explain the varied perceptions and practices of journalists in this province as they seek to reposition their purposes and practices in the face of increasing political-economic challenges and in a context of persistent (yet fragmenting) cultural traditions, some of which have weakened or strengthened over the years.

Bourdieu’s approach allows for complex influences and outcomes in an environment that accommodates both agency and structure: individuals and organizations, such as journalists and local news organizations, operate within a field, a social space positioned at a meso level, between macro-level influences (e.g., political and economic pressures) and micro-level individual perceptions and behaviors. A key idea is that a field possesses some degree of autonomy from wider external forces. The field has an internal logic, or nomos, that shapes individuals’ perceptions and behaviors within the field. Forces and factors from the field’s environments are “refracted” by this internal logic, though the strength of this refraction varies, as fields are more or less autonomous or heteronomous in the face of these influences. In the case of local Russian journalism, past evidence points to a diminished internal logic and a weakly autonomous field, particularly in the face of powerful political-economic influences. Nevertheless, we maintain that the field still exists and has an internal logic and boundaries, porous and weak though these may be.

The structure of Bourdieu’s field is shaped by economic, cultural, symbolic and social capital, which is distributed across the field. Individuals compete for these forms of capital as they take or defend various positions—in the field of local journalism, for instance, starting a new publication or seeking to maintain an existing one.25 Distribution of capital, individuals’ perceptions and behaviors, and the positions individuals take are all affected by the proximity of various sources of power—for example, how much individual journalists’ livelihoods and the survival of local news operations depend on harmony with regional commercial and political power and resources. Bourdieu does not clearly distinguish between economic and political power; we adopt Benson’s perspective,26 which distinguishes between the two, recognizing that while economic and political factors often correlate in the way they shape the journalistic field, they can also act in distinct ways, as has been seen in Russia’s regions.

Individuals are socialized by their experiences within the field and also prior to entering their field, as individuals travel trajectories through time, and across and within fields. We expect that the socialization of local journalists within their families, communities, schools, and workplaces shapes their ongoing decision-making. Importantly, individuals’ decisions and behaviors are also shaped by what Bourdieu calls habitus, a system of dispositions, or a sense for how the game is played within the field (developed prior to field entry and also within the field). Habitus is shaped over time and orients decisions and behaviors. Habitus is a socially located concept, evident both in the behaviors of individuals in the field and in the ways the field has been structured through past social interaction (for example, the distribution of the various forms of capital).27 Habitus and external forces—the structuring routines of journalists’ lives, but also powerful macro-level forces—shape the field’s internal logic or logics over time. Lack of change or reproduction in fields is a common finding in field studies and is largely explained by the persistent qualities of power relationships, habitus, and nomos.28

Past research on Russian journalism suggests that the logic of the regional Russian journalistic field is fragmented.29 There are multiple dimensions or orientations to this logic—some age-old, some relatively new—and these may play a role in the governance of this journalistic field: (1) an orientation toward journalism as an aid to government for the good of the people; (2) an orientation toward journalism as a moral educator; and (3) a more recent orientation toward Western journalism traditions, including the watchdog function and commodification of audiences for advertising, which date back to the perestroika era.

We expect that these factors—external pressures from fields of power, the various forms of capital, the fragmented logic of the field, and the habitus that co-exists with these logics—will either shift over time or persist. As a consequence, they will help explain both change and stasis in journalists’ roles, purposes, practices and products as they seek to “go on” in some meaningful way amid disruptive times.

Based on the discussion above, this study seeks to answer the following research questions:

RQ 1: What are regional journalists’ perceptions of changes of the field in relation to changing external political and economic power?

RQ 2: What are regional journalists’ perceptions of changes of the field in relation to old and new traditions—that is, in relation to the field’s fragmented logic?

RQ 3: What positions are regional journalists taking in response to changing external pressures and internal logic?

Method

This research is based on qualitative study of journalism practices and contexts in a single Russian province. The qualitative data were collected each summer from 2007 to 2018, resulting in 12 years of data. However, all data reported in this study derive from research conducted in the summer of 2018.

Since the 1990s, Russian subnational units have been split into two categories—donor region and recipient region—as a result of transitional reforms that intensified regional differentiation and deepened the socioeconomic disparity between regions. The province under study is an economically depressed “recipient” region that requires subsidies from the federal budget to ensure social, economic, and environmental development.30

In 2007, four legacy newspapers were included in the sample. These papers met six criteria: (a) they were regional in scope (i.e., produced and distributed in an administrative area outside the capitals); (b) they were socio-political or “quality” publications, and so addressed public issues; (c) they had circulations of at least 10,000 copies per week; (d) they were published regularly; (e) they had operated in the local media market for at least 12 years; and (f) the ownership structure was different at each paper. One of these four newsrooms was dropped from the study in 2014 because reporters there were replaced by advertising managers.

We use pseudonyms to describe these newspapers instead of their actual titles. In addition, for the purpose of this study, such terms as “regional,” “provincial,” and “local” are used interchangeably.

The Government is the oldest newspaper in the region. An organ of the regional government, it is supported by subsidies from the state budget. This 16-page bi-weekly has a circulation of 18,000 copies per week, and its monthly supplement (with a circulation of 100,000 copies) is distributed for free in rural areas. The Government updates its website regularly and manages a number of social media platforms. In 2007, when this research project began, the Government was a 24-page bi-weekly with a circulation of 24,000 copies per week. The number of pages per issue decreased by one-third during the Great Recession.

The Private, a 16-page weekly, was historically owned by a local businessman, who also owned a TV station, a radio station, and a news agency. As with the Government, the Private was forced to reduce the number of pages in each issue from 24 to 16 during the Great Recession. The Private does not have a website. In addition to having free advertising through the owner’s other media, the Private obtains contracts with government agencies (e.g., the Ministries of Education and Health) to report on their bureaucrats’ activities. In 2016, the title of these contracts was changed from “information contracts” to “state assignments.”

The Traditional is a 16-page weekly publication launched by the city administration 20 years ago to create a mayoral counterweight to the regional media, which were controlled by the governor. The mayor’s resignation inaugurated years of financial struggle for the Traditional. The newspaper became eight pages “thinner” during the Great Recession and laid off a number of staffers. The paper survived the 2008 economic recession mainly due to the revenue earned by a low-cost supplement for gardeners. In 2016, the regional government began supporting the paper through “state assignments.” Yet the newspaper still cannot afford more than four staff writers. In 2007, the publication had 12 reporters and its circulation was 12,000 copies per week. Currently, the Traditional has a website, but it is updated only once a week after the publication of each print issue.

Both the Government and Traditional offered online content free of charge. None of the three newspapers’ circulations has been audited, and some interviewees suggested that circulation numbers were overstated.

To gather data, a series of interviews and focus groups were conducted in 2018 with 23 reporters and editors: 10 staffers at the Government, six at the Traditional and seven at the Private. One focus group with rank-and-file reporters was held at the Private (n=5) and also at the Traditional (n=3), while two focus groups of four participants apiece were held at the Government. Observations of daily work and both formal and informal meetings were conducted in all newsrooms.

Study participants’ professional experiences varied widely in terms of their time in the profession (from three months to 40 years) and the types of media for which they had previously worked (from rural newspapers to urban mainstream publications). Only six of the 23 participants had journalism degrees. Most staff are middle-aged, but there are outliers at each paper as well, with some staffers in their 60s and some young reporters in their 20s. The majority of respondents (15 out of 23) were women.

Of the 23 personal interviews, 20 took place in staffers’ offices and three outside of newsrooms. Newspaper issues were used during interviews to ground discussion in actual lived situations. All three focus groups were conducted within the offices. On average, each interview and focus group lasted two hours. All conversations were audio-recorded and informed consent was granted prior to interviewing.

Findings

Journalists’ Perceptions of Changing Political and Economic Power

The first research question asks about regional journalists’ perceptions of changes in the field in relation to external political and economic power. Respondents from all three newspapers stated that political and economic conditions have become more oppressive and constraining for the region’s news outlets over the last 12 years. Yet perceptions of these effects varied across the sample.

The Traditional has been the most heavily affected, according to respondents. The number of reporters has declined from 12 to three over the past 12 years. During the Great Recession (2008-2009), the newspaper laid off a secretary, typists, and advertising managers, and even sold a car that was used for business trips to rural areas. Indeed, the Traditional was one step away from bankruptcy when the government began providing minimum subsidies in the form of “state assignments” in 2016.

Neither Private nor Government reporters have seen an annual salary increase in line with inflation for at least five years, while their honorariums (monetary incentives for being productive) were cut in 2008. During the focus group at the Traditional, a reporter with more than 40 years of journalism experience said an honorarium for a full-page story in the paper’s lead section was 300 rubles: “I am not motivated to do in-depth investigations because I would spend more on public transportation than I earn from the honorarium.” (Note: A bus/trolley ticket cost 20 rubles when the interview took place). A seasoned Government reporter said she does not open her household bills before going to work to avoid being upset all day. Some participants admitted that they have a side job, such as proofreading for businesses.

Managers at both papers attributed the poor salaries of staffers to the difficult economic situation facing the country and the region. However, with the job market tightening, managers said they did not worry about staffers departing their newsrooms. Only two reporters—one from the Government and another from the Private—pointed out deficiencies in newspaper management, specifically managers’ reluctance to innovate rather than maintain longstanding practices. Both indicated that “big journalism” (successful profitable publications) offered different types of resources to publications like theirs, from tips on innovation to educational seminars, but management “does not bother.” Most reporters, working by contract, offered no critique of management, saying that their role within the newspaper does not include analyzing managerial decisions or suggesting ways to improve operations—comments that suggest that journalists have withdrawn from engagement with external pressures on the journalism field, which they view as the job of managers. Common among Private and Government reporters was the sentiment succinctly expressed by one Private reporter: “My job is to write stories and management’s job is to manage the newspaper.”

All newspapers suffered from a massive loss of advertisers during the Great Recession. However, none of the respondents provided details, saying management prohibits staffers from discussing the newspaper’s financial situation. Participants have been declining to answer questions about sources of funding since the beginning of this longitudinal study in 2007, claiming that it is not their concern or they do not have a clear idea.

Despite a decline in advertising, there has been a proliferation of free private newspapers in the region over the past 12 years. However, respondents said these papers added no journalistic value: “They look like newspapers, but they are just wrapping paper.” As one senior Government reporter put it: “More newspapers doesn’t mean better journalism.” Her colleague added that the dependency of these private papers’ reporters’ on their owner makes them submissive:

Some years ago, they would not have been afraid [for their paper] to lose a sponsor because they knew another sponsor would pick them up. The financial situation in the country has changed. Fewer and fewer sponsors are available, and reporters are fearful.

Participants from all three papers said the regional government has become more coercive over the years. They attributed this to both the harsh economic situation in the country and the growth of political apathy, specifically low turnout during elections. The regional government directly censored each issue of the Government to prevent media criticism from turning the public mood even further against the governor during the most recent gubernatorial campaign, a manager said. In addition, reporters indicated that the regional government has paid the Traditional and Private to work on so-called “state assignments,” or positive stories about developments and events in the region. However, a seasoned reporter at the Traditional said that he considered government subsidies to be not entirely detrimental because they protect journalistic dignity, in the sense that “newspapers don’t need to publish ‘yellow’ news to survive.” He continued:

Someone makes money on drugs or prostitution. Someone makes money on some people’s shameful interest in others’ private lives. Regional journalism doesn’t have [to do this], partially because of state subsidies. But provincial journalism has a different problem—boredom.

In other words, state assignments were seen as a double-edged sword. They helped to avoid sensationalism—which journalists in the region tend to equate with Western-style journalism, which is generally deemed to be inferior to Russian journalistic traditions—but they added to the “boredom,” as mandatory stories are seen as unattractive to readers. Reporters across the studied newsrooms also complained about a lack of expertise on the part of the government officials who distribute state assignments and evaluate their outcomes. As a Traditional reporter put it, “Random people in the government have only one evaluation criterion: whether the governor was covered. They are not able to judge the [news] quality. State monies are largely wasted on nonsense stories.”

In this region, the phenomenon of hidden political publicity in regional newspapers dates back to the 1990s. Over the years, this practice, as well as dependence on government revenue, has been regularized, even institutionalized, reporters said. However, respect for the government is minimal among reporters. A manager for the Government said that over the past 12 years, “the regional government’s indifference toward the newspaper” has grown substantially:

Who worked in the government apparatus before? Well-prepared officials who understood the place and role of the media in society. In the last 12 years, the apparatus has started changing: random people have come [there]. The purpose of the newspaper is oblique to them.

A manager for the Traditional said that while distributing assignments, “the regional government has never provided an overall strategy for the coverage of bureaucrats’ activities.” The manager thought that due to their poor education and lack of journalistic experience, the “ideologists” in the government were simply not capable of creating such a strategy.

Though it appears that the government directly and overtly controls only a certain number of pages in each issue, newspapers are cautious about challenging the government even on other pages. Thus, as a result of direct official intervention and self-censorship by news staffers, the government essentially manages all content. However, while Traditional staffers avoid criticizing public officials in the paper, Private reporters still question bureaucrats’ actions or inactions. A Traditional reporter with more than 40 years of journalism experience said that if her newspaper wants governing officials’ attention, it should critique them more. She gave the example of the city’s dilapidated advertising pillars, saying that the administration has neglected them and should be reminded to take care of them.

Participants from all newspapers stated that in the past decade, new national legislation regarding libel claims31 has had the effect of “tightening a rope around the neck” of journalists, as one experienced Private reporter put it. He explained that because of new laws, lawyers are able to interpret any criticism as libel, making it easier for the government to close newspapers down. His younger colleague said that even if she found a “potential bomb” (a news lead with shock value), she “would think twice about writing about it.” She is not sure if her newspaper would assist her in a legal battle with “those whose misdeeds were made public.” When she started her career five years ago, she would not have been so fearful because “bureaucrats had not yet learned to use lawyers against reporters.”

Journalists’ Perceptions of Change to Old and New Traditions

The second research question asks about regional journalists’ perceptions of change in the field in relation to the fragmented logic of the field—that is, the varied orientations toward journalistic norms and practices. All participants said that the century-old logic of Russian journalism as a commitment to the moral education of readers has been eroding in the past decade,32 a change that has been reflected in their own approaches to journalism. As a middle-aged reporter from the Traditional said, “The media around the world earn money, not educate.” A young Private reporter offered that moralistic stories might be important from a normative journalism standpoint but they “don’t increase sales.”

The Private is known in the region as a pioneer of life-hacking journalism, an approach that aims to help ordinary people survive in the current harsh times. While this logic departs from the age-old logic of Russian journalism as moral education, it too has a history: it dates back to the Soviet era, when close bonds developed between journalists and the ordinary citizens who sought their advice on practical matters of daily life—a decidedly apolitical approach to journalism.33 For example, the newspaper “translates” new legislation (e.g., laws regarding pensions34) from bureaucrat-speak to ordinary language and provides readers with clear plans of action (e.g., outlining whom to call to recalculate pension amounts). A young Private reporter said that she found out that centralized city phone numbers to call a doctor were about to change, and she regarded this information as the most important news of the week. The reporter said this news would make the Private a useful source of information once again: “the entire city would go crazy.” The paper also publishes a lunar calendar that offers gardening and medical advice.

The Traditional staffers, who tend to be adherents of the older moral-education school of journalism, were skeptical of their Private colleagues’ approach. A seasoned Traditional reporter said, “A story about how to treat hemorrhoids doesn’t morally educate.” In his view, the purpose of journalism is “to sow the seeds of all things sensible, kind, eternal.” This purpose shapes the format: the Traditional emphasizes feature and/or analytical stories, in-depth reports, and graceful essays. Short, fact-centered news stories are disfavored: they are associated with Western journalism, according to at least half of the interviewed journalists, who cast doubt on the veracity of these “facts,” which they say lack interpretive context. As the seasoned Traditional reporter said:

Naked facts are tricky. Look at Euronews [a European TV news network]: “The Crimea is suffering from lack of water.” And no word about the fact that Ukraine cut the water off. Is it journalism? The West says journalism should not teach, but Western journalism does teach—just not “sensible, kind, eternal.” It teaches the opposite.

Similarly, a Government manager said that short news stories, shorn of context, serve Western propaganda purposes and that overall, Western journalism is a tool to undermine the Russian state.

However, complicating these fragmented logics, a young Government reporter who worked at a private newspaper before joining the Government said there is an economic reason for reporters to master the craft of producing “short news”—namely, that such stories keep websites fresh and encourage site traffic: “Advertisers are getting younger and are interested in placing ads online. Accordingly, we need to have a well-maintained website.” Yet staffers’ attitudes toward, and understanding of, online news have evolved only slowly over the past 12 years, mainly because staffers do not see digital reporting as “real journalism,” the reporter said. Interestingly, he himself perceived online news only as a process of informing people, which overlaps with journalism but is no substitute for it. He saw himself as a mere “transmitter of news, not a journalist in the sense of truth-seeking.”

His colleague, whom the younger reporter revered as a “journalist from God,” said younger reporters’ stories resemble “an instruction manual for how to use a vacuum.” She explained their lack of good writing skills by reference to the fact that younger reporters grew up in an era when the “value of reading books was replaced by the value of earning money,” and therefore they are unable to think and interpret facts: “When we were younger, we wanted to find a topic in a real life and share our thoughts. They want to find a story on the Internet and publish it on the Internet.”

Across the three papers, journalists who were socialized in the profession during perestroika said that over the past decade, they have seen a steady stream into newsrooms of reporters who have been unable to support the longstanding tradition of moral education, thus eroding this journalistic logic. Perestroika-era reporters said that in their view, many younger reporters are not capable of performing even the simplest tasks—like writing short, punchy Western-style news stories—without heavy guidance about which topics are meaningful and extensive editing.

Responses by Regional Journalists

The third research question asks what positions in the journalistic field regional journalists are taking in response to changing external pressures and a changing internal logic. Analysis of our interviews suggests that journalism and reporters’ positions within the field—the roles to which they are accustomed—have changed over the past decade. For example, investigative reporting as a means to keep governments and businesses accountable has greatly declined in the province. A Traditional reporter explained that the proliferation of investigative stories during perestroika was driven by audience interest in previously forbidden topics. No longer. As a Traditional manager said, these days readers shield themselves from discovering “what else is wrong with the state, government and officials.” In addition, reporters, who used to co-own their newspapers, no longer have any ownership rights. New owners—the state or business—direct staffers to pursue the owners’ agendas, which rarely overlap with reporters’ visions or readers’ needs.

Institutionalized contracts with the government have had a significant impact on news choices, leading reporters to focus on what bureaucrats want to cover instead of what readers want to and/or should know. Reporters from all three newspapers said that government-sponsored events are often meaningless, mere imitations of vivid activities in the real world, a “check-mark happening” with little or no news value. The number of these events that reporters are encouraged to attend has grown significantly in the past decade, and this demand is a burden on increasingly understaffed newsrooms that are frantically trying to report the same amount of news as fully staffed newsrooms. This is why, as a Private reporter said of other papers, “Local newspapers are full of meaningless stories.” She added that her newspaper “would never write something like ‘a bear at a local zoo got a new cage.’” In her opinion, despite having only a small number of reporters, her paper, the Private, has continued to supply readers with news they can use in their daily lives: “The world has become harsh and rational, [so our] focus is on only things that will be beneficial.” According to another reporter, the quality of stories has eroded over the past 12 years: “Primitivism wins. Smart phrases are marked off [edited out].” He said that every attempt to “write like a writer” is shot down by management, who ask questions like: “What are you doing? Do you want readers to have to use an encyclopedia to understand your article?”

The obligation to work under contracts (state assignments) has altered reporters’ relationships with press services, or the units of state organizations responsible for disseminating information to the media. Any unsanctioned criticism of a state organization might result in an official press service refusing to provide the newspaper with the information needed to report on a state-assigned topic in a timely manner. This would throw the government contract into jeopardy and put the reporter at risk of losing her job.

As the regional government has become an increasingly important “target audience” over the years, the positions of daily journalists in the province—the way they see their daily goals and roles—have shifted away from a focus on their readers, which worries some respondents. As a seasoned Government reporter said, the paper pays superficial attention to what readers need, while the needs of officials and journalists are prioritized: “At newsroom weekly meetings, we discuss the next print issue in terms of (1) how to serve the government and (2) how to satisfy our creative drive.” She worried that the Government does not connect with its readers enough to encourage them to write letters, or call or visit the newsroom. A Government manager thought the biggest change over the past decade had been a shift in the way the reader was conceptualized. Increasingly, the reader is viewed as a “consumer” rather than as a citizen: “People want to be entertained, or they want help in solving a particular problem. It’s better if they don’t need to do anything and someone else does everything for them.”

While life-hacking journalism was perceived as a negative development by the Government and Traditional, the Private supported the idea of turning every page into a helping hand for readers. This approach has become its business model, with sales as the main indicator of success. According to reporters, the Private publisher attempts to marry old journalistic traditions (at least the trappings of moral education) with modern-day consumerism. For example, the publisher would assign a round-table discussion with Russian Orthodox Church priests and publish icons that readers would cut out of the newspaper page and glue to thick paper to save money.

Life-hacking journalism may have economic benefits for the newspaper, but it can also be seen as somewhat consistent with the Soviet-era tradition of strong engagement and interaction with readers. However, readers in the Soviet era were less likely to endure extreme financial hardship, as the state took care of basic needs. Therefore, interaction today has become more focused on small mundane matters (how to grow tomatoes on a balcony), as opposed to the deeper “moral education” and more meaningful prodding of bureaucrats on behalf of readers that occurred during Soviet times.35 Moreover, this type of journalism—which views the reader as a consumer rather than as a citizen—is apolitical and therefore less likely to run afoul of increasingly oppressive political pressures.

Over the past 12 years, the Private has refined its relationships with local bureaucrats and now operates with a certain degree of autonomy. The newspaper has been able to position itself as a valuable “partner” of its readers when it comes to explaining complex information about new laws and amendments. However, critics of this approach say such a partnership, even if it helps readers, conflicts with the idea of independent judgment and reporting that reporters used to practice during perestroika in this region. As a seasoned Private reporter said, “In essence, Russian journalism is [supposed to be] a holy fool, the only one who tells the Tsar the truth. What bureaucrat will tell the truth? Not one. Only journalists.”

Across all papers, participants agreed that the past decade had seen reporters’ financial priorities gradually became more important than the newspapers’ missions to provide readers with information that helps them make informed decisions. Reporters produce as many stories as possible to earn honorariums, or payment from management for helping to fill the paper. An in-depth investigation requires days and weeks of intensive labor, but an honorarium is estimated based on the length of a story, not its significance and impact. Ambitious professional goals of becoming “reporter of the year” would likely leave a reporter unable to pay the bills, since the base salary is low. As a Government reporter said, “The cost of our labor is low. A 6-month subscription is 360 rubles; a supply of toilet paper for 6 months is more than 360 rubles.” In a very real and personal sense, regional reporters share concerns about poverty with the majority of the Russian population, and this concern has influenced their professional goal-setting for the past 12 years.

Discussion

This study explores and analyzes journalists’ perceptions of change over the past 12 years in one Russian region. Overall, these journalists perceive that economic and political pressures have increased over the years, diminishing autonomy. However, journalists’ responses to these external challenges have varied across the papers, and concepts from Bourdieu’s field theory help shed light on these contexts and responses.

From a field theory perspective, findings from the first research question, about macro-level economic and political impact, are clear. Economic conditions have grown increasingly difficult in the region over the past 12 years, particularly in the private sector, leading news outlets to depend more heavily on government subsidies and to focus on economic capital over cultural capital, both at the organizational level and at the individual level. For many journalists, personal struggles to make ends meet have gradually undermined their attention to journalism’s larger logics and roles in the region.

Also in recent years, the job market has dried up. This has made news managers increasingly immune from earlier concerns that disgruntled reporters with limited autonomy would go elsewhere. Political power largely controls economic capital (a finding more consistent with Bourdieu’s view of the fields of power than with Benson’s), and the journalism subfield has been positioned closer to—and become more vulnerable to influence from—the fields of political and economic power.

We see journalists embracing two occupational purposes in two different locations of the field where economic capital has pooled: producing work that serves government officials and, to a lesser degree, producing work that attracts reader-consumers and therefore rubles from advertising. However, ad revenue is limited, and growing acceptance of local government as a primary source of revenue seems to have reduced the incentive to seek advertising revenue at the Government and the Traditional. This trend has correlated with a growing aversion to the Western view that readers are customers to whom news outlets and news content should cater.

The second research question asked about journalists’ perceptions of changes in the field in relation to orientations toward the field’s logic, or nomos. While journalists’ perceptions and roles are strongly affected by political-economic pressures, traditional logics for the field and the corresponding journalistic habitus are significantly reshaping the meso-level field’s topography. This reshaping of logics channels the effects of external pressures in particular directions. This is a type of “effect” that is unique to the topography of “field” approaches, with their metaphorical “slope [a gradient] down which an object will ‘roll.’36 Specifically, the age-old view of journalism as companion to government encourages the role of serving officials,37 while the age-old tradition of journalism as moral education discourages “short stories” or catering to readers as “customers,” which many of these journalists see as constituting Western-style journalism that provides “bite-sized,” easy-to-consume facts without substantive context or with limited, misleading context. Again, we see the effects of habitus: journalists in the field have traveled trajectories shaped by these two traditions in the past and reaffirm the two traditions through their daily practice. This deepens the contours of these logics in the field, channeling and encouraging effects from the field of power and economic capital.

In the past, perestroika-era Western models of journalism provided deeper “channels” within the topography of the field, but these channels have eroded in recent years, becoming shallower, and they do not direct behavior as they used to. While not “logics of the field” per se, demographic trends have also shaped the field’s topography. The workforce has been increasingly split between (1) older perestroika-era journalists and their orientations toward both the journalistic craft and traditional ideas of serving the populace, whether through moral education or even a lingering perestroika-era watchdog mentality; and (2) younger journalists who tend to be more oriented toward the revenue side of journalism and more receptive to online digital journalism, tracking online audiences, and writing short, fact-based, easy-to-consume stories that generate online audiences. This generational divide is not unique to Russian journalism, but it does seem to be acrimonious and pervasive across these newsrooms.

In sum, Russian journalists at these papers show increasing desperation to maintain some flow of economic capital. In a sense, it seems that cultural and symbolic capital have diminished—knowing the “codes” of journalism and gaining recognition and status simply matter less. Harsh economic conditions and dependence on the government are the primary causes.

However, the relationship with cultural capital is complex. From another perspective, the “topography” of the field’s various logics encourages dependence on government revenue. The age-old logic of pursuing morally uplifting content rather than Western-style stories—i.e., stories bleached of interpretation and moral guidance—further explains these newspapers’ continuing dependence on the government. The alternative would be to produce many brief stories tailored to the market, which could possibly bring in readers, online traffic, and advertising (an alternative source of revenue to government subsidies).

The third research question asks about journalists’ responses to external pressures and to the fragmented logic of their field. In other words, what “positions” have journalists taken in the field’s “space of possibles”? One position is, for all intents and purposes, within the field of political-economic power, namely serving the government by reporting extensively on officials. This may be coerced by government control over economic capital, but at the Government and Traditional, it is also encouraged or enabled by the normative opposition to short, Western-style, consumer-oriented stories.

Another position, taken by journalists at the Private in particular, is to embrace customer-centered approaches. Arguably, this approach is somewhat consistent with the Russian tradition of reader-centered journalism that dates back to the Soviet era, but critics see this approach as primarily economically motivated and as consistent with Western-style views of journalism and audiences. Over the last 12 years, Western views have increasingly been perceived as inappropriate, an aversion that has spiked in recent years. However, journalists at the Private seek to convert the economic capital gained from such a strategy into symbolic capital—i.e., recognition for helping readers in need of guidance. This approach also offers at least one narrow avenue for reducing dependence on government subsidies and, therefore, for gaining some modest measure of autonomy and serving readers in a traditional Russian way.

Conclusions

Amid economic and political pressures, journalists at the three newspapers in this study’s sample struggle to maintain some control over and autonomy within their field. Their solutions vary widely, leading to fragmentation within the field.

Perceptions of the nature of news are different across the newspapers. Journalists at the Government create “positive news” that will not inflame the province and lead to problems for the provincial government.

The Private aims for news they think readers want or need to read, but critics decry such stories as either pandering paternalism or as bureaucratic information or administrivia. They say, for example, that publishing an announcement that doctors’ phone numbers are changing is not “news” as Soviet scholars defined the genre: “informatsiia—eto novost’ o sushchestvennom” (information is news about the significant).

A seasoned reporter said of the severely understaffed newsroom of the desperately poor Traditional: “When we had four people on board, I felt we had a crowd.” Criticism of the government is highly unlikely to come from this paper, given its tiny staff and its dependence on (and timidity vis-à-vis) the central administration. Given that the paper’s most experienced reporter thought it would be critical of the city administration to point out that advertising pillars around the city are in bad shape, Traditional readers are unlikely to see in-depth investigations of bureaucrats’ corrupt practices.

None of these papers appears likely to take confrontational stances toward the government. Their heavy dependence on government income, their lack of meaningful alternative sources of revenue, and the employer-friendly labor market combine to make this journalistic field more heteronomous than autonomous, and there is little reason to believe that changes are on the horizon. According to field theory, persistent logics in the fragmented field—viewing government as benevolent, valuing moral education over news that might attract advertising, and an increasing animosity for all things Western (reporters who watch Western media view it as biased and hostile)—shape the habitus of the journalists and channel news outlets’ behaviors in ways that increase dependence on the region’s central administration.

Still, there are inconsistencies in this story of the field. Normative views of journalism as moral education are still associated with truth-seeking, a hallowed journalistic purpose across many generations. There are still perestroika-era journalists who revere journalists’ role as watchdogs calling the powerful to account. And many reporters still value service to—and connection with—readers, even if this is difficult to achieve. However, there seem to be few true believers in these higher ideals, or else believers are simply exhausted by the daily realities of their province, profession, and industry.

1 Elena Vartanova. 2012. “The Russian Media Model in the Context of Post-Soviet Dynamics.” In Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini, eds., Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 119-142; Boris I. Esin. 2000. Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki (1703–1917) [History of Russian journalism (1703–1917)]. Moscow: Nauka; Natalia Roudakova. 2017. Losing Pravda: Ethics and the Press in Post-Truth Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova. 2018. Russia’s Liberal Media: Handcuffed but Free. New York: Routledge.

2 Vartanova. “The Russian Media Model,” 142.

3 Anna Arutunyan. 2009. The Media in Russia. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

4 Nadezhda Azhgikhina. 2007. “The Struggle for Press Freedom in Russia: Reflections of a Russian Journalist.” Europe-Asia Studies 59: 8: 1245-62.

5 Elena Vartanova. 1996. “Corporate Transformation of the Russian Media. Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter 32, At http://www.vii.org/monroe/issue32/vartanova.html, accessed February 12, 2011.

6 Pseudonyms are used for newspaper names.

7 Pierre Bourdieu. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

8 See, for example, Roudakova, Losing Pravda; Slavtcheva-Petkova, Russia’s Liberal Media.

9 Vartanova. “The Russian Media Model.”

10 Svetlana Pasti. 2005. “Return to Media Serving the State: Journalists in Karelia.” In Harri Melin, ed., Social Structure, Public Space and Civil Society. Helsinki: Kikimora, 117-144. Olessya Koltsova. 2006. News Media and Power in Russia. New York and London: Routledge; Dmitry L. Strovsky. 2015. “The Media as a Tool for Creating Political Subordination in President Putin’s Russia.” Styles of Communication 7: 1: 128-149.

11 Vasily Gatov, Elisabeth Schimpfössl, and Ilya Yablokov. 2017. “From Soviet to Russian Media Managers.” Russian Politics 2: 1: 7-31.

12 Richard Sakwa. 2015. “Questioning Control and Contestation in Late Putinite Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies 67: 2: 192-208.

13 Rolf Fredheim. 2017. “The Loyal Editor Effect: Russian Online Journalism after Independence.” Post-Soviet Affairs 33: 1: 34-48.

14 Ibid.

15 Gatov, Schimpfössl, and Yablokov, “From Soviet to Russian,” 29.

16 Alexander Kynev. 2014. Vybory regional’nykh parlamentov v Rossii 2009-2013. Ot partizatsii k personalizatsii.[Elections of Regional Parliaments in Russia in 2009-2013. From Partitioning to Personalization]. Moscow: Center “Panorama.”

17 Natalia Roudakova. 2009. “Journalism as ‘Prostitution’: Understanding Russia’s Reactions to Anna Politkovskaya’s Murder.” Political Communication, 26: 412-429; Svetlana Pasti. 2005. “Return to Media Serving the State: Journalists in Karelia.” In Harri Melin, ed., Social Structure, Public Space and Civil Society. Helsinki: Kikimora, 117-144.

18 Elena Vartanova, Andrei V. Vyrkovsky, Mikahail I. Makeenko, and Sergey S. Smirnov. 2016. “The Russian Media Industry in Ten Years: Industrial Forecasts.” Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 11: 1: 65–84.

19 Wilson Lowrey and Elina Erzikova. 2010. “Institutional Legitimacy and Russian News: Case Studies of Four Regional Newspapers.” Political Communication 27: 3: 275-288.

20 Gatov, Schimpfössl, and Yablokov, “From Soviet to Russian.”

21 Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey. 2014. “Preventive Journalism as a Means of Controlling Regional Media in Russia.” Global Media and Communication 10: 1: 35-52.

22 Vartanova, “The Russian Media Model,” 127.

23 Federal Agency for the Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation. 2018. Russian Periodical Press: Situation, Trends and Development Perspectives, At http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/activities/reports/2018/pechat1.html, accessed May 3, 2019.

24 Pierre Bourdieu. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology; Randal Johnson. 1993. “Editor’s Introduction: Pierre Bourdieu on Art, Literature and Culture.” In Pierre Bourdieu, ed., The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1-25.

25 Bourdieu, Distinction.

26 Rodney Benson. 2013. Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

27 Bourdieu, Distinction; Johnson, “Editor’s Introduction.”

28 Pierre Bourdieu. 1993. “The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed.” In Pierre Bourdieu, ed., The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 29-73; Randal Johnson, “Editor’s Introduction.”

29 Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey. 2017. “Russian Regional Media: Fragmented Community, Fragmented Online Practices.” Digital Journalism 5: 7: 519-537.

30 Veronika Iankovskaia. 2015. Vliianie innovatsionnoi modeli upravleniia na razvitie regionov RF. Universal’naia model’ upravleniia regionami [The Influence of the Innovation Management Model on the Development of the Regions of the Russian Federation: Universal Model of Regional Management]. Saarbrucken: LAP Lambert.

31 Interfax. “Putin podpisal zakon ‘O klevete’ [Putin Signed the Law ‘On Defamation’]. Interfax. July 30, 2012, At https://www.interfax.ru/russia/258078, assessed May 8, 2019.

32 Roudakova, Losing Pravda; Elena Vartanova. 2015. “Russia: Post-Soviet, Post-Modern and Post-Empire Media.” In Kaarle Nordenstreng and Daya Kishan Thussu, eds., Mapping BRICS Media. New York: Routledge, 125–144.

33 Roudakova, “Losing Pravda.”

34 Interfax. “Putin podpisal paket zakonov o pensionnoi reforme [Putin Signed a Package of Laws on Pension Reform]. Interfax. October 3, 2018, At https://www.interfax.ru/russia/631759, assessed May 8, 2019.

35 Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey. 2010. “Seeking Safe Ground: Russian Regional Journalists’ Withdrawal from Civic Service Journalism.” Journalism Studies 11: 3: 343–358.

36 John Levi Martin. 2003. “What is Field Theory?” American Journal of Sociology 109: 1: 1-49.

37 Elena Vartanova and Nadezhda Azhgikhina. 2011. Dialogi o zhurnalistike [Dialogues about Journalism]. IREX Russia and Moscow: MGU.

Elina Erzikova is Professor of Public Relations at Central Michigan University and a Fellow of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama. She has published articles in Political Communication, Mass Communication and Society, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Public Relations Review, and International Communication Gazette. Contact: erzik1e@cmich.edu. Wilson Lowrey is Professor in the Department of Journalism & Creative Media at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on the sociology of media institutions, organizations, and work. Contact: wlowrey@ua.edu.

State Information Contracts:

The Economic Leverage of Regional Media Control in Russia

Olga Dovbysh

Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland

Oscar Mukhametov

National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

Abstract: This research investigates media control in non-democratic regimes through the example of state information contracts, a leading form of state support for regional media outlets in today’s Russia. Using statistics on such contracts signed in 42 Russian regions in the period from 2011 to 2014, together with qualitative interviews with local media professionals, the article explores the role of these contracts in the regional media sphere and scrutinizes how they became an effective and stable tool for disciplining journalists and instrumentalizing the media in Russian regions during the 2010s. The research explores the transition from direct to structural control, as well as discussing the contextual differences between state interventions in the form of subsidies in democratic regimes and state contracts in non-democratic regimes such as Russia’s.

Manipulation,1 instrumentalization,2 influence, fraud, capture,3 pressure, grip,4 discipline5—all of these words are used in the academic and industry discussions of control over mass media. A free and independent media is more of an idealized construct than an existing phenomenon. In no political or social system is the flow of information entirely free. However, the nature of control over the information and ideas shared in mass media is determined by various factors, including a country’s historical and cultural experiences, its type of political leadership, and economic forces.6

When it comes to non-democratic or hybrid political regimes, scholarly discussions usually focus on the consequences of media control for political and social processes, for instance the impact of media control on elections and voting behavior,7 human rights, or freedom of speech.8 In fact, media control is often understood as a feature of media systems that does not require any deeper examination.9 The mechanisms of how this control is exerted, and what influence it has at various levels—on media professionals, on organizations, and on the media system as a whole—are less studied.

Research on which control practices are used (and in what combination), who the agents of these power relations are, and how they understand media control might offer a deeper understanding of a country’s media and political systems. Such a detailed understanding of particular practices and/or mechanisms, as well as the coping strategies adopted by journalists, can help explain what mediated reality these media organizations and professionals construct.10

State interference is one of the most common sources of media control. Although governments worldwide interfere in the media sphere, the extent, methods, and consequences of this interference differ.11 In authoritarian regimes, this interference is more intensive and usually stems from manipulative intentions. In order to unpack the practices of media control and their influence on the news process, this research seeks to explore the mechanisms of state media control through the example of Russia’s regions.12 The following research questions are addressed:

How do national and local political and economic conditions construct and support the stability of particular tools of control?

How does economic control influence media outlets’ performance?

How do regional media professionals (journalists, editors, and media managers) adapt and normalize their professional practices under existing controls?

Why did we choose to study Russian regional media in this research? Russia has low scores on the various ratings of media and press freedom,13 and these scores have only been trending downward in recent years. Starting in the 2000s, scholars observed the commencement of a new period in the country’s media model, when the “state came back” to the media market.14 This period has been characterized by the curtailment of media freedom15 and higher governmental control over national media outlets,16 especially through the ownership of media capital.17 Journalistic practices such as self-censorship18 and cynicism19 were discussed as a means of resistance and adaptation to this tightening control.

Regional media have followed a somewhat different trajectory than the national media in Russia’s media system. The flourishing of newly established regional and local media projects in the first years after the collapse of the USSR (1990-1992) was soon replaced by the harsh economic conditions of the late 1990s. Important actors in the local political struggles of the era, regional media relied on bartering advertising space—or even electoral cash—to keep themselves afloat.20 Starting in the 2000s, when the Kremlin began to directly appoint regional governors, regional intra-elite struggles were replaced by the centralization of political control. This meant that regional media could no longer rely on support from competing regional political actors and needed to earn their keep on their own. Nevertheless, the idea of state support continued to be favored by local officials and journalists. Local officials wanted to preserve their control over the news agenda, while journalists saw state support as a way to increase revenue in a context where advertising revenues were deficient due to underdeveloped advertising markets.21 In fact, regional media outlets in post-Soviet Russia have never been fully independent, particularly when it comes to their finances, but the tools and logic of control have changed. This makes the study of Russian regional media a profitable way of investigating how media control is exercised and what effect it has on different socio-political realities.

The article is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss the notion of media control from the position of media studies, as well as the determinants of the media control process. We then discuss the transformation of regional media in Russia from 2000, positioning it within the wider context of nationwide political and economic changes. After that, we present the methodology and data used for our research. The results illustrate how state information contracts are being used for media control and how this is perceived by regional media professionals. In the final section, we discuss how the economic leverage of media control is used to discipline local media professionals and its influence on persistent media bias.

Literature Overview: Media Control in Non-Democratic Regimes

In this section, we aim to unpack the notion of media control, its manifestations in authoritarian electoral regimes, and the role of government in media control.

Media Bias in Different Political Regimes

A free media22 is an essential pillar of democracies, yet the media is not democratic by nature.23 As Besley and Prat put it, “the formal safeguards of media freedom enshrined in law are no guarantee of a media sector that is free from political interference.”24 Media capture can be endogenous in democratic politics, and formal media freedom is not enough to guarantee a free press.

Moreover, mass media content, as a socially created product rather than a reflection of an objective reality, is constantly influenced by various micro- and macro-factors of both an intentional and unintentional nature.25 Even though bias is widespread and even inevitable in news reporting, it can come in different forms: some are intentional and deliberate, aimed at producing a certain effect on the audience, while others, unintended and unwitting, are related to daily routine.26

Media bias is not confined to authoritarian regimes, but its significance is greater for countries with a lower degree of media freedom and pluralism.27 In states with weak democratic institutions, and in authoritarian regimes in particular, the media are among the main instruments used by the state to influence voters’ choice and ensure regime stability.28

Media Control in Authoritarian Electoral Regimes

In this research, we suggest a distinction between media influence and media control. From a wide range of types of influence,29 including intended and unintended ones, we distinguish media control as being more closely linked to power relations and power configuration.30 Here we understand power in a Weberian way—that is, as the ability to get others to do what you want them to do, even against their will.31 Media control, then, describes actions that “intend to change the final object—a media product—in accordance with the agent’s interests as they are understood by the agent him/herself.”32 Forms of control are dependent on a country’s political regime. In countries where the media are largely privately owned, controls are exerted through laws, regulations, licenses, and taxes. In countries where the media are primarily government-owned, government control is exerted through media financing.33 In non-democratic regimes, besides traditional ownership and legislation, the list of control mechanisms includes privileges/discrimination relating to funding, advertisements, licensing, and access to information; the confiscation of printed issues; personnel control (in particular, dismissals or co-optation); fines; arrests; and, finally, direct threats to health and life.34

Even in authoritarian electoral regimes, electoral outcomes do not depend entirely on such malfeasance as vote-buying, repression, or nullifying election results. Accordingly, governments are keen to manipulate the media into constructing positive views of their favored candidates: influencing media decisions regarding agenda-setting and event-framing, forcing media outlets to introduce a certain amount of content bias into their reporting; and pushing journalists and media organizations into self-censorship.35

The Role of Government in Media Control in Authoritarian Electoral Regimes

The interference caused by media control is higher in authoritarian regimes than in democratic regimes, and can be either direct or indirect. Direct government control is usually implemented via state ownership (or quasi-state ownership), which entails media bias and less media freedom.36 Researchers have revealed a positive correlation between state ownership of media and several measures of poor government performance,37 as well as higher levels of corruption,38 in such political regimes.

Indirect government control in authoritarian electoral regimes is primarily associated with economic control through financial support from state organizations (e.g. state subsidies).39 The scope of indirect government control depends on the development of the advertising market: a strong advertising market decreases dependency on state financial support. It can be predicted that developing countries have a weaker advertising market, and hence media are more vulnerable to the effects of state financial support.

A second source of indirect control is the consolidation of media ownership in the hands of private owners loyal to the regime. This method provides the government with a flexible instrument of control, because it ensures both a certain ideological pluralism and the ability to influence media agendas and content.40 Pro-government owners benefit from broadcasting concessions, subsidized inputs, government advertising, and protection from competition, but they are required to be loyal to the authorities.41

Finally, indirect government control can refer to those administrative decisions or legislative interventions that benefit a firm controlled by the media owner.42

Government Economic Control and Financial Support

Beyond the possibility of ideological influence on the media, there is evidence that the financial motivations of media companies might lead them to bias their content in exchange for advertisements or other types of transfers.43 Economic forms of control in authoritarian regimes vary from government advertising and subsidies to more extreme forms, such as bribes.

Government advertising is not an invention of authoritarian regimes; it has existed in democracies for many years.44 Through advertising, the state “effectively gives subsidies to media organizations by reducing the effort required to discover and produce information for their audiences.”45 Young describes the need for such campaigns as “bi-partisan”46 because, taken together with social marketing’s goals of improving citizens’ health and safety, this advertising is also used to carry a political message promoting (and defending) the government and its policies in ways calculated to obtain an electoral advantage, and to reduce criticism by other reporting.47

The fact that the government is the largest advertiser in the media of many non-democratic regimes can result in limitations on investigative reporting, decreased government accountability, and higher corruption.48 In Argentina, for instance, newspapers’ less critical coverage of corruption scandals is linked to the amount of advertisement money that newspapers receive from the government on a monthly basis.49 Even private companies often have close ties with public companies and the government, meaning that newspapers need to take less critical positions in order to ensure themselves advertising revenue.

Bribes to a media outlet’s owners and journalists are the ultimate form of economic control. According to a study investigating the subversion of democratic institutions in Peru in the 1990s, these bribes include payments for a front-page headline or a full-page article, payoffs via the purchase of shares in the media outlet, and other business deals and judicial favors (including payments to upper management, buying a controlling block of the company’s shares, and even purchasing “full control over news broadcasts for a monthly payment”).50 McMillan and Zoido also point out that bribes to the media were many times larger than those to politicians or judges.

Russia’s Regional Media from 2000 Onwards: The Media Control Perspective

In this section, we discuss the most significant politico-economic changes that have shaped the development of Russia’s regional mass media in the 21st century. This discussion aims to explore how indirect economic control became the leading form of state control over Russian regional media.

The early 2000s are usually described as the beginning of a new period for Russian media that is characterized by shrinking media freedom and growing media control.51 The seizure and forced change in ownership of NTV, an independent TV network with substantial persuasive power, is the most illustrative example of how the new government constructed a “power vertical” and established control over the broadcast media.52 The redistribution and appropriation of media capital, as well as staff reshuffles, also occurred in online media (Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru), radio (Ekho Moskvy), wire services (RIA Novosti), and later social media platforms (VKontakte).53 These actions resulted in settled control over the main national media outlets, primarily achieved through direct ownership and the installation of loyal owners and editorial teams.

Regional-level changes in the country’s media system during this period have not been studied as extensively. Table 1 lists the most significant regulatory, economic, and political developments that influenced the position of regional media.

From this progression, we can observe several simultaneous processes that started in the early 2000s and have shaped the actual regional media model. First, there was a deregulation and even liberalization of regional media markets due to the reduction of any economic benefits granted to media outlets by federal laws. However, this resulted in increased costs for news outlets, which they were supposed to cover by themselves as “market actors.” Second, with the exclusion of regional and local elites from political struggles, regional media outlets were either excluded from political processes or saw their role significantly devalued. Moreover, with regional and local elites no longer having a reason to pay for media, regional media outlets lost important sources of revenue.

Third, the state became a growing presence in the regional media system. In the new political circumstances, regional officials needed a controlled and predictable media landscape in order to demonstrate the “stability” of their performance. In comparison to the previous decade, which typically featured coercive and direct control, and in light of the two

Table 1. Transformations in media regulation, media markets, and local politics in Russian regions during the 2000s

Sphere

Changes

Consequences

Media regulation

- 2004: repeal of two federal laws on special economic conditions for mass media (no VAT and customs duties for operations related to the production and distribution of media products and other economic benefits) and on the economic support of district (city) newspapers.54

- 2015: Repeal of state subsidies to Russian Post for subscription support. This resulted in higher subscription rates for citizens and a drop in the number of subscribers.55

Regional mass media outlets are no longer seen by federal authorities as organizations requiring special economic regimes and institutional protectionism; on the contrary, they are now considered market actors that, according to neoliberal logic, produce market goods rather than public goods.

Media market

- 1998: the consolidation of VGTRK (the All-Russian State Television and Media Company) into a major holding company with new channels and radio stations, and with branches in all regions.56

- From the 2000s: establishment of “pro-governor” and “pro-mayor” TV channels and other media in Russian regions.57

A growing number of regional media outlets are state-owned or quasi-state-owned and receive financial support from the federal (in the case of VGTRK branches) or regional government budgets.

Local politics

- 2004: cancellation of gubernatorial elections (replaced with direct appointment from the Kremlin).58

- From the 2000s: “radical recentralization of governance of the country,”59 including the creation of 7 federal okrugs and the appointment of President’s representatives; growing control over regional executive and legislative branches; and changes in tax laws to centralize budget streams.

Reduction of the space for regional political struggles and changes within local elites, thus reducing the importance of local media for regional political and electoral processes.

aforementioned processes, the new modes of control were based on another type of logic. The harsh economic situation stimulated indirect control through financing mechanisms, rather than through ownership appropriation.60 (It is important to add here that local officials and journalists continued to expect state support.)61

Therefore, it is quite logical that state information contracts emerged and became standard practice in state-media relations from the 2000s.62 State information contracts are contracts signed between state bodies and media outlets regarding the provision of informational and media services or products. The main subject of these contracts is the media coverage of specific topics, ranging from a governor’s or mayor’s activities to cultural events to local history.63 Other subjects include local officials’ subscription to newspapers, production of movies or other media content, and broadcasting services (for instance, sport or other events).

Media control is usually understood in a negative way, as direct or indirect measures aimed at limiting media freedom and supporting specific bias in reporting. Koltsova argues that media control, understood as the typical actions that result from the successful imposition of an agent’s will, often go beyond restriction and suppression.64 To better illuminate state-media relations in post-Soviet Russia, she uses the term “power” instead of “control,” and points out the negative and positive practices of power. By negative practices of power, she means ways in which the media production process is altered by the direct actions of the agent (while resistance is physically suppressed) or altered via the actions of others (under threat of negative sanctions). By positive practices of power, she means the direct alteration of the media production process (without resistance) or else the alteration of media products through the actions of others (where their compliance is attained through the use of positive sanctions). Following Koltsova’s approach, we conceptualize state information contracts as a complex phenomenon relevant to positive practice of power. The sections that follow offer an in-depth exploration of such contracts’ ambivalent nature.

Methodology and Data

This research is based on a mixed-method approach and combines quantitative and qualitative data.65 Statistics about the numbers and distribution of state information contracts are supported by interviews with regional media professionals. 

A database for quantitative analysis was formed by gathering information on the contracts signed between media outlets and regional state bodies or budget organizations in 42 Russian regions between 2011 and 2014. Since these contracts involved state budgetary money, the information was publicly available on the official website for state purchases.66 Our database was formed using data from the NGO project GosZatraty [StateExpenses],67 which pulls data from official websites and provides the tools to build customized databases. We filtered the data by region, time period, and service code.68 The initial database was then manually filtered in order to remove contracts for the publication of official documents and newspaper subscriptions, which were less relevant to our research. Therefore, the final database included only contracts signed for the production and/or distribution of media content.

Our qualitative data explore state information contracts from the perspective of the regional media professionals who engage with these contracts. The qualitative data include 20 interviews with regional media professionals (journalists, editors, managers) collected in 2016-2017 in five Russian regions (Republic of Tatarstan, Tomsk region, Nizhny Novgorod region, Republic of Yakutia, Tyumen region). Taking into account the sensitivity of the topic of government control, the interview guide included questions about the editorial policy of media outlets, financing sources in general, relations with the government and businesses, self-censorship, and the social responsibility of media.

Each interview lasted for an average of 70 minutes. All interviews were recorded and then transcribed. We carefully read each conversation, noting the topics on which the conversation touched in order to identify the issues that seemed salient to each respondent.69 We then aggregated these topics into larger themes. In line with the thematic analysis approach, each theme is a story about a particular pattern of shared meaning across the dataset.70 We defined three themes according to the level of influence of state contracts: on content, on professional practices, and on regional newsrooms and local journalism in general. The meaning units were then determined, followed by a thematization of the statements with respect to specific issues in the interviewees’ viewpoints and positions. Finally, we interrogated the meaning units within each interview and across them all.

Results: State Information Contracts in Russian Regional Media Markets

The database analysis aimed to explore the significance of state information contracts within the regional media sphere in Russia and to reveal the configurations of contractual relations between state bodies and media outlets. The database was constructed by the authors using open data on state purchases.

First, we counted the average and median amounts of money distributed per contract. In almost all the regions, the median value is significantly lower than the average value (see Table 2), reflecting the fact that select media companies receive particularly valuable contracts while the majority of contracts are worth relatively little. The median value ranges from 158,800 rubles in the Chuvash Republic to 1,470,500 rubles in the Chechen Republic.

Table 2. Number and value of contracts signed in 2011-2014 in the regions of the sample

Region name

Values of contracts signed in 2011-2014 in the regions of the sample71

Number of contracts72 signed in 2011-2014 in the regions of the sample

Average Value

Median Value

2011

2012

2013

2014

Republic of Buryatia

450,200

221,300

151

147

183

137

Republic of Altai

555,400

449,000

0

4

3

8

Republic of Daghestan

981,600

591,500

13

22

12

32

Republic of Kalmykia

1,332,400

500,000

0

2

8

7

Komi Republic

1,080,500

419,700

19

26

52

37

Republic of Mordovia

841,100

367,500

11

10

18

11

Republic of Tatarstan

2,201,500

402,400

43

91

123

95

Chechen Republic

2,017,200

1,470,500

6

9

7

10

Chuvash Republic

227,900

158,800

13

13

7

16

Altai Territory

475,700

200,300

70

61

95

167

Krasnodar Territory

1,686,700

319,900

470

527

593

325

Primorye Territory

1,414,100

381,500

126

210

208

86

Stavropol Territory

1,057,100

553,800

165

147

167

103

Khabarovsk Territory

592,400

199,500

41

132

78

112

Belgorod Region

546,300

307,400

18

20

20

22

Volgograd Region

827,900

273,500

130

151

272

148

Vologda Region

320,200

189,100

170

81

84

82

Voronezh Region

859,000

345,200

86

108

141

137

Irkutsk Region

469,500

238,600

118

236

232

116

Kalinigrad Region

988,700

439,200

19

52

92

83

Kaluga Region

302,100

177,800

102

112

128

35

Kemerovo Region

504,200

213,300

36

54

111

63

Kirov Region

481,500

257,700

83

112

105

65

Lipetsk Region

523,900

264,800

9

20

32

30

Magadan Region

1,684,300

978,100

15

15

18

23

Nizhny Novgorod R.

444,300

308,400

162

173

170

175

Novgorod Region

2,009,000

523,000

28

30

34

22

Novosibirsk Region

1,209,500

502,500

30

114

150

130

Penza Region

376,700

250,000

53

63

79

40

Perm Territory

878,300

443,100

122

313

243

271

Pskov Region

1,353,700

688,100

21

30

31

50

Rostov Region

1,987,800

177,800

158

151

203

100

Sakhalin Region

1,284,100

501,800

104

186

223

150

Sverdlovsk Region

639,000

279,700

87

99

96

57

Tomsk Region

1,937,200

536,300

77

85

133

49

Tula Region

494,600

315,500

73

104

95

55

Chelyabinsk Region

554,700

297,000

201

171

232

167

Yaroslavl Region

463,000

236,500

74

61

45

46

Khanty-Mansi A. O.

1,286,000

444,300

242

246

352

190

Chukotka A.O.

4,184,600

564,300

2

4

2

4

Yamal-Nenets A. O.

2,810,400

474,200

33

70

61

57

Source: Authors’ calculations

The number of contracts signed also varies significantly depending on a region’s size, its economic prosperity, and the level of state interference in the regional media market. On average, 393 contracts per region were signed in 2011-2014, with the most contracts (1,915) signed in Krasnodarskii krai and the least contracts (12) signed in the Chukotskii autonomous okrug.

Information contracts can be signed by federal, regional, and municipal authorities (see Table 3). The number of federal contracts is very low, which indicates that state information contracts are predominantly used by regional and local media relations.

Table 3. Number of contracts signed by state bodies at various levels

2011

2012

2013

2014

Federal state bodies

167

345

503

63

Regional state bodies

1,766

2,317

2,649

2,003

Municipal bodies

1,489

1,683

1,886

1,459

Source: Authors’ calculations

Commercial media outlets are the main executors of information contracts (see Table 4), although state-owned media outlets also receive information contracts in addition to direct budgetary subsidies. Information contracts thus erase the differences between media outlets in state-media relations: all media outlets aim to get some funding from state bodies. In terms of the types of media involved, the majority of contracts were signed by TV and press media outlets.

Table 4. Number of contracts signed by various types of media outlets

2011

2012

2013

2014

State-owned media outlets

1,121

1,300

1,499

1,122

Commercial media outlets

1,967

2,689

3,191

2,186

Media outlets registered as NGOs

333

356

348

217

Source: Authors’ calculations

In order to assess what topics were covered under these contracts, we coded the “subject of contracts” stated in all contracts signed after 2013.

Some contracts provide very detailed information about the subject and the media product to be produced. They define, for instance, the length of TV programs (in minutes) or size of newspaper articles, tentative titles of programs or articles, or specific topics to be covered. Other contracts, meanwhile, provide only general information about the subject: for instance, a one-sentence subject like “media coverage of governor’s activities.”

The available data, especially in contracts with general subjects, does not allow us to say what particular content was produced and/or distributed, because the content produced may differ from the “subject” stated in the contract. We can, however, assess what topics were mentioned by state clients at the moment that contracts were signed. The majority of contracts fell into three categories: “activities of regional authorities,” “activities of municipal authorities,” and “publicly significant topics.”73 The third topic is vague—almost any topic could be named for producing specific content, but it is also a tool to support particular media outlets.

Table 5. Comparison of advertising markets and “markets” of state information contracts in selected regions (in millions of rubles)

City74

TV

Radio

Press media

Volgograd

advertising

256.0

126.0

260.0

state contracts

87.9

2.2

28.7

Yekaterinburg

advertising

967.0

305.0

1,291.0

state contracts

11.9

N/A

0.2

Kazan

advertising

669.0

246.0

1,073.0

state contracts

198.0

27.5

6.1

Nizhny Novgorod

advertising

656.0

272.0

803.0

state contracts

31.1

3.8

12.3

Novosibirsk

advertising

805.0

265.0

1,165.0

state contracts

131.8

5.7

26.9

Perm

advertising

536.0

179.0

550.0

state contracts

136.5

5.2

90.6

Rostov-on-Don

advertising

492.0

215.0

694.0

state contracts

172.0

9.1

141.3

Chelyabinsk

advertising

587.0

190.0

572.0

state contracts

54.4

7.7

12.8

Sources: ACAR 2014 and authors’ calculations

A comparison of different regions’ advertising markets75 with the total amount of money distributed via these contracts reveals what share of a region’s media market is comprised of information contracts (see Table 5). Contract financing accounts for one-third of TV advertising revenue in some regions in the sample, while comprising quite a small share of advertising revenue for print media.

The database illustrates that state information contracts are an established form of relations between regional and municipal state bodies and primarily commercial media outlets (chiefly television companies). There are significant disparities between regions in terms of the number of contracts and the average value of contracts. In some regions their use is extremely rare, while in other regions contracts have become a stable tool for government intervention in the media market. It is difficult to say whether there is a relationship between the size of the advertising market and the popularity of information contracts. A review of the largest regional media markets does not show such a correlation.

The difference between the median and average amounts for contracts in almost all regions indicates the existence of several “big” contracts and a “long tail” of inexpensive contracts. Together with the vagueness of contacts’ subject matter, this creates a situation where a contract can be a façade that makes it possible to transfer money to a particular media outlet. However, this argument requires further research and additional data.

Results: State Information Contracts as a Tool of Control

In addition to the quantitative results, we used interviews with media professionals to explore how state contracts shape state-media relations and the configuration of the local media model. Thematic analysis helped us to interpret state information contracts as a tool of control, which shape the news process in three ways: by influencing content, professional practices of journalists and editors, and media outlets’ performance in general. Below, we discuss the main features of these types of interference and the implications for state-media relations.

Influencing Content

The influence on content is inherent in contractual relations: state bodies act as clients and media outlets as executors. Under contractual relations, media outlets must produce content that fits the topics, targets, goals, and “terms of reference” (tehnicheskoe zadanie) stated in the contract; the state-client also controls the relevance of the media product. Media professionals in this situation have very little journalistic autonomy to decide which topics to cover; rather, they are to produce content to fulfil the criteria stated in the contract:

The aims and purposes pursued by the client are stated in any contract anyway. Therefore, it is absolutely irrelevant who the customer is. The important thing is to fulfil the criteria that both sides are interested in.

— executive director, TV channel, Tatarstan, 2016

The topics that state contracts order to be covered usually relate to “positive things in a region’s life,” which influences the mediated reality of the region within which these media are produced.

Contractual relations with state bodies increase the threat of control over a media outlet’s other content, especially content that mentions the state-client. For instance, at the time of interviews in one region, local gossip centered on the discovery that the mayor had an apartment in the U.S. One respondent explained that if you have financial and contractual relations with city hall (gorodskaia meriia), you have to “represent their position broadly enough” (chief editor, newspaper, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2016).

It is important to stress that contractual relations do not lead to the complete removal of a topic from a media outlet’s agenda, but determine how it is covered. This creates what can be described as a “double bottom.” On the one hand, one can hardly call it pure censorship, since the topic is covered and presented in mediated discourse. On the other hand, the stance of an article or TV program, the selection of speakers or experts, and even the language used all create a peculiar picture of the event, one that is favorable to the state client who is financing the media outlet’s other material.

The time around election campaigns is another instance where state bodies demand this “special attitude,” controlling non-contract content in order to avoid any criticism:

…they [the state bodies] think that they can dictate to me what to write on the front page. We, of course, try to set boundaries, especially during elections. During this period, of course, they ask us to exclude negative information (uiti ot negativa)

—chief editor, newspaper, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2016

State contracts finance the coverage of particular topics and the production of particular media products, such as articles and TV programs. They also form a particular state-media relationship wherein state bodies as clients can interfere with the other content and shape the overall agenda of the media outlet.

Influencing Professional Practices

Information contracts also alter the professional practices of journalists and editors by introducing new activities and processes to newsrooms. Often, less experienced or less talented workers are assigned to produce these materials or, as our respondents put it, “work out the contract” (otrabatyvat kontrakt). This expression refers to routine but important work. One of the respondents explained it using the metaphor of a figure skating competition: contracts comprise the news outlet’s “short program,” which is mandatory to reach the journalistic investigations that constitute its “free skate”:

Those who are engaged in the short program understand [that it is important] and find it normal. They understand that their salaries depend on it and since they work in a commercial organization [rather than in the state-owned media], they have to do it.

—editor of news broadcasting, TV channel, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2016

The contractual nature of the materials often results in boring, descriptive reporting in newspapers or TV programs. For instance, a contract signed for media coverage of “activities of the local legislative assembly” can be implemented (worked out) as a one-page or one-spread uncritical reporting of issues discussed during an assembly’s meeting or by publishing an official press release, if the press office of legislative assembly provides one. Thus, the audience is probably the actor that is most hurt by the contractual relationship.

The contractual relationship between state bodies and media outlets contributes to the formation of “normal, human relations” (general producer, TV channel, Tomsk region, 2016). The formal state-media relationship, where journalists act as watchdogs and hold state bodies accountable, is recast as an informal friendly relationship. This relationship reframes journalists’ work of finding newsworthy items: as professionals they would never cover a certain topic, but being “friends” they have to do it:

We have human relations (chelovecheskie otnosheniia) with these people. It is convenient for us, because they have the same relations. This moment is acute [because it contradicts professional norms]. At the same time, we must help this person, that’s it.

—general producer, TV channel, Tomsk region, 2016

“Normal” relations go hand in hand with the practice of self-censorship. In interviews, respondents often refer to the “rules of the game” and the “team you play for” as informal rules that frame media performance (as opposed to direct censorship):

Basically, we do not have any censorship, nobody censors, but in the contemporary world you just need to understand what team you are playing for.

—chief editor, online media, Tatarstan, 2016

Continuing this idea, this respondent describes information contracts as “particular tasks to solve,” rather than as limitations. Journalists, he explains, are free to decide how these tasks will be done: “it doesn’t entail any limitations on creativity.”

Influencing the Performance of Media Outlets

Essentially, influence on newsrooms is based on the dependence of media outlets on the state contracts as their source of financing. Interviewees emphasize the financial importance of state contracts to a media outlet’s performance:

Contracts…they help us to exist…their budget is good enough. Our own budget is not as big as Kommersant’s [the leading business newspaper in Russia].

—chief editor, newspaper, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2016

The importance of informational contracts as a source of financing for newsrooms outweighs other ways of interpreting these contracts and leads to mainly uncritical, normalized, perception of contracts by respondents. This is what Koltsova calls the positive practice of power, where the compliance of media actors is achieved through the implementation of positive sanctions.76

Simultaneously, media professionals perceive state contracts as “easy money.” Compared to advertising financing, which requires additional personnel and expending effort on finding advertisers, state contracts—especially big ones like contracts to cover the activities of the governor, mayor, or local legislative assembly—allow companies to receive money for media coverage that they would provide anyway. When they receive money for this content, it is “doubly beneficial” (chief editor, newspaper, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2016) for them:

We understand that programs [in which the governor participates]… are by themselves status, iconic, important for the TV channel, for us. And if they are also supported by some financing—this is a good outcome for everyone.

—editor of news broadcasting, TV channel, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2016

This “win-win” view of contracts is complemented by a perception that they are “secure” financing, allowing a news outlet to maintain its stable position in harsh times:

In former times, when we were in the market relations of the fat 2000s [sytye nulevye], we could ignore such money entirely. I mean, when we earned huge money from advertising. Now—well… it is a significant source.

—owner and manager of press and online media, Tyumen, 2017

During the COVID-19 outbreak in spring 2020, the chief editor of one regional online media outlet told one of us that the outlet had a contract with the local government that had helped it to stay afloat, while the other leading online media outlet in their city was to close due to a significant drop in advertising revenue.

However, contractual relations inevitably lead to a particular disposition of power, and media practitioners understand this. It is important that the powerful role of the state is formally institutionalized as market relations between (state) client and (media) executor. To some extent, this reduces the tensions and moral concerns for journalists in comparison to hidden forms of “sale” of media advertising-propaganda resources, which were a popular mode of state-media relations in the late 1990s.77

Discussion and Conclusions

This article began with a discussion of the vagueness of the term “control” in relation to the media sphere. The nature and forms of media control are determined by various factors, including the type of political regime, economic conditions, a country’s historical and cultural experiences, the state of the media sphere, the dominant journalistic culture, etc.

Therefore, research on media control should move beyond the simplistic view of media as either free or unfree, especially in non-democratic regimes, toward a more nuanced and detailed exploration of the mechanisms of this manipulation, together with investigations of the agents of this control, their interrelations, and resistance practices.

The case of Russia’s regional media in the 2000s-2010s demonstrates how specific socio-political and institutional transformations created a fertile soil for a particular tool of state control: state information contracts. What is significant about this form of control is its double meaning as simultaneously a negative and positive practice of power, as well as the way in which state interreference in the local news process is exerted.

Different forms of direct or indirect public support78 for media organizations are common in many countries with democratic regimes.79 These media subsidies aim to ensure media pluralism and address market failures in content production. A closer look at forms of support reveals the dominance of indirect forms over direct ones.80 Besides the license fee for public service media, the leading forms of support include a general VAT exemption or reduction and reduced rates for postal service.81 Direct subsidies play a significant role in the media policy of France, for instance, but such subsidies are aimed at distribution, the “modernization of plant/production,” and “investments in new technologies.”82

State information contracts can also be considered a form of state support. Our qualitative data show that the logic of financing is the dominant way in which regional media professionals interpret state contracts. However, the main difference is that the funds allocated through these contracts are aimed at the creation of specific content, rather than focused on media performance in general (for instance, the purchase of equipment) or the distribution of content. In this sense, in comparison to (mainly) indirect subsidies in Western countries, information contracts are a direct intervention into the content and editorial policy of media outlets. The topics to be covered are assigned by state bodies (clients), not journalists. This inevitably reduces journalistic autonomy, even though journalists are still free to choose creative ways to cover these topics.

Decontextualized, state information contracts can be seen as an instrument of direct support for media representation of significant public topics when state bodies finance media coverage of less popular but societally important topics.83 These could be, for instance, cultural or historical events, or the representation of smaller ethnic groups. Reporting on a governor’s or mayor’s activities can also be understood as a way of keeping political authorities accountable and providing balanced coverage of political events.84 However, in the context of the regional media sphere in contemporary Russia, these normative functions of media lead to other consequences.

In a harsh economic situation and as local media become more commercialized, these contracts are an increasingly attractive and relatively easy-to-get source of financing. Therefore, in terms of power relations, they make media outlets dependent on state bodies. This creates space for manipulation. The data from this research illustrate the unequal distribution of money from these contracts, which can lead media outlets to compete for the largest shares of the “contractual pie.”

Consequently, contracts and the relationships they construct can be seen as separate agents of power. Importantly, this is not a coercive power, but a structural one based on market and economic mechanisms. Thus, no one will force a media outlet to close if it engages in “bad” (disloyal) reporting, but if this media outlet does not receive a state contract, it is likely to close for “natural” financial reasons. As such, state information contracts have soft, informal influence, represented by self-censorship and changes in journalistic professional practices.

Recent research on self-censorship defines it as “a form of structural censorship, which comes from the way in which social life and access to resources are organized.”85 State contracts support this “structural” understanding of censorship, based upon economic necessity rather than on “external, coercive and repressive”86 actions on the part of the state. In fact, we can consider these contracts to be agents of censorship that structure the everyday practices of journalists and the routines of newsrooms. This can be seen in positive reporting on contractual topics or the framing of news pieces on the governor’s activities as actual praise of the governor. It even affects the reporting of non-contractual content, as when a topic criticizing state bodies or representing local problems is not excluded from the agenda but is represented from a particular angle. Special support during election periods is another deferred impact of contracts. In fact, contracts—as agents of control—produce a loyal state-media relationship, leading to the predictable behavior of media outlets.

Therefore, state information contracts—and the state-media relationships they form—effectively “discipline” journalists and newsrooms. We prefer to call it discipline (rather than control) for three reasons. First, the pressure is vague and latent. Second, it refers to the internal control, self-control, or self-censorship of media professionals. Third, we consider state contracts to be positive practice of power whereby the suppression of media outlets is achieved through the imposition of a positive sanction: the availability of financing to compliant media outlets. Finally, for media outlets, these contracts make it possible to keep people employed and cover less popular but significant public topics. As such, disciplining is the more appropriate term, since in constructing imbalanced power relations, state contracts simultaneously produce beneficial outcomes for media outlets.

In conclusion, we want to explain why we consider state information contracts to be a form of indirect media pressure, rather than analogous to the direct and indirect state subsidies available to media in democratic regimes. State subsidies are also discussed as state interference in the media sector—as a “corrective measure for the welfare state to ensure the quality journalism and diversity in the media that is necessary for maintaining an informed citizenry and a vital democracy.”87 Moreover, previous studies have argued that media subsidies are not a neutral instrument, but rather a political tool for achieving certain policy objectives.88 Since the media sector is different from other public or state sectors due to its foundational role in the maintenance of democratic government, any state support in this sector also differs from any other welfare service provided by the state. State intervention in the media sector can compromise journalistic freedom and media independence. Therefore, the authors mention “a delicate balance between, on the one hand, funding the media and, on the other hand, maintaining freedom from interference in editorial matters.”89

This research explored the role of state information contracts in regional media markets in non-democratic regimes such as Russia’s and unpacked how local media professionals deal with these contracts. We found a significant shift toward the curtailment of media independence as a result of the more powerful position of state actors and the economic dependence of media outlets.

The development of regional media markets in Russia in the 21st century indicates the transformation from direct state control toward a more indirect, structural one, implemented through economic leverage and informal relationships with media practitioners. Despite significant critiques of state informational contracts both in industry and in academia, the role of the state as a “giver of support” rather than a “facilitator” responsible for “framework conditions” is still too often assumed.

1 Jidong Chen and Yiqing Xu. 2017. “Information Manipulation and Reform in Authoritarian Regimes.” Political Science Research and Methods 5: 1: 163-178.

2 Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva. 2017. Instrumentalisation of Mass Media in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Russia’s Presidential Election Campaigns of 2000 and 2008. New York: Columbia University Press.

3 Ruben Enikolopov and Maria Petrova. 2015. “Media Capture: Empirical Evidence.” In Simon P. Anderson, Joel Waldfogel, and David Strömberg (eds.), Handbook of Media Economics, Volume 1. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 687-700.

4 Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova. 2019. “Fighting Putin and the Kremlin’s Grip in Neo-Authoritarian Russia: The Experience of Liberal Journalists.” Journalism 20: 11: 1530-1546.

5 This term was used during workshop on “Media Control as Source of Political Power in Central and Eastern Europe,” co-organized by Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen and Russian Media Lab Network in Helsinki in September 2019.

6 Jane Carry and Joan R. Dassin. 1982. Press Control around the World. Greenwood, NY: Praeger.

7 Ruben Enikolopov, Maria Petrova, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. 2011. “Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia.” American Economic Review 101: 7: 3253-85.

8 Daphne Skillen. 2016. Freedom of Speech in Russia: Politics and Media from Gorbachev to Putin. Abingdon: Routledge.

9 For more arguments, see Slavtcheva-Petkova, “Fighting Putin.”

10 Slavtcheva-Petkova, “Fighting Putin.”

11 Akhrarkhodjaeva, Instrumentalisation of Mass Media..

12 As of 2018, the Russian Federation includes 85 federal subjects, grouped into six types: republic, region (krai), region (oblast), city with federal status, autonomous region (oblast) and autonomous region (okrug). Each type differs in legal status. In the present article, we call all federal subjects of Russia “regions,” since their legal statuses are not relevant to this research.

13 Freedom House. 2019. Freedom in the World, At https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2020, accessed June 20, 2020; Reporters without Borders. 2020. World Press Freedom Index 2020, At https://rsf.org/en/ranking, accessed January 30, 2020.

14 Olessia Koltsova. 2006. News Media and Power in Russia. Abingdon: Routledge.

15 Anna Arutunyan. 2009. The Media in Russia. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.

16 Scott Gehlbach and Konstantin Sonin. 2014. “Government Control of the Media.” Journal of Public Economics 118: 163-171.

17 Ilja Kiriya. 2017. “The Impact of International Sanctions on Russia’s Media Economy.” Russian Politics 2: 1: 80-97; Skye C. Cooley and Ethan C. Stokes. 2018. “Manufacturing Resilience: An Analysis of Broadcast and Web-Based News Presentations of the 2014–2015 Russian Economic Downturn.” Global Media and Communication 14: 1: 123-139.

18 Elisabeth Schimpfossl and Ilya Yablokov. 2014. “Coercion or Conformism? Censorship and Self-Censorship among Russian Media Personalities and Reporters in the 2010s.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 22: 2: 295-311; Olga Zeveleva. 2020. “Towards a Bourdieusian Sociology of Self-Censorship: What We Can Learn from Journalists Adapting to Rapid Political Change in Crimea after 2014.” European Journal of Communication.

19 Natalia Roudakova. 2017. Losing Pravda: Ethics and the Press in Post-Truth Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20 Ibid.

21 Olga Dovbysh. 2019. “Commercial or Public Service Actors? Controversies in the Nature of Russia’s Regional Mass Media.” Russian Journal of Communication 11: 1: 71-87.

22 In this research, by media (if not specified further) we mean journalistic news media organizations.

23 Katrin Voltmer. 2013. The Media in Transitional Democracies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

24 Timothy Besley and Andrea Prat. 2006. “Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability.” American Economic Review 96: 3: 720-736, p. 733.

25 Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese. 1996. Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content. New York: Longman.

26 Denis McQuail. 1992. Media Performance: Mass Communication and the Public Interest. London: Sage.

27 Akhrarkhodjaeva, Instrumentalisation of Mass Media.

28 Following Akhrarkhodjaeva, Instrumentalisation of Mass Media, and Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in this research we ignore dictatorships and fully authoritarian regimes, where the media is fully or almost fully repressed, and focus on electoral authoritarian regimes, which use various strategies of media influence.

29 Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message, propose a model of concentric circles of media influence, ranging from the micro-level of individuals to the macro-level of ideology.

30 Olga Zeveleva. 2019. “How States Tighten Control: A Field Theory Perspective on Journalism in Contemporary Crimea.” The British Journal of Sociology 70: 4: 1225-1244.

31 Max Weber, ed. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Free Press.

32 Koltsova, News Media and Power in Russia, 9.

33 Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message, 109.

34 Koltsova, News Media and Power in Russia, 7.

35 Akhrarkhodjaeva, Instrumentalisation of Mass Media.

36 Simeon Djankov, Caralee McLiesh, Tatiana Nenova, and Andrei Shleifer. 2003. “Who Owns the Media?” The Journal of Law and Economics 46: 2: 341-382.

37 Ibid.

38 Besley and Prat, “Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand?”

39 Gehlbach and Sonin, “Government Control of the Media.”

40 Heiko Pleines. 2016. “Oligarchs and Politics in Ukraine.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 24: 1: 105-127.

41 Chappell Lawson. 2002. Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and the Rise of a Free Press in Mexico. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

42 Besley and Prat, “Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand?”

43 Jonathan Reuter and Eric Zitzewitz. 2006. “Do Ads Influence Editors? Advertising and Bias in the Financial Media.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 121: 1: 197-227.

44 David Miller and William Dinan. 2000. “The Rise of the PR Industry in Britain, 1979-98.” European Journal of Communication 15: 1: 5-35.

45 Peter Golding and Graham Murdock. 2000. “Culture, Communications and Political Economy.” In James Curran and Michael Gurevitch, eds, Mass Media and Society, 3rd ed. London: Hodder Headline Group, p. 83.

46 Sally Young. 2007. “The Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia: The Politicisation of a Public Policy Issue.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 66: 4: 438-452.

47 Sally Young. 2006. “Not Biting the Hand that Feeds? Media Reporting of Government Advertising in Australia.” Journalism Studies 7: 4: 554-574.

48 Rafael Di Tella and Ignacio Franceschelli. 2011. “Government Advertising and Media Coverage of Corruption Scandals.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3: 4: 119-51.

49 Ibid.

50 John McMillan and Pablo Zoido. 2004. “How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18: 4: 69-92.

51 Sarah Oates. 2007. “The Neo-Soviet Model of the Media.” Europe-Asia Studies 59: 8: 1279-1297.

52 Enikolopov, Petrova, and Zhuravskaya, “Media and Political Persuasion”; Maria Lipman. 2014. “Russia’s Nongovernmental Media under Assault.” Demokratizatsiya 22: 2: 179-190.

53 Lipman, “Russia’s Nongovernmental Media under Assault.”

54 Federal law No 191, titled “On the state support of mass media and book publishing in the Russian Federation,” was passed in December 1995. Federal law No 177, titled “On the economic support of district (city) newspapers,” was passed in November 1995.

55 Vedomosti. “‘Pochta Rossii’ predupredila o povyshenii tarifov na dostavku pressy” [Russian Post Warns of Higher Press Delivery Rates]. April 15, 2019, At https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/news/2019/04/15/799116-pochta-rossii, accessed January 30, 2020.

56 Arutunyan, The Media in Russia.

57 Andrei Vyrkovsky and Mikhail Makeenko. 2014. Regional’noe televidenie Rossii na poroge tsifrovoi epokhi [Regional Television in Russia in a Digital Age]. Moscow: MediaMir.

58 Federal law No 1603 O poryadke rassmotreniia candidatur na dolzhnost’ vusshego dolzhnostnogo litsa (rukovoditelya vusshego ispolnitel’nogo organa gosudarstvennoi vlasti) sub’ekta Rossiiskoi Federatsii [About the Procedure for Consideration of Candidates for the Position of the Highest Official (Head of the Highest Executive Body of State Power) of the Subject of the Russian Federation], passed in December 2004.

59 Matthew Hyde. 2001. “Putin’s Federal Reforms and their Implications for Presidential Power in Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies 53: 5: 719-743; Vladimir Gel’man, Sergei Ruzhenkov, Elena Belokurova, and Nadezhda Borisova. Avtonomiia vs. kontrol: reforma mestnoi vlasti v gorodakh Rossii [Autonomy vs. Control: Local Government Reform in Russian Cities]. St. Petersburg: European University at St. Petersburg.

60 Oates, “The Neo-Soviet Model of the Media.”

61 Dovbysh, “Commercial or Public Service Actors?”

62 There is no exact date for when the first state contract for information services was signed. Our own interviews with regional media professionals and the evidence of other researchers and publications consistently mention the “beginning of the 2000s” as the period when such contracts became widespread practice.

63 Nadezhda Ademukova, Olga Dovbysh, Ilya Kiriya, and Varvara Chumakova. 2017. “Rol’ gosudarstvennykh kontraktov v regional’nykh modelyakh sotsial’noy otvetstvennosti massmedia v Rossii” [The Role of State Contracts in Shaping Social Responsibility among Russia’s Regional Mass Media]. Journal of Social Policy Studies 15: 1: 81–96.

64 Koltsova, News Media and Power in Russia.

65 John W. Creswell and J. David Creswell 2009. Research Designs: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Sage publications.

66 See https://zakupki.gov.ru/, accessed January 30, 2020.

67 See https://clearspending.ru/, accessed January 30, 2020.

68 The service codes related to mass media production and distribution were selected from the All-Russian classification of types of economic activities, products, and services. See https://clearspending.ru/page/about/glossary/#okdp.

69 Bruce L. Berg and Howard Lune. 2012. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Harlow: Pearson.

70 Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2019. “Reflecting on Reflexive Thematic Analysis.” Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 11: 4: 589-597.

71 Adjusted for inflation; all values are calculated in 2014 rubles.

72 Only contracts for the production and/or distribution of media content.

73 60.6% of total contractual financing in 2013 and 61.2% in 2014 were allocated to these three topics.

74 ACAR (Association of Communication Agencies of Russia) estimates the advertising volumes of the largest regional markets in Russia by assessing advertising expenses in the region’s capitals. They suggest that the share of media advertising in the other cities of a region is insignificant in comparison to the capital.

75 Advertising market volumes were publicly available only for the 13 largest regions.

76 Koltsova, News Media and Power in Russia.

77 Roudakova, Losing Pravda.

78 The authors mention a range of subsidies, including distribution support through preferential postal rates, exemptions from VAT or other taxes, discounts for print publications, and direct public support for different kinds of public service broadcasters. See Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2014. “‘Frozen’ Media Subsidies during a Time of Media Change: A Comparative Analysis of Media Policy Drift in Six Western Democracies.” Global Media and Communication 10: 2: 121-138; Mart Ots, Arne H. Krumsvik, Marko Ala-Fossi, and Pernilla Rendahl. 2016. “The Shifting Role of Value-Added Tax (VAT) as a Media Policy Tool: A Three-Country Comparison of Political Justifications.” Javnost—The Public 23: 2: 170-187.

79 Robert G. Picard. 2007. “Subsidies for Newspapers: Can the Nordic Model Remain Viable?” In Hans Bohrmann, Elisabeth Klaus, and Marcel Machill, eds., Media Industry, Journalism Culture and Communication Policies in Europe. Cologne: Herbert von Halem Verlag, 236–246; Nielsen, “‘Frozen’ Media Subsidies.”

80 Ots, Krumsvik, Ala-Fossi, and Rendahl, “The Shifting Role of Value-Added Tax (VAT).”

81 Nielsen, “‘Frozen’ Media Subsidies.”

82 Ibid., p. 126.

83 Olga Dovbysh and Elena Gudova. 2016. “Gosudarstvennye informatsionnye kontrakty i ikh znachenie dlia mediarynkov rossiiskikh regionov” [Government Information Contracts and Their Importance for Russian Regional Media Markets]. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes 6: 156–174.

84 Voltmer, The Media in Transitional Democracies.

85 Zeveleva, “Towards a Bourdieusian Sociology of Self-Censorship.”

86 Matthew Bunn. 2015. “Reimagining Repression: New Censorship Theory and After.” History and Theory 54: 1: 25-44, 29.

87 Aske Kammer. 2016. “A Welfare Perspective on Nordic Media Subsidies.” Journal of Media Business Studies 13: 3: 140-152.

88 Ibid; Nielsen, “‘Frozen’ Media Subsidies.

89 Kammer, “A Welfare Perspective on Nordic Media Subsidies,” 147.

Dr. Olga Dovbysh is a postdoctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki and coordinator of the Russian Media Lab Network initiative. She works at the intersection of media studies, economic sociology and political economy. She holds a PhD from Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and an MA from The Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm). Contact: olga.dovbysh@helsinki.fi. Oscar Mukhametov is an MA student at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. His current research interests include monetary policy and financial stability. He holds a BA in Journalism from Higher School of Economics (Moscow). Contact: ormukhametov@edu.hse.ru

Local Dimensions of Media Freedom:

A Comparative Analysis of News Media Landscapes in 33 Russian Regions

Anna Litvinenko

Freie Universität Berlin

Kamilla Nigmatullina

St. Petersburg State University

Abstract: This study explores the local media landscapes of present-day Russia by comparing 33 carefully selected regions. It adopts the theoretical approach to analyzing publics under authoritarianism suggested by Toepfl (2018) and analyzes the leading mediated publics in these regions along three dimensions: (1) environments; (2) participants; and (3) discursive practices (with a focus on the level of political criticism tolerated by the publics). In big cities, leadership-critical publics are visible in online news media, while the media of small towns experience tighter state control. VK news groups and Instagram accounts play a significant role in the media landscapes of all the regions studied.

For several decades, the local Russian media landscape was considered a rather predictable subject of analysis. Existing research on the Russian media system has described local media as being mostly controlled by local authorities, with a few independent press outlets in some regions serving as exceptions to the general rule.1 However, digitalization has created new opportunities for local communities to produce and spread alternative news. Has the potential of Internet liberalization2 been fulfilled, even if only partly, in the Russian regions? The map of Internet freedom in Russia3 shows that instances of censorship are spread quite unevenly throughout the regions: in the North Caucasus, the Internet environment is more restrictive, whereas a high level of online freedom can be observed in Buryatia near Lake Baikal. How are regional differences depicted in local media landscapes? What role does digital communication play in local Russian news landscapes?

Studies of Western media have shown that digitalization has led to a significant decline in the quality of local journalism in terms of its watchdog function and that digital-native hyperlocal websites have not been able to compensate for this loss.4 Is it possible that, in a restrictive media environment such as Russia, digitalization would have the opposite effect: the appearance of alternative news sources might allow local media to take on a watchdog function. Are the effects of digitalization similar in different regions? To date, there have been only a few studies that have compared local media in different Russian regions,5 all of which have dealt only with certain aspects of media functioning in the regions rather than analyzing whole news ecosystems.

Our study aims to address these questions by exploring local media landscapes in 33 carefully selected regions of Russia that, according to Natalia Zubarevich’s theory of “Four Russias,” represent different socio-economic contexts.6 It has been designed as an embedded case study7 based on document analysis, a survey of 73 media professionals, and 24 in-depth interviews.

In order to include in our research all news formats that have emerged on media landscapes in recent years—including VK news groups and Telegram channels—we have abandoned the notion of a media system and have adopted the concept of the multiple public sphere, which consists of myriad publics.8 In particular, we have used the recent theory of authoritarian publics suggested by Florian Toepfl,9 who proposed a framework for analyzing public communication in authoritarian settings. According to Toepfl, a country’s public-at-large consists of a multitude of partial publics. Based on the level of public criticism of the elite in political discourse, he distinguishes three types of publics in authoritarian settings: leadership-critical, policy-critical, and uncritical. Each public consists of three elements: environment, participants, and discourse. In our paper, we ask:

Research Question 1: Who are the leading publics in the local Russian news media landscapes (descriptive research goal)?

Research Question 2: What are the factors that influence the prevailing level of political criticism in local media (explanatory research goal)?

Our results reveal differences among the news media landscapes in the cities of more than one million people (the First Russia, according to Zubarevich’s theory), smaller regional centers (the Second Russia), small settlements (the Third Russia), and ethnic republics (the Fourth Russia) in terms of both media environments and discursive practices. The First Russia has a wider variety of news platforms and privately-owned media predominate. Leadership-critical publics are rather visible here, mostly in news groups on the Russia-based social network VK and on Telegram channels; policy criticism can be found even in loyal media. The local media landscapes of the Second and Third Russias are intertwined and characterized by tight state control over all media environments. Consequently, uncritical publics prevail there; policy-critical information can be observed only in VK news groups, while leadership-critical information is found mainly in user comments in VK news groups in the regions of the Second Russia. The economically underdeveloped ethnic republics of the Fourth Russia can be described as uncritical publics with unexpected enclaves of leadership-critical publics (found mostly online). In all the regions analyzed, VK news groups play an important role in local news provision. We also detected an unexpected role played by Instagram in local news environments on all levels: it is used by officials even in small villages to spread PR information about their activities. In the absence of free media, the comment sections of local news sites’ social media accounts fulfill an important societal function: they are used, inter alia, by citizens to voice discontent and by local authorities to gather feedback about public opinion.

This article is divided into six sections. First, we provide an overview of research on local media, discussing global trends in the development of local media landscapes and defining gaps in this research. In the second section, we introduce the Russian context relevant to our study. We then present a theory of publics under authoritarian rule, which serves as a framework for our analysis. This is followed by a methodology section. After that, we present the results of the study before, in the sixth and concluding section, discussing the contribution of the results to Russian media studies as well as to a better understanding of the functioning of local media in authoritarian contexts.

Local Media: Global Trends and Regional Dimensions

In the last decade, many studies of local media in the West have sounded the alarm about a decline in the quality of local journalism.10 Scholars have begun to talk about “the collapse of local news provision.”11 The rise of hyperlocal digital media that are often produced by hobbyists12 cannot compensate for the decline of professional local journalism, since these amateur media often lack the resources to produce original content and investigative reports, and thus fail to fulfill the important normative functions of journalism in democracies.13

The majority of English-speaking studies on local media focus mainly on the US and the UK,14 with a few analyzing other Western countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy.15 Only a handful of English-speaking studies have been conducted on local media in non-Western countries,16 and those that exist focus mostly on the Chinese context.17

Studies of Western media usually look at the local media through the normative lens of the democratic functions of journalism, viewing local and hyperlocal journalism as a public good.18 The main goal of these studies is to assess how the major democratic roles of the local press—that is, informational, representative, watchdog, and campaigning—are performed by the media.19 These studies tackle different aspects of local news production, looking at who produces local news content and how,20 as well as the nature of said content21 and how the audience perceives it.22 Scholars have registered a decline in the volume and quality of local coverage and noted that this leads to a crisis of political participation among citizens.23 Thus, Danny Hayes and Jennifer Lawless, in their study of the relationship between local news provision and citizen engagement in the US, concluded that “citizens exposed to a lower volume of coverage are less able to evaluate their member of Congress […] and less likely to vote.” 24

Our literature analysis has shown several gaps in local media research that, in our view, may be explained in part by the fact that the existing academic literature focuses primarily on democratic contexts. First, there are only a few studies that have drawn comparisons between regions within a country (for instance, between the performance of metropolitan journalists and that of their colleagues in non-urban areas).25 This might be due to the fact that democratic contexts do not usually have such drastic regional differences in terms of political pressures and economic development as are often apparent in non-democratic regimes. Bingchun Meng and Terhi Rantanen have pointed out that, in media studies of China and Russia, the “spatial and temporal differences within national boundaries should not be ignored”26 and that the governments in these countries cannot exercise full centralized control over such vast territories.

Second, the political factor is only rarely explored in studies of local journalism. Studies that examine the interdependences of sources and local political powers are few and far between.27 By contrast, the few studies on local media in authoritarian contexts28 underline the role of political pressures at not only the national but also the local level. Thus, Jingrong Tong explored the “the subservience of local media to local power structures” in China.29

Third, studies of digital news media usually avoid exploring innovative news formats located on social media, such as Instagram news accounts or Telegram channels. Even studies of hyperlocal online journalism focus exclusively on website-based media outlets.30 Studies of local news on Facebook or on Twitter look only at the news shared by news websites, rather than, for instance, on Twitter-based news media.31 In our view, this might be explained by a rather traditional view of the nature of the media system, as well as by the fact that these new social-media-based outlets have, thus far, played only a marginal role in Western countries’ media systems. By contrast, in Russia, these new media formats—independent news groups on VK, for instance—have become a leading source of news in local media markets. A recent study on the role of political WhatsApp groups in Brazilian parliamentary elections demonstrates the importance of such alternative news formats in other contexts.32 However, social-media-based news outlets and their role in local news provision remain widely under-researched.

Our study aims to address these research gaps by exploring the local media landscapes of different regions of Russia, with a particular focus on comparing the freedom of political news in different regions. Next, we will introduce the local Russian media context.

The Russian Case: Social Fragmentation and Local Media

The Russian media system is often described as “statist commercialized,”33 indicating state dominance of the media sector, on the one hand, and marketization of the media, on the other hand. The interplay of political and economic factors also shapes the system of regional media.34 Industry reports about the Russian media market show that regional media holdings earn drastically different profits from metropolitan ones, which are almost all based in Moscow;35 this reflects general discrepancies in regional media development in Russia. The business model of the majority of local media in Russia is based on state subsidies, leading to the cooptation of local journalism by the authorities. As Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey concluded in their study of four regional newspapers in central Russia, under these conditions, local journalists tend to voluntarily “comply with the local government in exchange for subsidies from the regional budget.”36

A study by Anna Gladkova and her team37 shows that, in three national republics of Russia (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Chuvashia), the state has played a key role in sustaining the ethnic media landscape. Overall, the role of digitalization in the local Russian media market remains underexplored.

The differences in media environments among the Russian regions have been discussed by many scholars.38 Olga Dovbysh suggested distinguishing three levels of locality in the Russian media market: (1) mass media with all-region coverage; (2) mass media within district (raiony) coverage; and (3) urban media that cover city events.39 She highlighted a particularly significant difference between the first and second groups: regional (regionalnye) and local (localnye) media. In our study, we refer to all of these types of media as local, following the Anglo-Saxon tradition of dividing media into national and local. At the same time, we do acknowledge that research on the Russian media landscape should not neglect differences between the local media of big cities and those of small cities and villages. Moreover, we consider it important to take regional differences into account: Russia, a country with a vast territory, is characterized by inequalities in economic development and in the pace of social modernization.40 Thus, it might be productive for an analysis of media landscapes to look not only at the administrative structure of the regions, but also at the social milieus that prevail there.

The theory of “Four Russias,” developed by economic geographer Natalia Zubarevich, distinguishes four major social milieus in today’s Russia. The First Russia is comprised of an urban middle class, mostly white-collar, who live in cities with populations over one million and who constitute about 21 percent of the Russian population. Zubarevich notes that cities with populations greater than 500,000 could also be included in this category, in which case the First Russia would comprise up to 30 percent of the entire population. The Second Russia is made up of industrial cities of 20,000–250,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom are engaged in blue-collar jobs or employed by the state; it constitutes about 25 percent of the entire population. The Third Russia is rural, comprised of small towns and villages with less than 20,000 inhabitants. It is large in territory, but has a low population and is largely depoliticized; it amounts to about 38 percent of the overall population. The Fourth Russia consists of the ethnic republics of the North Caucasus and southern Siberia, which are mostly dependent on subsidies from Moscow and are characterized by a high level of clientelism and clan struggles; it makes up about 6 percent of the population.41 In our previous study, titled “Four Russias in Communication,”42 we explored the role of social media in the 2011–12 protests in Russia, concluding that the usage of social media platforms in Russia depicted, to a large extent, the societal fragmentation described by Zubarevich. Facebook served as a meeting point for liberal intellectuals—that is, representatives of the First Russia—whereas VK was used more by the other “three Russias.” However, this study did not focus on media landscapes at large, and overall, the fragmentation of the local Russian media landscape remains largely understudied.

In order to fill in the gaps described in the previous two sections, our study aims to compare local media landscapes in different regions of Russia and explore factors that influence the level of political freedom of a country’s local media. Further, we present the analytical framework that will help us address these questions.

A Theory of Publics as an Analytical Framework

Digitalization has brought major transformations in media systems, blurring the line between professional and non-professional content and ushering in the era of innovative forms and platforms of news production. The analytical framework of a “media system,” which usually considers only institutionalized media outlets, can hardly embrace the whole range of new forms and platforms that appear online. As a result, some innovative news platforms might remain out of sight of researchers, leading to gaps and blind spots in our understanding of media landscapes.

In recent years, the notion of the “media/journalism ecosystem” or “news ecology” has become quite popular, inter alia, in studies of local media.43 However, this is more of a metaphor than a scientific concept, making it difficult to operationalize. We therefore decided to adopt another analytical framework for our study: a theory by Florian Toepfl,44 who suggests analyzing public communication in authoritarian settings through the lens of the “multiple public sphere.”45 According to this theory, the public-at-large of a country is comprised of a multitude of partial publics, each of which exists along three major dimensions:

environments—technological platforms or channels of distribution;

participants—speakers and audiences;

discursive practices—“patterned discursive activities that can be observed by researchers and used as markers to delimit a public.”46

Looking at the level of criticism of the leader that is tolerated in public discursive practices, Toepfl has distinguished three major types of such publics: (1) leadership-critical, where all types of criticism are tolerated, including of the leader of the country; (2) policy-critical, where only criticism of low-level officials or of particular policies can be found; and (3) uncritical, where no criticism circulates at all, unless it is sanctioned by the elite.47

In some authoritarian countries, there are no leadership-critical publics or else they are almost invisible in public communication: China, for instance, has a policy-critical public-at-large. Some countries do not tolerate any critical publics at all: North Korea has an uncritical public-at-large. Toepfl considers Russia to be a leadership-critical public-at-large, insofar as oppositional media content is available and visible to a significant percentage of the population.48 Thus, an alternative Russian media outlet, such as Internet TV Dozhd, can be defined as a leadership-critical public. It operates in several environments: on a website, as well as on different social networks. Participants of this public are journalists, who create content, and users, who then comment on the content on different platforms (active participants), as well as viewers, who do not interact with the content (passive participants). Depending on the research goal, one can either analyze a public created by TV Dozhd in different environments or limit analysis to a partial public created in Facebook comments (environment) by users (participants). Toepfl has also suggested using the concept of “institutional gardening,” introduced by Schedler, to describe the wide range of measures that elites deploy to control and coopt publics.49 These measures can be covert, such as influencing the owners of media outlets and using economic sanctions to prosecute oppositional media. They can also be overt, such as direct censorship and prosecution of participants in critical publics for obviously political reasons.50 Toepfl’s approach offers a tool for a more differentiated analysis of hybrid media ecologies and is particularly useful for the analysis of political communication in restrictive settings, bringing into focus different levels of freedom of political discussion in different environments.

Although the theory has been used to analyze media landscapes in several post-Soviet states, it has only been applied to the leading online media of different countries.51 So far, no studies have used this approach as an analytical tool for exploring regional media landscapes. We will apply the framework in our study to explore the political freedom of media landscapes in the Russian regions. Considering that, at the regional level, the “highest leader” is a governor or a mayor, we will consider publics leadership-critical if they tolerate criticism not only of the national leader, but also of the regional governors.

Methodology

In order to answer the research questions we posed in the introduction, we have adopted what Robert Yin describes as an “embedded case study design.”52 Our case study has multiple embedded units—media landscapes of the selected Russian regions. The case studies of these units draw on document analysis and surveys of local media professionals. In order to move our analysis from subunits to a larger unit of analysis, we conducted eight in-depth interviews with experts on Russian media (both scholars and media professionals) that helped us to interpret the data. Below, we describe the process of data collection and data analysis.

Selection of Embedded Units

Russia comprises 85 regions known as “federal subjects of the Russian Federation.” For our analysis, we have selected 67 cases in 33 Russian regions following the theoretical approach of “four Russias.”53 We have selected 8 cases for the “First Russia,” 20 cases for the “Second Russia,” 36 cases for the “Third Russia,” and 3 cases for the “Fourth Russia.” The proportions of the four segments in our sample correspond to the proportions of these segments in the general population of Russia, according to Zubarevich. The First Russia is represented by Samara, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, and Perm (cities with populations of one million and above).We left out Moscow and St. Petersburg as representatives of the “First Russia” because these two metropolitan cities stand out in terms of their social and economic scores as well as in the development of their local media markets, and thus, in our view, should be considered in a separate case study. The Second Russia is represented by the following towns (population of 20,000 to 250,000, and in some cases up to 500,000): Blagoveshchensk (Amur Region), Arkhangelsk (Arkhangelsk Region), Astrakhan (Astrakhan region), Belgorod (Belgorod Oblast), Volgograd (Volgograd region), Ivanovo (Ivanovo Region), Irkutsk (Irkutsk Region), Kaliningrad (Kaliningrad Region), Krasnodar, Sochi (Krasnodar Region), Vyborg (Leningrad region), Pskov (Pskov region), Nizhny Tagil (Sverdlovsk region), Kazan, Nizhnekamsk (Tatarstan), Tomsk (Tomsk Region), Surgut (Tyumen Region), Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk (Chelyabinsk region), Ulan-Ude (Buryatia), Syktyvkar (Komi), Saransk (Mordovia), Abakan (Khakasia). The Third Russia is represented by villages and settlements in the following districts: Belogorskii District (Amur Region), Severodvinsk District (Arkhangelsk Region), Akhtubinsk District (Astrakhan region), Staryi Oskol District (Belgorod Oblast), Kalach-on-Don District (Volgograd region), Kineshma District (Ivanovo Region), Angarsk District (Irkutsk Region), Gvardeysk (Kaliningrad Region), Taimyr District (Krasnoyarsk Region), Vyborg District (Leningrad region), Sarov District (Nizhny Novgorod Region), Berdsk District (Novosibirsk Region), Tara District (Omsk Region), Velikie Luki and Gdov Districts (Pskov region), Novokuybyshevsk District (Samara Region), Nizhny Tagil District (Sverdlovsk region), Seversk District (Tomsk Region), Temnikov District (Mordovia), Kyakhta District (Buryatia), Vorkuta District (Komi), Ordzhonikidze District (Khakasia). The Fourth Russia in our sample is represented by the three ethnic republics: Adygea, Dagestan, and Tyva.

Data Collection

We collected data in three stages. First, we conducted a document analysis that generated reports on media landscapes of the various regions. Second, we created and conducted a survey for local media professionals based, inter alia, on the results of the document analysis. Third, we conducted in-depth interviews with experts.

The document analysis had the exploratory aim of describing local media landscapes. In order to do so, we used several types of sources: official websites with statistics about the region, journalistic reports, scholarly articles, and local media. We looked at the representation of the leading media in social networks and registered the numbers of their followers. We also observed leading news resources over four weeks in order to understand the level of political criticism that is tolerated both in news materials and in user discussions under them.

In the second stage, we created and tested an online survey for local media professionals. We recruited respondents with the help of our own networks and by using the database of the Russian professional magazine Journalist, and we received 73 full responses to our survey. The respondents were experts on their respective regions: 8 were experts on the regions in the First Russia, 58 on the Second Russia and Third Russia (both the regional center and the periphery), and 7 on the Fourth Russia. The experts had different professional backgrounds and represented four major groups: local media professionals (40 experts), employees of the PR departments of local administrations (4), scholars in media departments of regional universities (18), and independent media experts (18). The independent media experts were professionals who used to work in the media sector but by the time of the interview did not have close ties to the media business because they were now employed in a new sector.

The survey contained multiple-choice questions that covered three main topics: (1) describing leading news sources in their regions; (2) assessing the level of criticism of local politics and of local political leaders in the news media of their regions; (3) and naming factors that they believed influenced differences in the level of media criticism tolerated in different districts of their region (if they reported such a difference).

In the third stage, we conducted 24 in-depth interviews with media professionals (14), Russian journalism scholars (5), and independent experts who deal with regional media markets in Russia (5). The aim of these interviews was twofold. First, we wanted to validate the exploratory part of the study by asking the interviewees if our results corresponded with their knowledge of local markets. Second, we sought to obtain an expert view on possible reasons for discrepancies in the freedom of political discussions in different regions (the explanatory goal of the study).

Data Analysis

We began our analysis by triangulating the data received from the three stages of data collection in order to use only cross-validated data. Further, we applied Florian Toepfl’s framework to describe news media landscapes in the two types of regions: regional centers and peripheries. We focused our analysis on three elements of mediated publics: environments, participants, and discursive practices. As environments, we understood different types of media (TV, radio, print, online), as well as online platforms that offer technical affordances for the news outlets. As participants of publics, we described only those who manage the content of the news outlets, whether directly by creating it (these may be professional journalists or amateur content creators) or indirectly by owning it. In our analysis of discursive practices, we focused on the level of political criticism, with the aim of relating it to Toepfl’s theoretical concept that distinguishes between leadership-critical, policy-critical, and uncritical publics.54 This analysis was based on our observation of the content of the news outlets as well as on the perceptions of the experts we interviewed.

Limitations of the Study

We are aware of several limitations of our study that are rooted in its scale and in its exploratory nature. First, although we tried to gather all available data on the local media markets, we were not able to obtain reliable statistics on the outreach of local media. According to our experts, the official data available on the circulation of traditional media are unreliable, while the actual outreach of social-media-based news sources, such as Telegram channels or VK groups, can only be approximated based on the number of their followers. Nor are the latter figures particularly trustworthy, given the alleged deployment of trolls to boost the popularity of social media accounts in Russia,55 as well as reports that regional state employees have been pushed to subscribe to local pro-state media.56 As a result, we were not able to provide an accurate estimation of the size of partial publics. However, we have tried to make our results as accurate as possible by conducting an attentive triangulation of the data gathered.

The second limitation concerns the analysis of discursive practices. The scope of our study did not allow us to conduct a content analysis of all the leading news outlets in the 33 regions, including political discussions on the social media platforms of these media. We relied instead on the assessments made by the local media experts we interviewed, as well as on our own observations of these media over four weeks in October 2019, which has obviously led to subjectivity in the conclusions. The assessment of discursive practices should thus be viewed as expert estimations and not as the result of a solid content analysis.

Findings

Below, we present the findings of our case study for the four types of regions described in the theory of “Four Russias.”57 In each category, we describe the news media landscapes of the region by focusing on three dimensions of the mediated publics that are characteristic of these regions: (1) environments; (2) participants (owners and creators of publics); and (3) discursive practices (with a focus on political talk: leadership-critical, policy-critical, uncritical). We then summarize the main tools that have been used by local elites to control publics and discuss factors that, in the view of media professionals, influence the differing development of news ecologies in the regions under study.

The First Russia: A Leadership-Critical Public

Environments

Our document analysis and expert survey demonstrate clearly that online media dominate the news media landscapes of these regions, followed by local TV news programs. Online local news is represented by the websites of traditional media, such as local TV channels and local newspapers, as well as by more innovative environments, such as news groups on VK and Telegram channels. Thus, in Nizhny Novgorod, one of the leading media is an independent VK group called Tipichny Nizhny Novgorod (in English, “Typical Nizhny Novgorod”). The predominance of online environments can be partly explained by the high Internet penetration in these regions. As our experts told us, “Where there is Internet penetration, news comes through social networks.”58

All experts in our survey mentioned VK news groups among the leading news sources in their cities. As Maxim Sychev told us, “In all the regions, we have powerful VK news groups, about 90 percent of which are outside the control of the authorities.”59 Instagram is an important channel for news consumption and political communication in those regions where politicians have Instagram accounts. According to our experts, Telegram channels also play a visible role in cities, but their audience is mostly limited to local politicians and journalists.60 Facebook was not mentioned by any of our experts as being among the leading environments for local news.

Participants

Owners as participants of publics. The majority of the leading media outlets, both online and offline, are owned by private companies. In big cities, the role of Moscow-based large media holdings is significant. Thus, Hearst Shkulev Media owns two networks of urban news websites that are represented in all the cities analyzed. The publishing house Komsomolskaya Pravda offers local news content, both offline (print) and online, in all of these regions. According to our experts, media outlets owned by these holdings are among the three leading outlets in the regions of the First Russia.

State actors also play a significant role as owners of media, mostly due to the popularity of the regional TV news programs produced by the regional branches of the state-owned TV channel VGTRK. These programs are also streamed online, via YouTube, and are often consumed via VK news groups. In the TV sector, we also observe privately owned companies that are nonetheless loyal to the government.

Interestingly, one more environment where local news publics are launched by state actors is Instagram. About 80 percent of regional administrations and their leaders in the regions analyzed have accounts on Instagram, where they share, inter alia, local news. This can be explained by the fact that, since 2018, the Russian president’s administration has been considering the social media profiles of regional governors as one of the indicators of their efficiency.61 We observed only one case of an independent news Instagram account that was reported by our experts to be visible on the local media landscape: an Instagram account providing regional environmental news in Krasnoyarsk.

Alongside traditional business players, in each of these cities, there exist urban media that have been founded by independent editorial teams. These include Prospekt Mira in Krasnoyarsk and Big Village in Samara.

VK news groups (pabliki) are usually launched by traditional media outlets, such as local TV channels or newspapers. Independent VK news groups launched by independent amateurs or professional journalists are also a popular alternative news source. As a rule, there are several competing VK news groups in each city.

Content creators. TV is almost exclusively occupied by pro-state content producers. As a rule, editors of VK news groups are “invisible” and unknown to a mass audience; they act as “admins” of the groups. At the same time, some VK alternative news groups have grown into full-fledged media outlets, as with, for example, the Perm VK group Moi gorod Perm. The editorial team of this popular group (which has approximately 400,000 followers) has officially registered it as a media outlet and hired professional journalists to produce news. This registration took place after the group received funding from the city administration,62 demonstrating that the state tries to coopt independent media producers by offering them funding.

Independent VK news groups are created by both non-professional enthusiasts and professional journalists. As Alexander Savitsky, a media expert from the Primorsky region, told us, the people who administer these groups are not just journalists; “there are civil activists, too. Some of them started out for the fun of it, but, with time, everyone has come to understand that this is a strategic media resource.”63

Local news Instagram accounts that are usually launched by local administrations are managed by PR specialists. In some cases, regional leaders post on Instagram themselves, but even in those cases, PR people are responsible for interacting with users in the comment sections. In many regions, official Instagram accounts have become a source of information for professional journalists, replacing more traditional forms of PR activity.64

Discursive Practices

We were able to observe all three types of partial publics in the news ecologies of the regions analyzed. Uncritical publics can be found in local TV news programs and newspapers owned by the local administration and by large media holdings affiliated with federal state or local business. As Alexander Nikitushin, an analyst from the professional magazine Journalist, told us, “Traditional media are not critical. The voice of society is heard only on social networks.”65

Policy criticism can be found mostly in print newspapers and online, and even in media that are loyal to the local administration. A large amount of policy criticism can be observed in user comments in VK news groups. Typical criticism deals with social issues, as in, for instance, this comment from the VK news group Typical Volgograd: “Does that official who has determined the minimum cost of living for elderly people know that those people economize on medicine and good nutrition […]?66”

Leadership-critical publics can be found mainly in alternative VK news groups and on anonymous Telegram channels. In alternative VK news groups, we observed leadership criticism in the content of the posts themselves, whereas in VK news groups linked to traditional media, this type of criticism appeared much less frequently, and only in user comments. That being said, some VK news groups—like the Kstati group in Nizhny Novgorod (which has over 2,500 followers)—disable comments under posts dealing with sensitive political issues.

As for Telegram channels, their critical content is usually based on speculation, conspiracy theories, and rumors.67 Whereas VK news groups are, according to our survey, among the three most important sources of local information in the regions of the First Russia, the readership of Telegram channels is usually not significant. These channels usually garner the attention of a wide public only if they are quoted in traditional media or in VK groups.68

The Second and the Third Russias: A Policy-Critical Public

Our research has shown that the media landscapes of the Second Russia (regional centers) are highly intertwined with those of villages and smaller towns in these regions, which represent the Third Russia. This can be explained by the fact that regions of the Third Russia are as a rule economically and politically dependent on the Second Russia. The leading media in these regions are often owned by the same actors. At the same time, the patterns of media usage and discursive practices in the Second and Third Russias do demonstrate certain differences. Our experts explained these discrepancies by reference to the demographics of these regions: villages usually have an older population that is less politicized. In light of all this, we have decided to present the results of the analysis of these two segments in one section, highlighting several differences between regional centers and the regional periphery that we identified in the course of our research.

Environments

Our survey showed a clear predominance of three types of news sources in the regions of the Second and Third Russia: local TV channels, independent VK publics, and official local newspapers funded by the local administration. This corresponds with the assessment given by experts in our in-depth interviews.

Our document analysis shows that there are only slight differences in the media landscapes of the regions observed. Everywhere, social networks have become essential for local news provision.69 Quite surprisingly, Instagram has also become an important source of local news both in the Second and even in the Third Russia: “Instagram is the main source of information for the majority of the population, regardless of age, because it is very convenient and simple. And this is a source both at the level of regional centers and at the village level.”70 Facebook and Telegram seem to be not at all relevant for these regions. According to our observations, in some Russian regions—such as Yakutia, which is not included in our sample—WhatsApp chats are actively used for news consumption, but none of the experts interviewed mentioned the importance of this platform in the regions analyzed.

Participants

Owners of publics: The key player here, in both offline and online publics, is the local government. In some regions where large industrial companies dominate the market, such as the Norilsk Nikel holding in Taymyr or Lukoil in Komi Republic, these companies are also important media owners. Thus, Norilsk Nikel sponsors Media Platform, a company that runs eight media outlets in the district. As a result, of every three leading news sources in a given small town in Taymyr (Third Russia), one of the news websites is owned by local administration while two are owned by Media Platform. According to our experts, media owned by industrial giants tend to be quite loyal to the government. The economic factor further increases the level of self-censorship in the regions: media subordinate themselves not only to the local government, but also to the owners of companies. Our expert from Komi Republic offered the following example: “In the city of Usinsk, almost everyone works for Lukoil. A lot of people work on a rotational basis, and there is no chance that opposition could emerge there; people are afraid of speaking out and losing their jobs.” Smaller businesses usually prefer to stay away from the media sector. As Maxim Melnikov told us, “Private business is not interested in doing media in Samara and the region.”71

Creators of content: The overwhelming majority of media professionals working for established media outlets in these regions produce pro-state or non-critical content. At the same time, major VK news groups are independent and are run by both amateurs and professionals.72 Only in the Krasnoyarsk region were we unable to observe independent VK news groups run by activists. The independence of these groups, however, does not mean that they post critical content: they mainly serve as platforms for ads and classifieds.

Discursive Practices

We were able to observe uncritical and policy-critical content in both traditional and online media, including social networks. Leadership-critical comments could be found only in the comment sections of VK news groups. According to our survey, VK publics are considered to be platforms for critical discussions, or at least spaces where complaints and critical comments are tolerated. The survey shows that, from region to region, the level of criticism in news publics differs, with an overall prevalence of policy-critical publics. In VK news groups, comments we observed often blamed abstract “elites” (vlasti) for causing different local problems. For example, in the discussion about the rise of prices in the VK group “Mordovia online,” users avoid blaming certain policies, instead accusing an abstract “them.”73

In-depth interviews showed an ambivalence in experts’ attitudes toward the content of local VK news groups. As Sergey Yakupov from the Telegram channel MediaMedia told us, “VK publics in general have always been toothless. Yes, sometimes they publish news on acute problems, but they are not professional journalists; they don’t know how to promote their content.”74

Policy criticism can be found in print newspapers and online, even in media that are loyal to the local administration—just as in the First Russia. The publics of the Second Russia engage in more policy criticism than their counterparts in the Third Russia, which are to a large extent depoliticized. There is almost no evidence of leadership criticism in either traditional or online media. There are some regions that stand out from the general norm—for instance, the city of Kudymkar in the Perm region (the Third Russia), where we observed competing VK news groups and independent online outlets—but generally speaking, local media landscapes in these regions look rather dim in terms of media variety and media freedom. As Alexander Savitsky explained, “It is difficult to measure the average temperature in a region. We have some older journalists who have successfully adapted themselves to the online reality, but there are regions where this process has failed. I constantly meet people who say that the Internet is evil and there is no need to engage ourselves there.”75

The Fourth Russia: An Uncritical Public with Leadership-Critical Enclaves

Environments

The local media landscapes of ethnic republics resemble those of the regions of the Second and Third Russias: traditional media (TV channels and newspapers) funded by local administrations predominate. Given that these regions are economically poorly developed, there are almost no independent, privately-owned media. In the capital cities of the regions, there are usually one or two independent VK publics where critical information can be found. In smaller cities, VK groups are usually non-critical and function instead as venues for classified ads.

Participants

These regions, including their media sectors, are usually dependent on state subsidies. Media are mostly owned by the local administration and governments of the ethnic republics. As Elena Shitikova told us, there is a certain level of competition between different ethnic districts and clans within the republics. As a result, the ethnic origin of journalists and of VK news groups administrators plays a significant role. She also highlighted the patriarchal political culture of these regions: “the trust in elders is very high.”76

Discursive Practices

We could find only a few examples of policy criticism in the comments of independent VK news groups in the capital cities of the regions, and these addressed abstract social and political issues. For example, in the Republic of Adygea, critical discussions about politics can be found in the independent VKontakte communities Maykop. Adygea and Typical Adygea. This criticism aims at social problems and does not mention any specific officials. One of the characteristic features of this criticism is juxtaposition of the national republics and the central government of Russia, accusing Moscow of abandoning the region. We also observed the cultivation of the cultural and political identities of these regions as more or less independent entities within the Russian Federation. As for the media environments of smaller cities within these regions, we could not identify any critical discussions in mediated publics.

At the same time, we unexpectedly discovered several leadership-critical publics in the media environments of these regions. For instance, the media landscape in Tyva can be described as uncritical, but there are three mediated publics—one newspaper and two VK groups—where we observed outspoken leadership criticism. The newspaper Risk, with a circulation of 3,000 copies, is known for its sharp satire and criticism of republic leaders, which the paper describes as “an organized criminal gang.”77 Similarly leadership-critical publics were observed in Dagestan: the online newspaper Chernovik and independent VK groups openly criticize local political leaders.

Tools for Institutional Gardening of Publics

The government deploys a range of tools to control the media and eliminate critical voices, as well as to promote official discourse in the public sphere. These tools include ownership of the media: the state directly or indirectly owns local media outlets. During interviews, experts reported cases where private media and even VK news groups had been bought by the local administration just prior to elections (as with Moi gorod Perm) and where small media outlets had been incorporated into large media companies belonging to industrial leaders in the region.

Cases of direct censorship are rare and were reported mostly by experts on the regions in the First Russia. Censorship is often disguised as unwritten corporate ethics, as was the case with the former editor of Samarskaya gazeta Maxim Melnikov, who was dismissed from his position in 2019 after publicly criticizing the owners of his newspaper. In other regions analyzed, such cases are rare because, according to our experts, the media there are under greater control by the state and journalists have a higher level of self-censorship overall. We did not receive any reports of direct censorship in the case of social media news publics.

On the other hand, authorities try to coopt Internet media in order to promote their own agendas. Thus, local officials are forced by the federal authorities to be present on social media, specifically Instagram.78 Another important tool is the social media monitoring system “Incident management,” run by the Medialogiya company and mentioned in several expert interviews, which helps local authorities monitor and classify comments from social networks. Special units in the local administration are responsible for delivering relevant comments to representatives of the government and for providing feedback to citizens on social networks. The system was launched in all Russian regions in 2019.79 In December 2019 alone, 160,000 complaints from citizens in different regions passed through the system.80 In Bashkiria, for example, the annual report of “Incident Management” indicates that citizens most often complained about roads, housing, and communal services.81

When talking about the First Russia, experts also mentioned the corruption of local bloggers by local government, as well as the funding of trolls to promote the agenda of local elites, as widespread tools for controlling media discourse.

Comparing Publics in the Four Russias: Why Are They Different?

In our study, we compared local news media in in 33 carefully selected Russian regions with different socio-economic contexts. Our analysis of the leading mediated publics in the four Russias revealed significant differences among these four Russias in terms of news production and news consumption. Predictably, the media landscapes of cities with populations over one million people showed greater variety, with the domination of privately owned media that, in some cases, have afforded criticism of local policies. In smaller cities and villages, meanwhile, local state and pro-state actors have kept traditional media channels under strict control. In those regions where the economy is dominated by large companies, these companies play a significant role in the media landscape, with the result that coverage of local politics is even less critical than in other regions. In all regions, authorities have more or less actively tried to coopt social media, such as by launching Instagram accounts with political news. Consequently—and quite unexpectedly—Instagram has become a source of official information for both citizens and journalists in many regions.

Despite the state’s attempts to coopt online space, we identified leadership-critical content in digital news environments in the majority of the cases studied. In the First Russia, leadership-critical publics are the most visible, existing not only on independent websites and in VK news groups, but also on anonymous Telegram channels. In the Second Russia, criticism of local leaders can only be found in the comments under news posts in VK groups, not in the content created by media professionals. In smaller cities of the Third Russia, where independent media outlets are nearly absent, even policy criticism is rare, so usually only the comment sections in VK news groups provide space for critical voices. In the Fourth Russia, the overall media landscape is uncritical, though we did unexpectedly discover a handful of leadership-critical online publics, which are tolerated by authorities.

In our survey, we asked media professionals to name the main factors that, in their view, influence the level of political freedom in the local news media in their region (a multiple-choice question with the option to add their own answer). The technological factor (Internet penetration) was named as the most important by 41.1 percent of respondents, the political factor (censorship) by 38.4 percent, and the economic factor by 26 percent. Other factors, such as the personality of the leader or the educational level of the audience, were not named at all. However, interview respondents emphasized the role of the personalities of certain political leaders and of media professionals in the regions. Independent analyst Maxim Sychev underlined that a change of political figures often means a change in information strategy.82 The amount of policy criticism that is tolerated in loyal media depends very much on the background of the governor.83

The generational factor was not mentioned in our survey, but the majority of experts pointed out its importance during their interviews. According to them, the average age of the population affects media consumption, while the age of journalists affects their online strategies. As Elena Shitikova, former executive director of the Russian Publishers Guild, told us, “In areas where there is not a young audience, elites communicate with people through traditional media. After all, the accessibility of the Internet is just a technological opportunity; it does not mean that people are able to use it.”84 Some experts also mentioned that, in the regions of the Second Russia, they had observed a lack of demand for critical information on the part of the audience: “people rarely go online, and if they do, then it’s not to voice dissent.”85

The rise of VK news groups across all regions can be explained by, among other things, the unengaging content of traditional media: “traditional media are becoming less and less interesting for the audience, because they promote the government, [whereas] in VK groups, people can see news about bad roads and coal dust—and they can argue openly there.”86

All the experts we interviewed mentioned that social media have transformed local media landscapes and have enabled, among other things, direct communication between authorities and citizens, which can be seen as a crucial change for local political communication in Russia.

Discussion

Our findings support the assumption of Meng and Rantanen87 that, in countries with vast territories such as China and Russia, control over media varies from region to region. We have observed differences in media landscapes between regional centers and regional peripheries, not only in terms of the variety of media environments, but also the level of their political freedom. In the regions of the First Russia, leadership-critical publics are visible in the media landscapes, whereas, in the Second and Third Russias, leadership criticism is extremely rare and the regional public-at-large can be described as policy-critical. The ethnic republics of the Fourth Russia are largely uncritical, with enclaves of leadership-critical publics. Zubarevich’s theory of “Four Russias” provides a meaningful explanation for these differences based on the socio-economic development of these regions. Our results show that, alongside socio-economic factors, the personality of the local leader and their style of dealing with online publics seem to play key roles in drawing “red lines” in local public communication. That seems to be one of the main reasons for the slight variation in the level of media freedom between regions with similar socio-economic contexts. We assume that, in ethnic republics, additional factors influencing media freedom come into play, including political culture specific to the titular ethnic group.

Our analysis of tools used by local governments to “garden” mediated publics shows that, alongside overtly restrictive measures, they also use fine-tuning tools, like the system of social media monitoring, to great effect. Based on our findings, we assume that there exists in Russia a centralized media strategy for local governments that is systematically implemented in all the regions studied. This resembles the mechanisms of political communication under responsive authoritarianism that are described by scholars who study China:88 media are used by authoritarian leaders to gather citizen feedback and adjust policies, thus stabilizing their rule.

Florian Toepfl89 analyzes the benefits and risks that different levels of political criticism bring to the system. He has described Russia’s public-at-large as leadership-critical, explaining that tolerating leadership criticism brings a number of benefits for Russian elites: it legitimizes their rule, making them look democratic; it provides citizen feedback, which is vital in a situation with distorted opinion polls; and it serves as a vent for oppositional citizens. Our findings show that the nationwide public-at-large differs from the publics that dominate in the regions of the Second, Third, and Fourth Russias. According to Toepfl’s logic, this must be because regional elites estimate that the risks of tolerating leadership-critical publics outweigh the potential benefits. However, our research shows that, in the case of the Russian periphery, the low level of political criticism in the media can be explained not only by elites’ strategies, but also by the behavior of participants of publics: the average audience in these regions is older than in regional centers, and they are usually loyal to the state and depoliticized. As a result, there is not much demand for leadership criticism in these communities. In our view, the role of audiences as participants that co-shape publics should not be neglected in research on media under responsive authoritarianism.

Overall, Toepfl’s approach to studying public communication as a composition of mediated publics has proved to be effective in analyzing hybrid media landscapes. We detected a variety of innovative news formats based on social media that have thrived in social media environments in the Russian regions. These environments differ drastically from the news environments that are typical of Western media. Thus, Instagram is used by local authorities to spread official news, whereas politicians in Western Europe and the US often use Twitter. Facebook, although present in the Russian market and quite popular in the social milieu of the First Russia,90 is not at all visible in local news ecologies, where the leading platform for news consumption is the Russia-based VK. Telegram, despite its official ban in April 2018, remains visible in the news structure of big cities and is used by both opposition activists and pro-state political consultants in their political struggles.

The initial query of this paper was whether the Internet has enabled local news media in Russia to perform a watchdog function. Our findings show that social-media-based news outlets in the regional centers indeed contribute to an increase in government transparency and provide room for dissent, functions that can be seen as emerging from the watchdog role of media in these regions. The consequences of the fact that the regional elites are obliged by the federal center to monitor and respond to negative comments made by citizens on social media are, in our view, twofold. On the one hand, it fosters the emerging watchdog mechanisms of public communication, as people realize that officials owe them a response. On the other hand, it coopts these mechanisms, making them a rather effective tool for receiving citizen feedback and fine-tuning state policies. Thus, by maintaining a “low heat,” leadership-critical publics might bring benefits to elites and stabilize the local government. However, by raising demand for more transparency and openness in public communication, they also have the potential to cultivate a new type of political culture in these regions.

Conclusion and Paths for Future Research

Our study has attempted to explore local Russian media landscapes from a comparative perspective. The scope of our study did not allow us to conduct a more thorough analysis of discursive practices in the local publics that would have helped us to analyze political discourse about the local news in these publics. Ethnographic studies of local media and their audiences would enhance our understanding of the factors that shape discursive practices in different regions.

Overall, our findings show that research on local media landscapes in restrictive contexts offers a new perspective on political communication in (semi)authoritarian settings. This comparative analysis of the Russian regions has demonstrated that freedom of speech might vary significantly within a single media system. More comparative studies, including across countries, are needed to better understand the mechanisms and functions of local media beyond democratic contexts.

1 Elena L. Vartanova. 2014. The Russian Media Model in the Context of Post-Soviet Dynamics. In Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini, eds.. Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2 Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski. 2010. “Liberation vs. Control: The Future of Cyberspace.” Journal of Democracy 21: 4: 43–57.

3 Agora International. 2018. Internet Freedom 2017: Creeping Criminalisation, At http://en.agora.legal/articles/Report-of-Agora-International-%E2%80%98Internet-Freedom-2017-Creeping-Criminalisation%E2%80%99/8, accessed November 4, 2019.

4 Natalie Fenton, M. Metykova, J. Schlosberg, and D. Freedman. 2010. Meeting the News Needs of Local Communities, At http://www.mediatrust.org/uploads/128255497549240/original.pdf, accessed March 4, 2017 (no longer available; see a summary at http://research.gold.ac.uk/14353/).

5 Olga Dovbysh. 2019. “Commercial or Public Service Actors? Controversies in the Nature of Russia’s Regional Mass Media.” Russian Journal of Communication 11: 1: 71–87; Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey. 2014. “Preventive Journalism as a Means of Controlling Regional Media in Russia.” Global Media and Communication 10: 1: 35–52.

6 Natalia Zubarevich. 2013. “Four Russias: Human Potential and Social Differentiation of Russian Regions and Cities.” In Nikolay Petrov and Maria Lipman, eds., Russia 2025: Scenarios for the Russian Future. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 67–85.

7 Robert K. Yin. 2014. Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 5th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.

8 Robert Asen. 2000. “Seeking the ‘Counter,’ in Counterpublics.” Communication Theory 10: 4: 424–46.

9 Florian Toepfl. 2020. “Comparing Authoritarian Publics. The Benefits and Risks of Three Types of Publics for Autocrats.” Communication Theory. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtz015; Florian Toepfl. 2018. “Comparing Authoritarian Publics: The Benefits and Risks of Three Types of Publics for Autocrats.” Paper presented at the ICA Annual Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, May 24–28.

10 Fenton et al., “Meeting the News Needs of Local Communities.”

11 Karin Wahl-Jorgensen. 2019. “The Challenge of Local News Provision.” Journalism 20: 1: 163–66, 163.

12 Kristy Hess and Lisa Waller. 2019. “Hyperlocal Journalism.” In Tim P. Vos and Folker Hanusch, eds., International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies 21. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 1-6.

13 Fenton et al., “Meeting the News Needs of Local Communities”; Andy Williams, Dave Harte, and Jerome Turner. 2014. “The Value of UK Hyperlocal Community News: Findings from a Content Analysis, an Online Survey and Interviews with Producers.” Digital Journalism. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.965932; Philip M. Napoli, Sarah Stonbely, Kathleen McCollough, and Bryce Renninger. 2017. “Local Journalism and the Information Needs of Local Communities.” Journalism Practice 11: 4: 373–95.

14 Williams et al., “The Value of UK Hyperlocal Community News”; Susanne M. Almgren. 2017. “Undoing Churnalism?” Digital Journalism 5: 8: 1060–79; Hess and Waller, “Hyperlocal Journalism.”

15 Anna Leupold, Ulrike Klinger, and Otfried Jarren. 2018. “Imagining the City.” Journalism Studies 19: 7: 960–82; Marco van Kerkhoven and Piet Bakker. 2014. “The Hyperlocal in Practice” Digital Journalism 2: 3: 296–309; Romy Fröhlich, Oliver Quiring, and Sven Engesser. 2012. “Between Idiosyncratic Self-Interests and Professional Standards: A Contribution to the Understanding of Participatory Journalism in Web 2.0. Results from an Online Survey in Germany.” Journalism 13: 8: 1041–63; Sergio Splendore. 2017. “The Dominance of Institutional Sources and the Establishment of Non-Elite Ones: The Case of Italian Online Local Journalism.” Journalism 56: 1: 146488491772289.

16 Bingchun Meng and Terhi Rantanen. 2015. “A Change of Lens: A Call to Compare the Media in China and Russia.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 32: 1: 1–15.

17 Jingrong Tong. 2019. “The Crisis of the Centralized Media Control Theory: How Local Power Controls Media in China.” Media, Culture & Society 32: 6: 925–942.

18 Julie Firmstone. 2016. “Mapping Changes in Local News.” Journalism Practice 10: 7: 928–38.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.; Williams, et al., “The Value of UK Hyperlocal Community News.”

21 Hess and Waller. 2016. “Hip to Be Hyper.” Digital Journalism 4: 2: 193–210.

22 Kathleen McCollough, Jessica K. Crowell, and Philip M. Napoli. 2017. “Portrait of the Online Local News Audience.” Digital Journalism 5: 1: 100–118.

23 Fenton et al., “Meeting the News Needs of Local Communities.”

24 Danny Hayes and Jennifer L. Lawless. 2015. “As Local News Goes, So Goes Citizen Engagement: Media, Knowledge, and Participation in US House Elections.” The Journal of Politics 77: 2: 447–62, 447.

25 Folker Hanusch. 2015. “A Different Breed Altogether?” Journalism Studies 16: 6: 816–33.

26 Meng and Rantanen, “A Change of Lens,” 8.

27 Splendore, “The Dominance of Institutional Sources.”

28 Tong, “The Crisis of the Centralized Media Control Theory”; Dovbysh, “Commercial or Public Service Actors?”

29 Tong, “The Crisis of the Centralized Media Control Theory.”

30 Andy Williams et al. 2014. “The Value of UK Hyperlocal Community News”; Emily T. Metzgar, David D. Kurpius, and Karen M. Rowley. 2011. “Defining Hyperlocal Media: Proposing a Framework for Discussion.” New Media & Society 13: 5: 772–87.

31 Kelly M. Meyer and Tang Tang. 2015. “#SocialJournalism: Local News Media on Twitter.” International Journal on Media Management 17: 4: 241–57; Almgren, “Undoing Churnalism?”; Philip M. Napoli, Sarah Stonbely, Kathleen McCollough, and Bryce Renninger. 2017. “Local Journalism and the Information Needs of Local Communities.” Journalism Practice 11: 4: 373–95.

32 Caio Machado, Beatriz Kira, Vidya Narayanan, Bence Kollanyi, and Philip Howard. 2019. “A Study of Misinformation in WhatsApp Groups with a Focus on the Brazilian Presidential Elections.” In Ling Liu and Ryen White, eds., Companion Proceedings of the 2019 World Wide Web Conference. New York: ACM Press, 1013–19.

33 Vartanova, “The Russian Media Model in the Context of Post-Soviet Dynamics,” 139.

34 Dovbysh, “Commercial or Public Service Actors?”; Svetlana Pasti. 2015. “A Passion for Robin Hood: A Case Study of Journalistic (In)Dependence in Russia.” In Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska and Michal Glowacki, eds., Democracy and Media in Central and Eastern Europe 25 Years On. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishers, 117–137.

35 Elena L. Vartanova, Andrei V. Vyrkovsky, Mikhail I. Makeenko, and Sergey S. Smirnov. 2016. “The Russian Media Industry in Ten Years: Industrial Forecasts.” Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 11: 1: 65–84.

36 Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey. 2014. “Preventive Journalism as a Means of Controlling Regional Media in Russia.” Global Media and Communication 10: 1: 35–52, 36.

37 Anna Gladkova, Ivan Aslanov, Anatoly Danilov, Andrei Danilov, Vasil Garifullin, and Rashida Magadeeva. 2019. “Ethnic Media in Russia: Between State Model and Alternative Voices.” Russian Journal of Communication 11: 1: 53–70.

38 Vartanova et al., “The Russian Media Industry in Ten Years”; Dovbysh, “Commercial or Public Service Actors?”

39 Dovbysh, “Commercial or Public Service Actors?,” 74.

40 Zubarevich, “Four Russias.”

41 Ibid.

42 Svetlana Bodrunova, and Anna Litvinenko. 2015. “Four Russias in Communication: Fragmentation of the Russian Public Sphere in the 2010s.” In Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska and Michal Glowacki, eds., Democracy and Media in Central and Eastern Europe 25 Years On. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishers, 63–79.

43 Firmstone, “Mapping Changes in Local News”; Napoli et al., “Local Journalism and the Information Needs of Local Communities.”

44 Toepfl, “Comparing Authoritarian Publics.”

45 Asen, “Seeking the ‘Counter’ in Counterpublics,” 425.

46 Toepfl, “Comparing Authoritarian Publics,” 9.

47 Ibid.

48 Toepfl, “Comparing Authoritarian Publics.”

49 Andreas Schedler. 2009. “The New Institutionalism in the Study of Authoritarian Regimes.” Totalitarismus und Demokratie 6: 2: 323–340.

50 Toepfl, “Comparing Authoritarian Publics,” 34.

51 Authors, forthcoming.

52 Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 50.

53 Natalia Zubarevich. 2012. “Sotsial’naia differentsiatsiia regionov i gorodov” [Social Differentiation of Regions and Cities]. Pro et Contra (July–October): 135–52.

54 Toepfl, “Comparing Authoritarian Publics.”

55 Ruslan Sokolovsky. 2018. Samy lizemerny bloggers tysechaletia [The Most Hypocritical Blogger of the Millennium], At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27gnZnS4bPs.

56 Meduza. “Sotrudnikov munitsipalnykh predpriyatii v Podmoskove zastavili laykat postyi chinovnikov” [Employees of Municipal Enterprises in Moscow District Were Forced to Like the Posts of Officials]. May 8, 2018, At http://catcut.net/9ZAv.

57 Zubarevich, “Four Russias.”

58 Alexander Nikitushin, analyst of Journalist magazine. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, October 16.

59 Maxim Sychev, independent expert, CBDO at Publishers Advertising Alliance. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 8.

60 Sergey Yakupov, independent researcher, editor of MediaMedia Telegram channel. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 8.

61 Maria Litvinova. 2019. “Vsem po Instagram” [Instagram to All]. Kommersant, August 29, 2019, At https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4074397, accessed November 10, 2019.

62 Sergey Yakupov, independent researcher, editor of MediaMedia Telegram channel. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 8.

63 Alexander Savitsky, Development Director of PrimaMedia, Primorsky region. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 7.

64 Natalia Tujgunova, editor-in-chief at DVOR.media. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, October 18.

65 Alexander Nikitushin, analyst of Journalist magazine. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, October 16.

66 Comment in Tipichny Volgograd, November 22, 2019, At https://vk.com/tipich_volgograd, accessed November 22, 2019.

67 Ivan Pechischev, researcher, Perm state university, Perm region. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Moscow, October 29.

68 Ibid.

69 Alexander Savitsky, Development Director of PrimaMedia, Primorsky region. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 7.

70 Ibid.

71 Maxim Melnikov, former editor of Samarskaya gazeta. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, October 21.

72 Alexander Savitsky, Development Director of PrimaMedia, Primorsky region. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 7.

73 Comment in Mordovia Online, March 25, 2020, At https://vk.com/13online?w=wall-120424712_327315, accessed March 25, 2020.

74 Sergey Yakupov, independent researcher, editor of MediaMedia Telegram channel. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 8.

75 Alexander Savitsky, Development Director of PrimaMedia, Primorsky region. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 7.

76 Elena Shitikova, independent expert and former Executive Director of the Publishers Guild, Facebook. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, WhatsApp, November 9.

77 Kondrat Ptchelkin. “Korruptsiia, vorovstvo i ubiistva v votchine Shoigu” [Corruption, Theft and Murder on the Shoigu Estate]. Risk, February 18, 2020, At https://risk-inform.ru/article_8533.html, accessed April 21, 2020.

78 Maria Litvinova. 2019. Vsem po Instagram [Instagram to All], At https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4074397, accessed November 10, 2019.

79 Yelizaveta Antonova and Vladimir Dergachev. “Kak Kreml’ budet reagirovat’ na zhaloby v sotssetyakh?” [How Will the Kremlin Respond to Complaints on Social Networks?]. RBK, July 23, 2018, At https://www.rbc.ru/politics/23/07/2018/5b50d1579a7947c62c195e8b, accessed March 25, 2020.

80 Oxana Dyakina. “«Intsident menedzhment» pomogaet vlasti luchshe reagirovat’ na zaprosy naseleniia” [“Incident Management” Helps the Authorities Better Respond to the Needs of the Population]. Federal Press, January 1, 2020, At https://fedpress.ru/expert-opinion/2402678, accessed March 25, 2020.

81 Burat Bashirov. “V «Intsident-menedzhment» chashche vsego zhaluiutsia na dorogi” [On “Incident Management” People Most Often Complain about Roads]. Kommersant, January 29, 2020, At https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4234804, accessed April 25, 2020.

82 Maxim Sychev, independent expert, CBDO at Publishers Advertising Alliance. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 8.

83 Alexander Nikitushin, analyst of Journalist magazine. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, October 16.

84 Elena Shitikova, independent expert, former Executive Director of the Publishers Guild, Facebook. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, WhatsApp, November 9.

85 Natalia Tujgunova, editor-in-chief at DVOR.media. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, October 18.

86 Alexander Savitsky, Development Director of PrimaMedia, Primorsky region. 2019. Interviewed by Kamilla Nigmatullina, Facebook Messenger, November 7.

87 Meng and Rantanen, “A Change of Lens,” 8.

88 Daniela Stockmann. 2013. Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Clara Boulianne Lagacé and Jennifer Gandhi. 2015. “Authoritarian Institutions.” In Jennifer Gandhi and Rubén Ruiz-Rufino, eds., Routledge Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions. New York: Routledge, 278–291.

89 Toepfl, “Comparing Authoritarian Publics.”

90 Bodrunova and Litvinenko, “Four Russias in Communication,” 63–79.

Dr Anna Litvinenko is a researcher at the Free University of Berlin. Contact: anna.litvinenko@fu-berlin.de. Dr. Kamilla Nigmatullina is an associate professor and chair of the department of digital media communication at St. Petersburg State University. Contact: k.nigmatulina@spbu.ru. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation DFG under an Emmy Noether grant.

Identity Discourse in Local Newspapers Before, During, and After Military Conflict:

A Case Study of Kramatorsk

Jon Roozenbeek

University of Cambridge

Abstract: This article investigates identity discourse during military conflict through the lens of local print media. Using dynamic topic modelling and the term frequency-inverse document frequency statistic, this article examines what discursive themes appeared in two local newspapers from the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine before, during and after a three-month occupation by militants of the so-called Donetsk “People’s Republic” (DNR) in 2014; how these themes evolved over time; and how these themes related to local, regional, and national identity discourse. The results show that the conflict fueled the replacement of local and regional identity discourses with a national (Ukrainian) discourse, even as the conflict receded from view as a topic of discussion. Moreover, there is no indication that representatives of the DNR engaged in efforts to either foster a new identity or hark back to historical, political, or cultural references for identity-building purposes.

Kramatorsk is a city in the northern part of Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine that has a population of approximately 160,000. Founded as a small settlement by a minor railway station in the 1860s, the town gradually grew into a large urban center with heavy industry as its main source of economic activity. Over the years, Kramatorsk became one of the most economically vibrant cities in the Don river basin (Donbas). The Kramatorsk machine building plant (NKMZ) designs and builds equipment for mining, metallurgy, steel rolling, and military-grade heavy weaponry. The city’s metallurgical plant provided employment to thousands of residents until its closure in 2012.

Following the Euromaidan revolution1 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014, demonstrations sprang up across eastern and southern Ukraine, particularly in the easternmost Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In several cases, demonstrators managed to take hold of local administration buildings, police stations, and other points of interest. In April, separatist militants in Donetsk and Luhansk—aided by military members and volunteers from the Russian Federation2—declared the foundation of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” (DNR and LNR). A military conflict broke out between the Ukrainian army and forces fighting for the DNR and LNR. The conflict has been monitored by the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE). Nevertheless, deadly clashes have continued to erupt.3

On April 12, 2014, armed militiamen occupied Kramatorsk’s police station, airfield, and city council building. For the next few months, the city was occupied by representatives of the DNR, with parts of it changing hands periodically until it was recaptured by the Ukrainian army on July 5.4 After returning to Ukrainian control, it became the de facto administrative center of Donetsk Oblast.

With the exception of Mariupol, Kramatorsk is the largest urban center in eastern Ukraine that was occupied by DNR or LNR militants and then recaptured. The city is thus an important object of analysis: studying Kramatorsk can provide unique insights into how the conflict was framed and justified at the time it began, and how these frames and justifications were perceived by local residents. In addition, Kramatorsk is a source of knowledge for those who seek to investigate how the Donbas conflict has influenced Ukrainian identity5 and, more generally, can guide analysis of the interaction between military conflicts and identity formation.6

Local Media, Conflict, and Identity Formation

Following the outbreak of the Donbas conflict in April 2014, local media in Donetsk and Luhansk were placed under severe restrictions. DNR officials visited local newspaper offices, radio stations, and television channels, using intimidation and sometimes violence to induce compliance.7 Kramatorsk’s eight active newspapers were either shut down by DNR representatives or were warned that continuing to publish could have severe consequences.8 Television channels and radio stations experienced the same treatment, with Ukrainian channels either replaced by Russian ones or taken off the air.9

As the internet and large media conglomerates increasingly become the main sources of news, local media are often left as the only news organizations that pay attention to local events. As such, they serve as curators of local identities. By telling and retelling stories that reflect common values within the community, and by reporting personal news items in which national and international media have little interest, local media build municipal consensus and a communal sense of belonging.10 To quote Morris Janowitz, “The community newspaper’s emphasis on community routines, low controversy and social ritual are the very characteristics that account for its readership.”11 Rasmus Kleis Nielsen adds that community media, of which local media is one form,12 should be seen as keystone media, as their role is not only to provide certain kinds of information to local populations, but also to provide other (i.e. national or international) media outlets with source material for their stories.13

Local media also play a complex role in shaping and fostering identity. Michael Chan argues that one can discursively categorize intergroup relations in media discourse, and in so doing shape audiences’ perception of the conflict vis-à-vis the “other.”14 In this article, the focus is identity discourse: phrases, stories, or narratives that contribute to the building of a local (ingroup) identity. The article draws on Klaus Eder’s “minimalist” theory of identity shaping, which states that “anything can serve as a boundary between identities within a historically specific situation.”15 I employ this theory in order to do justice to the agnosticism of this article’s methodology by not making presuppositions about the nature of the identity discourse present in media in Kramatorsk: identity discourse can use any starting point as its foundation, be it historical, outgroup-focused, bureaucratic, or emotional. Furthermore, what serves as a building block in the discursive identity building process is flexible, and may range from historical references (e.g., World War II or, in the case of Donbas, the history of mining and metallurgy in the region) to sports, art, laws, holidays, or politics.

During a violent conflict, this process of discursive identity-shaping becomes more immediate. As Rogers Brubaker argues, identity may “suddenly crystallise” during times of violent conflict.16 Although wars are not necessarily “generative” of citizenship or national identification,17 existing identities may be revisited in wartime and serve as markers for fostering support for one side or the other.18 Local media play a particularly important role in this process, although this role has not been studied in great detail in isolation. What local media publish about a conflict, what side they choose, and how they frame events is key to winning the “hearts and minds” of local residents.19 Local media thus play an important role during a conflict, shaping not only local, but also regional and even national identities. How concepts like the nation, community, and who is considered to be part of the “other” are discussed in local media is therefore both a reflection of local identities and itself a factor in shaping them.

The above discussion highlights the importance of identity-building discourse during conflict. However, there are few existing case studies that analyze how this process takes shape. This article will contribute to the literature by looking at the content published by two local (print) media outlets before, during, and after a period of armed conflict. Specifically, I will investigate to what extent local, regional, or national identity discourse can be discerned in these two outlets and how this process changed as the conflict progressed. I will address the following questions:

What topics were discussed in local print media before, during and after the 2014 occupation of Kramatorsk?

What themes emerged from these topics?

How do these themes relate to local, regional, and national identity discourse in local media in Kramatorsk, and what differences exist between the period of occupation and the periods before and after?

Methods

Data Set

The data set for this article consists of two Kramatorsk-based print media outlets, Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska. Tekhnopolis is a small, primarily Russian-language publication (circulation ca. 20,000) with three permanent employees and a number of freelancers.20 Founded in 2001, it is owned by Sergei Vinogradov and a limited company called “Katlaif.” “Katlaif” itself has four owners (two private individuals and two companies) and is run by Tekhnopolis’ editor-in-chief Oleg Kubar’. “Katlaif”’s main activity is newspaper publishing.21 During the occupation, Tekhnopolis’ office was hit with a mortar shell and partially destroyed. The paper nevertheless managed to keep publishing during the conflict, albeit less frequently than before. After Kramatorsk was recaptured, it resumed its regular publication schedule.

Novosti Kramatorska is a Russian-language newspaper (published under the name Gazeta Privet; circulation ca. 5,80022) and news website. Its print version ceased publication around mid-2016, but its website23 is updated daily with news and opinion articles. Novosti Kramatorska was founded by the entrepreneur and later civil servant Aleksandr Tolstoguzov in 2005.24 In late May of 2014, Tolstoguzov and his family were forced to leave Donetsk oblast due to pressure from DNR representatives. The newspaper was then taken over by DNR activists, and part of the staff agreed to work for them until the end of the occupation in July.25

Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska are two of the eight local newspapers published in Kramatorsk. Whether these two publications are representative of Kramatorsk media as a whole is difficult to say.26 Broadly speaking, local media in eastern Ukraine have been mostly supportive of the Ukrainian government in its conflict with the DNR and LNR.27 A cursory glance at other newspapers’ websites indicates that this holds true for Kramatorsk newspapers as well.28 However, in the absence of detailed analyses of the content published by Kramatorsk media (not only newspapers, but also other forms of media such as television or radio)29, I do not claim that the conclusions in this article are necessarily representative of all Kramatorsk media, only that they are indicative.

Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska were selected for several reasons. First, both are popular and well-read: Tekhnopolis is widely available in the kiosks that are dotted around town and is read by a large audience in the city, while Novosti Kramatorska is one of the city’s most popular news sites. Second, both outlets are distinctly local and cater almost exclusively to audiences in Kramatorsk. Third, both outlets are run by local residents and are not owned by large media conglomerates, thus ensuring some degree of independence from local power structures. Fourth, while both Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska have a small number of permanent employees, they work with a large number of freelance journalists and therefore offer a wide range of different perspectives.

The content of Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska news articles and editorials published between January 9, 2013, and June 19, 2017, was scraped from their respective websites using the Google Chrome Webscraper.30 In total, 9,973 articles from Tekhnopolis and 12,246 articles from Novosti Kramatorska were obtained. Both corpora were then divided into 5 roughly equal time periods before, during, and after the occupation. The first time period spans the months preceding the start of Euromaidan and the Donbas war (July–November 2013). The second overlaps with the Euromaidan demonstrations in Kyiv and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation (November–April 2014). The third period is the occupation of Kramatorsk (April–July 2014), and the fourth period immediately follows this period (July-November 2014). The fifth and final period is between February and May 2016, roughly a year and a half after hostilities in Kramatorsk ended. In order for the methodology used in this paper to work properly, the number of documents in each time period has to be roughly equal. Both corpora contained many more documents from 2013 than from any other year. Therefore, articles were randomly sampled31 from each period so that there would be approximately as many documents for each period in the set as were published during the occupation (291 for Tekhnopolis and 616 for Novosti Kramatorska). The final data set therefore consists of 1,436 Tekhnopolis articles and 3,091 Novosti Kramatorska articles. Table 1 provides an overview.

Table 1. Corpus Overview

Time Period

Name of Time Period

Number of Documents—Tekhnopolis

Number of Documents—Novosti Kramatorska

July 8, 2013–November 30, 2013

2013

281

619

December 1, 2013–April 11, 2014

Euromaidan

296

619

April 12, 2014–July 5, 2014

Occupation

291

616

July 6, 2014–November 1, 2014

Post-crisis

285

615

February 16, 2016–May 15, 2016

2016

283

622

TOTAL

1,436

3,091

The corpus for this paper consists of 4,527 documents, too many for one person to read in much detail. Methods from computer science can therefore be of use to extract meaningful information from a corpus, which can then serve as a platform for further interpretation. This article uses two different methodologies to that end: dynamic topic modelling and the term frequency-inversed document frequency statistic.

Method 1: Dynamic Topic Modeling

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, researchers began working on how to use statistical models to discover abstract topics and hidden semantic structures in large sets of written documents.32 One fruit of these labors was what is now called a “topic model,” where a “topic” is a ranked list of semantically related words. If you run a topic model over a set of documents, the model calculates the probability that each word belongs to each topic, then ranks these probabilities from high to low. The result is a set of topics, each made up of a list of semantically related words. Topic models can provide insight into the topics that the entire corpus contains and lower the risk of biased interpretation.

More recently, researchers have begun to explore the possibility of using topic modeling to trace the evolution of topics in a corpus over time. This has led to the development of so-called dynamic topic models.33 In a dynamic topic model, each document is given a time stamp (usually weeks, months, or years). The model assumes that a set of topics with time stamp 2 has evolved from the set of topics with time stamp 1, and so on. Thus, while the topics are extracted from the full corpus, the ranked list of words that make up the topics evolves with each time stamp. Derek Greene and his colleagues developed a dynamic topic modeling implementation for “non-negative matrix factorization” (NMF), which will be used in this article. They have previously used this method to look at the development of topics in discussions in the European Parliament,34 as well as in a corpus of news articles.35 Appendix 3 provides a more detailed explanation of how NMF works. Greene’s implementation also contains a handy function for determining how many topics the researcher should tell the topic model to extract from the corpus. This implementation was used to decide on the number of dynamic topics that the model was asked to extract. Appendix 4 contains more information on this method.

After cleaning the data by taking out common stop words and stemming the remaining words, a dynamic topic model was built for the Novosti Kramatorska corpus (see Appendix 2 in the online appendix for the full results). Based on the coherence score, the optimal number of topics was 12 (model coherence=0.5520). This resulted in a set of coherent topics that allowed for more granular qualitative analysis. The same was done for the Tekhnopolis corpus, although this resulted in topics that were not readily interpretable.36

Method 2: Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency

Since the dynamic topic modelling method was unsuccessful for the Tekhnopolis corpus, another method was required. Since it was not possible to obtain meaningful relations between words in the corpus to form topics, I chose to instead focus on the evolution of the use of individual words. This was done by calculating the “term frequency-inversed document frequency” statistic for each word, which is a measure commonly used to quantify the relevance of a particular word in a corpus of text (see Appendix 5 for more information)37. The Tf-Idf was calculated for the top 50 terms in each time period.38 Appendix 1 (in the online appendix) contains the full list. Terms that are semantically related were manually grouped into themes (such as “sports” or “arts”).

In principle, both topic models and the Tf-Idf method can point out the relative relevance of certain words within a corpus, and in the case of topic models even the relationship between these words. That said, neither method is capable of offering context with regard to how a word is used or what explains its relevance in (part of) a corpus. They can only identify key words, phrases, and topics that are useful guidelines for subsequent qualitative analysis.39 Accordingly, the themes identified using the methods described above were used as a baseline, with more granular analysis conducted by looking at relevant articles individually.

Results

Table 2 displays all 12 dynamic topics for the Novosti Kramatorska corpus, aggregated over all 5 time stamps (2013, Euromaidan, Occupation, Post-Crisis, and 2016). The table gives a broad impression of what each topic is about, but does not go into detail about how the topics evolved over time. Displayed are a rough English translation and (in parentheses) the Russian transliteration.

Table 2. Novosti Kramatorska Dynamic Topics (Aggregated)

Rank

Topic 1

Topic 2

Topic 3

Topic 4

Topic 5

Topic 6

1

city (gorodsk-)

place (mest-)

house (dom)

individual (lits)

children (det-)

water (vod-)

2

council (sovet)

contest (sorevnovan-)

street (ulits-)

Ukraine (ukrain-)

school (shkol-)

water canal (vodokana-)

3

MP (deputat)

tournament (turnir)

region (raion)

state (gosudarstven-)

competition (konkurs)

water supply (vodosnabzhen-)

4

question (vopros)

championship (chempionat)

repair (remont)

center (tsentr)

child- (detsk-)

supply (podach-)

5

head (golov-)

team (komand-)

suffer (postradav-)

occupy (zaniat-)

parents (roditel-)

drinking- (pitev-)

6

mayor (mer)

amid (sred)

apartment (kvartir-)

Donetsk (donetsk)

class (klass-)

city (gorod)

7

meeting (zasedan-)

Donetsk (donetsk)

driver (voditel)

pension (pens-)

library (bibliotek-)

payment (oplat)

8

Andrei (andr-)

participate (uchast)

accident (dtp)

management (upravlen-)

youth (molodezh-)

service (uslug)

9

city (gorod)

oblast (oblast)

work (rabot-)

payment (vyplat-)

holiday (prazdnik)

resident (zhitel-)

10

deputy (zamestitel)

Ukraine (ukrain)

car (avtomobil-)

oblast (oblast)

event (meropriiat-)

enterprise (predpriiat-)

Rank

Topic 7

Topic 8

Topic 9

Topic 10

Topic 11

Topic 12

1

day (den-)

Avangard (avangard)

Kramatorsk (kramatorsk)

enterprise (predpriiat-)

summer (letn-)

Hryvnia (abbr.) (grn)

2

weather (pogod-)

team (komand-)

newspaper (gazet-)

pa (Pa)

police (milits-)

million (mln)

3

first (perv-)

match (match)

news (novost-)

EMSS (EMSS)

man (muzhchin-)

year (god)

4

people’s (narodn-)

game (igr-)

city (gorod-)

company (kompan-)

Hryvnia (griv-)

thousand (tys-)

5

American (amerikansk-)

minute (minut-)

read (chita-)

production (produkts-)

legal (ugolovn-)

enterprise (predpriiat-)

6

history (istor-)

league (lig-)

journalist (zhurnalist)

manufacturing (proizvodstv-)

thief (vor-)

sum (sum-)

7

air (vozdukh)

ball (miach)

our (nash)

Energomashspetsstal’ (Energomashspetsstal)

reverse (obrat)

budget (biudzhet)

8

token (primet)

soccer player (futbolist)

which (kotor-)

major (krupn-)

theft (krazh)

Hryvnia (abbr.) (grn)

9

clear (iasn-)

first (perv-)

also (takzh-)

factory (zavod)

apartment (kvartir-)

owed (zadolzhen-)

10

Ukrainian (ukrainsk-)

round (tur)

relate (rasskaza-)

year (god)

criminal (zloumyshlennik)

consist (sostav)

The topics in Table 2 are sufficiently coherent for analysis: broadly speaking, topic 1 is about local politics; topic 2 about local sports; topic 3 about infrastructure; topic 4 about national politics; topic 5 about children and education; topic 6 about water management; topic 7 about the weather; topic 8 about Avangard Kramatorsk, the local soccer team; topic 9 about local news and the media; topic 10 about local industry; topic 11 about crime; and topic 12 is about money. The full list of dynamic topics can be found in Appendix 2 (see the online appendix).

For the Tekhnopolis corpus, the Tf-Idf statistic for the top 50 terms in each time stamp was calculated. This calculation yielded a total of 154 separate terms that appeared at least once. The full list of terms and their Tf-Idf statistics can be found in Appendix 1 (see the online appendix). The Tf-Idf scores per term were then plotted over time in line graphs, in order to illustrate graphically the relative salience of these terms in each time stamp (see the graphs in the “Discussion” section below). Forty out of 154 terms were manually categorized into topics (“local identity,” “sports,” “arts and culture,” and “war”); the remaining 114 terms could not be placed into any intuitive categories (see Appendix 1) and were excluded from the analysis.

Putting the results together, four main themes emerge from the dynamic topic modelling and the Tf-Idf analyses: arts and culture; sports; spatial groups of membership; and war. These themes give an impression of the topics of discussion in Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska, but by themselves say little about the nature of identity discourse in the two outlets. The “Discussion” section below will engage with these four themes in more detail.

Discussion

The four main themes that emerge from the data analysis (arts and culture; sports; spatial groups of membership; and war) will be discussed separately below, focusing on their role in shaping identity discourse. I will examine the evolution of relevant individual topics from Table 2 above, as well as the themes identified by the Tf-Idf analysis, in detail. Where relevant, citations and quotations from individual articles will be added to supplement the discussion.

Arts and Culture

Figure 1. Tf-Idf Graph for “Arts & Culture”

The first theme is arts and culture: cultural celebrations and festivals, national or local holidays, art exhibitions, etc. Such topics form an important part of identity discourse, particularly in the ways that “banal” issues that relate to everyday identity are discussed and shared.40 In Tekhnopolis, coverage related to arts and culture declined significantly as the crisis developed. Figure 1 shows the Tf-Idf statistic (on the vertical axis) for the terms “stsena” (stage), vyshivka (embroidery), “tkan’” (cloth), “khudozhnik” (artist), and “pesnia” (song). These terms declined in relevance once the crisis began and did not re-emerge after the occupation ended. This decline is also noticeable when looking at articles more closely. In 2013, a typical report in Tekhnopolis would cover (with some enthusiasm) upcoming holidays or cultural festivals:

The favorite holidays of all citizens of Kramatorsk are approaching: the Day of the City (den’ goroda) and the Day of the Mechanicians (den’ mashinostroitelei).41

Local (as opposed to national Ukrainian) holidays were the main focus. This changed, however, with the occupation. On April 21, 2014, before the DNR had taken full control of the city’s media, a Tekhnopolis writer voiced his discontent about the DNR’s lack of respect for cultural traditions:

In Kramatorsk, the militants (opolchentsy) do not care about holidays. On the second day of Easter, April 21, a regular rally of supporters of the Donetsk [People’s] Republic gathered near the executive committee [building]. After some short speeches, those gathered were divided into three groups. One went to the SBU [the Ukrainian Security Service building], the second went to the airfield, and the third went to the city police department.42

A few weeks later, the DNR was in more firm control of the city. According to one eyewitness account, the city was “frozen” most of the time, with people spending most of their time inside.43 Holidays, festivals, and other cultural events became scarce, with one exception. Alina Mikhailiuk describes the festivities on Victory Day (celebrated annually on May 9 to commemorate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany):

True, on May 9, Kramatorsk woke up for a moment. Everything was the same as one year, five years, ago. A parade, veterans in tears, a cheerfully burning Eternal Flame and songs from the war years. Residents of the city carried in their hands a 60-meter-long St. George’s ribbon, doubtless as some symbol of peace.44

The article makes no mention of the DNR or any of its representatives in the city, and unlike pre-occupation coverage, the article provides few further details, despite the historical relevance of the holiday in the region. Speaking more generally, articles that mention celebrations or cultural festivities organized by the DNR play no meaningful role in the corpus. When the occupation was over, however, its reports about cultural celebrations once again took on a more optimistic tone:

On the city’s central square […] there are currently mass celebrations going on. The “City of Craftsmen” is working: the citizens of Kramatorsk are displaying their wide spectrum of talents.45

Importantly, unlike before and during the occupation, reports about cultural celebrations voiced explicit support for the Ukrainian army and government:

On October 14, on the holiday of the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Eternal Virgin Mary and the Cossacks, guests arrived at the Kramatorsk Ukrainian gymnasium: members of the military, led by the Chief Inspector of the Main Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defense, Colonel Valentin Fedichev.46

The author of the above article is describing the Intercession of the Theotokos and the Day of the Cossacks. The former is an Orthodox holiday that dates back to the Kyivan Rus’. It was considered to be a holiday especially for young girls and women, as most of the work that had to be done on the land ended around October, and then it was time for them to look for husbands.47 During the era of the Zaporizhian Sich (between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries48), October 14 became an important holiday for Ukrainian Cossacks, who would elect a Hetman (commander) on this day. Later, the holiday came to symbolize and celebrate the history of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which waged guerrilla campaigns against the Nazi, Soviet, and Polish occupiers of Western Ukraine during and around World War II.49 The holiday was not mentioned at all by Tekhnopolis in 2013, while a 2011 article about the holiday was critical of Ukraine’s treatment of the Cossacks:

It is worth mentioning that today’s Cossacks are not going through the best of times. “Previously, the Cossacks received more attention from the authorities, and our movement developed much more actively,” says the Hetman of the Kramatorsk Cossack regiment named after [Hetman Pavlo] Skoropadskyi, Sergei Zadorozhnyi. “At the moment, no law with regard to the Ukrainian Cossacks has been adopted for the creation of organizational, legal, financial, informational, and other mechanisms for the Cossack movement.”50

Starting in 2015, under the orders of then-president Poroshenko, October 14 was also to be celebrated as the “Day of the Defender of Ukraine” (den’ zakhisnika Ukraïny).51 However, as early as 2014, Tekhnopolis had already begun to tie the holiday to celebrations of Ukrainian independence and national identity, a significant discursive shift toward identification with Ukraine.

A similar, but not identical pattern is visible in Novosti Kramatorska. Table 3 shows dynamic topic number 5, which relates to education and children, with terms like “shkola” (school), “deti” (children), “uchenik” (pupil), and “biblioteka” (library) appearing throughout the topic. Articles within this topic are typically about events like road safety campaigns52 or reading contests in the Kramatorsk library.53 Table 3 also displays a number of associated topics that the model sees as related to the main topic. These are labeled as 2013(2), 2013(3), Post-Crisis(2), etc.

Table 3. Dynamic Topic 5 (Education & Children)

Rank

Overall

2013

2013(2)

2013(3)

Euromaidan

Euromaidan(2)

1

children (det-)

children (det-)

exhibition (vystavk-)

school (shkol-)

children (det-)

competition (konkurs)

2

school (shkol-)

child (rebenk-)

library (bibliotek-)

education (obrazovan-)

children’s (detsk-)

winner (pobeditel-)

3

competition (konkurs)

center (tsentr)

master (master)

textbook (uchebn-)

library (bibliotek-)

school (shkol-)

4

children’s (detsk-)

family (sem-)

competition (konkurs)

year (god)

holiday (prazdnik)

art (iskusstv-)

5

parents (roditel-)

children’s (detsk-)

Kramatorsk (kramatorsk)

pupil (uchenik)

event (meropriiat)

present (podark-)

6

class (klass-)

occupy (zaniat-)

event (meropriiat)

class (klass-)

holy (sviat-)

editorial office (redakts-)

7

library (bibliotek-)

parents (roditel-)

city (gorod)

management (upravlen-)

book (knig-)

photograph (fotograf)

8

youth (molodezh-)

woman (zhenshchin-)

consist (sosto-)

director (direktor)

parents (roditel-)

learn (ucha-)

9

holiday (prazdnik)

doctor (vrach)

September (sentiabr’-)

student (shkol’nik)

exposition (vystavk-)

will (budut)

10

event (meropriiat)

mom (mam-)

central (tsentral’n-)

Evgenii (evgen-)

present (podark-)

laureate (laureat-)

Rank

Occupation

Post-Crisis

Post-Crisis(2)

Post-Crisis(3)

Post-Crisis(4)

2016

1

children (det-)

aid (pomoshch)

school (shkol-)

occupy (zaniat-)

children (det-)

competition (konkurs)

2

school (shkol-)

IDPs (pereselents-)

pupil (uchenik)

group (grupp-)

youth (molodezh-)

class (klass-)

3

parents (roditel-)

center (tsentr)

education (obrazovan-)

psychological (psikhologichesk-)

sports (sport)

children (det-)

4

graduate (vypusknik)

refugee (bezhenst-)

textbook (uchebn-)

library (bibliotek-)

children’s (detsk-)

holiday (prazdnik)

5

Kramatorsk (kramatorsk)

things (veshch-)

year (god)

club (klub)

department (otdel)

school (shkol-)

6

youth (molodezh-)

product (produkt)

management (upravlen-)

parents (roditel-)

antoshka (antoshk-)

event (meropriiat-)

7

children’s (detsk-)

humanitarian (gumanitarn-)

lesson (urok)

project (proekt)

kid (malysh-)

library (bibliotek)

8

sports (sport-)

volunteer (volunter)

repair (remont)

bitter (gor’k-)

city (gorodsk-)

master (master)

9

education (obrazovan-)

need (nuzhda-)

Evgenii (evgen-)

frame (ramk-)

parents (roditel-)

art (iskusstv-)

10

department (otdel)

clothes (odezhd-)

Sidorov (sidorov)

zap (zap)

house (dom)

participant (uchastnik)

During the occupation of Kramatorsk and the period immediately thereafter, articles in Novosti Kramatorska related to education and children became less frequently associated with arts and culture. In 2013 as well as during the period of the Euromaidan demonstrations, topics associated with the main topic included terms like “vystavka” (exhibition), “konkurs” (contest), and “iskusstvo” (art). Such terms disappear from the list during the period of occupation. In the post-occupation period, the main topic went in a different direction entirely, coming to relate to humanitarian aid, refugees, and internally displaced people; this can be explained by the fact that many of the refugees from the conflict zone were children. Still, terms related to arts and culture are sparse during the occupation. In 2016, terms like “konkurs” (contest), “prazdnik” (holiday), and “iskusstvo” (art) reappear in the topic model, indicating renewed interest in arts and culture.

An additional development, which is not directly visible in Table 3, is that cultural celebrations took on a more explicitly national character following the occupation. In 2013, Novosti Kramatorska reported on national holidays in a factual manner, without much reference to national symbols. For example:

The Day of the Lawyers of Ukraine first appeared in Ukraine’s holiday calendar through Presidential Decree No. 1022/97 of September 16, 1997. This is a holiday that unites lawyers from different fields of activity who stand to protect the rights and freedoms of Ukrainians.

In 2016, however, the same author wrote regularly about events that related to Ukraine or Ukrainian identity. A good example is his article about a Ukrainian spelling bee that was held in Kramatorsk in 2016. Not only was it organized as a way to encourage people to speak Ukrainian in a predominantly Russian-speaking region, it was also co-run by the Ukrainian army:

The winners of the “Let’s Read Ukrainian’ contest, organized by the Kramatorsk Women’s Club “Pani,” the Pushkin central children’s library, the headquarters of the [Anti-Terrorist Operation], and studio “Nash Dom,” were very lucky […] The main prize for young participants was a trip, together with their parents, to the pearl of western Ukraine—the city of L’viv.

The pattern visible in both newspapers is clear. Before the occupation, cultural and artistic activities had a primarily local character and there was relatively little overt association with Ukrainian identity as a whole. After the occupation, however, both Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska reported on celebrations and holidays with explicit reference to Ukraine, the Ukrainian language, or Ukrainian culture. In the case of Tekhnopolis, this even happened before the holiday came to officially include more elements related to the Ukrainian army. These developments offer support for Rogers Brubaker’s idea that cataclysmic events (in this case the start of the conflict) allow for identities to “suddenly crystallise” rather than emerge gradually.
In addition, articles published during the occupation period show little to no attention being paid to cultural or other celebrations organized by the DNR authorities, with the exception of the May 9 celebration.

Sports

The second theme is (local) sports (see Figure 2), especially soccer. In democratic and authoritarian states alike, sports and sports reporting have often been used to promote particular versions of a national or regional identity.
Michael Billig considers the sports press to be a key part of what he calls “banal nationalism,” stating that the sports pages

day after day, invite “us,” the readers, to support the national cause. The sports pages are predominantly read by men for pleasure. They can be seen as banal rehearsals for the extraordinary times of crisis, when the state calls upon its citizenry, and especially its male citizenry, to make ultimate sacrifices in the cause of nationhood.

This identity-building function of sports is employed even in times of conflict. In 2002, for example, a soccer match was held in war-torn Afghanistan between peacekeeping troops and a team from Kabul. The match was billed as a “game of unity” and was meant to symbolize the overthrow of the Taliban regime, despite the fact that the war was far from over at that time.

Figure 2 reveals a similar pattern to Figure 1 above: sports-related topics were prevalent in the pre-crisis period (2013), then receded from view entirely as the crisis started and came to a head, and finally re-emerged again in 2016. This recovery, however, is only partial.

Figure 2. Tf-Idf Graph for “Sports”

Like arts and culture, sports became a contentious issue during the occupation. The local soccer team, FK Avangard Kramatorsk, which plays in Ukraine’s second division, was forced to bow out from a large chunk of the 2013/2014 season because of the occupation.54 The sport then took on a political dimension that led to some frustration among the residents of Kramatorsk.55 The same movement from local to national is visible in Novosti Kramatorska, where soccer is a particularly popular topic. Table 4 gives an overview of dynamic topic 8, “Avangard Kramatorsk.”

Table 4. Dynamic Topic 8 (Avangard Kramatorsk)

Rank

Overall

2013

2013(2)

Euromaidan

Occupation

1

Avangard (avangard)

team (komand-)

Avangard (avangard)

Avangard (avangard)

Avangard (avangard)

2

team (komand-)

Avangard (avangard)

match (match)

team (komand-)

ball (miach-)

3

match (match)

game (igr-)

table (tablits-)

game (igr-)

team (komand-)

4

game (igr-)

minute (minut-)

tournament (turnirn-)

minute (minut-)

match (match)

5

minute (minut-)

goal (gol-)

tomorrow (zavtr-)

match (match)

game (igr-)

6

league (lig-)

soccer player (futbolist)

stadium (stadion)

soccer player (futbolist)

goal (vorot-)

7

ball (miach-)

match (match)

league (lig-)

Dmitrii (dmitr-)

round (tur)

8

soccer player (futbolist)

round (tur)

Avangard player (avangardovts-)

score (schet)

league (lig-)

9

first (perv-)

ball (miach-)

place (mest-)

opponent (sopernik)

minute (minut-)

10

round (tur)

first (perv-)

soccer (futbol)

collection (sbor)

score (schet)

The topic has no columns after the “Euromaidan” time period. This indicates that the model does not consider this topic to continue after the occupation. This does not mean that Avangard ceased to be discussed altogether in the post-crisis and 2016 time periods; rather, it implies that the algorithm could not pick up on a coherent continuation of this topic. This is not too surprising, as Avangard Kramatorsk withdrew from competition shortly after the occupation began and no matches were played for a significant period of time. In the 2016 period, Avangard was back to playing matches, but the match reports published in Novosti Kramatorska were often sparser and more terse than before. In 2013, a typical match report would include interviews, descriptions of the match, and discussions of the team’s championship prospects. In 2016, a full report would often look like this:

On Saturday, April 23, Avangard Football Club played an away match in the 22nd round of the competition in Cherkassy. The match was a failure for Iakov Krypak’s squad—Avangard Kramatorsk’s first defeat this season. The first goal came 31 minutes into the first half. The second time the ball flew into the Kramatorsk net was at the start of the second half. Avangard never managed to score a single goal against their opponents. The game ended with a score of 2:0 for the home team.

As in Tekhnopolis, soccer took on a political role in Novosti Kramatorska’s reports after the occupation. When Aleksandr Iaskovich, a Kramatorsk native playing for Avangard, was banned from the Ukrainian league for playing on the Luhansk People’s Republic’s team against Abkhazia, Igor Kochetov, the vice president of the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU), told a journalist:

Kochetov: I don’t know exactly what’s going on with the Iaskovych situation and his application to play for Avangard. But last year we strongly recommended not allowing players who moonlighted in matches for the unrecognized republics.

Journalist: What has changed in the past year?

Kochetov: Well, we probably need a more balanced approach for each individual case. I assume that a young soccer player can make a mistake, but it’s important that he not repeat it.

Journalist: So it’s worth forgiving him?

Kochetov: All sides need to sit down and work out a consolidated position. That goes for the teams, the FFU, the soccer players, and journalists. Only this way can we make a fair decision.

During the occupation of Kramatorsk, sports and sports coverage thus did not serve an identity-building function in Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska. Such a function only emerged after the end of the occupation, when sports began to be contextualized within the framework of the war. Sports as a topic of discussion thus underwent a process of politicization. Sports coverage was not employed as an identity-building tool in the traditional sense understood by Billig and Waquet & Vincent. At least in part, this was because the DNR and the LNR are unrecognized and it is not possible to organize sports competitions between Ukraine and the DNR/LNR. Rather, sports coverage acquired a political element as a means to project unity and solidarity with Ukraine and Ukrainians after the occupation, but not with the DNR/LNR or their supporters.

Spatial Groups of Membership

The third theme is spatial groups of membership, including terms referring to geographical locations, and more broadly the interaction between local and national issues as they are covered in the news. Figure 3 shows the Tf-Idf score for terms related to geographical locations in the Tekhnopolis corpus over time. The figure shows that descriptions of places became more explicit with the advent of the occupation. While terms like “Kramatorsk,” “Ukraine,” and “Donetsk” had some relevance as early as 2013, these terms ascended during the Euromaidan demonstrations and the occupation of Kramatorsk. Many of these terms reach their peak just after the occupation, and then decline again in 2016.

These patterns are partially explained by discussions in Tekhnopolis about the Euromaidan demonstrations, which were a contested subject within the city as well as a catalyst for discussing issues surrounding local identity. Tekhnopolis published multiple stories and editorials about this topic from a variety of angles. Some articles expressed support for the demonstrations on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) against former president Viktor Ianukovych’s government.56 One editorial even went so far as to opine, “I saw the eyes of the people on Maidan [Nezalezhnosti] and St. Michael’s Square. These aren’t drunk madmen begging for pennies, they are the real owners (khoziaieva) of Ukraine!”57

Figure 3. Tf-Idf Graph for “Spatial Groups of Membership”

At the same time, however, demonstrations were organized in Kramatorsk decrying the supposed chaos in Kyiv. Local politicians and businesspeople voiced their concerns in front of gatherings of citizens and placed local issues, not only in Kramatorsk but in eastern Ukraine more generally, at the center of the discussion:

While in the western regions [of Ukraine] people light candles in memory of those killed in Kyiv and seize regional administrative buildings, the situation in the east is completely different. Obviously, the values and priorities in different regions of the country do not currently coincide. On January 25, a rally was held in the central square of Kramatorsk, organized by the local Party of Regions. There was one issue on the agenda: the current situation in Ukraine. About 6,000 people attended the rally, mainly employees of industrial enterprises and budgetary organizations […] The general opinion expressed at the rally was that the east of Ukraine is looking at the events taking place both in Kyiv and in the western regions of the country with deep indignation, and asks President Viktor Yanukovych to take all necessary measures to restore order.58

Just before the occupation, there was a vibrant ongoing discussion about eastern versus western Ukrainian identity and a certain amount of concern that the demonstrations were primarily a western Ukrainian enterprise, such that the east could end up falling by the wayside. During the occupation, the focus on local issues shifted away from this “east versus west” frame. Instead, Tekhnopolis published a few editorials about local people’s experiences during the conflict, although both overt criticism and expressions of support for the DNR authorities were absent:

“As soon as they announced the Anti-Terrorist Operation [the Ukrainian army’s military operation in Donbas], I left the city for a resort to survive this ordeal and heal,” says Kramatorsk citizen Larisa Ivanovna. “But the situation has become more complicated, and it is not known how long it will last. Money is running out. My pensions aren’t paid. All the news I receive from Kramatorsk is discouraging. I spoke on the phone with friends who are in [Kramatorsk] right now. All of them said that if at all possible, it would be better not to return. Where do I go now? Opportunities are gone! I don’t know whom to ask for help...”59

Ukrainian symbols began to take up a more central place in Tekhnopolis’ coverage than they had had before the occupation:

For the second week in a row a People’s Veche60 was held near the statue of [Ukrainian national writer and poet] Taras Shevchenko. This time, there were no representatives of the executive power, nor were there heads of local enterprises, who were invited to the last meeting. Representatives of different political factions were present, and the public was widely represented.61

Aside from this increased focus on national rather than regional identity, there was also a retrospective aspect to Tekhnopolis’ coverage, looking back at the period of DNR control over the city. During the occupation, DNR officials took several measures that were intended to foster support for the new authorities: for example, the price of a bus ticket was lowered from 3.5 to 3 hryvnia. After the Ukrainian army regained control of the city, Tekhnopolis published an article arguing that this price decrease was, in effect, nothing but a public relations move:

As for the revision of transportation fares agreed upon during a session of the City Council, in the direction of reducing it, the conversation from the representatives of the DNR was short and the decision was peremptory: people with machine guns in camouflage uniforms simply demanded that the transportation company’s management reduce fares to 3 hryvnia. This turned out to be a spectacular PR move for the ordinary man in the street: “Look! It was bad, and now it’s good!” Looking back on the months when representatives of the DNR were leading the city, Sergei Dubovoi tells [Tekhnopolis] how it was necessary to organize 8 buses to Kharkiv every day, and 6 to Berdiansk, just to get people out of the combat zone. DNR activists simply gave the drivers gasoline for the trip, without paying for their work and without taking into account the costs of depreciation. An absurd situation arose when they demanded a bus to Rostov, and in the morning it turned out that they were to go to Voronezh. […] People had to be taken out to Rostov under artillery fire. In this particular instance, one driver was wounded in the back.62

This article constitutes an attempt to explain retroactively some of the reasons why some Kramatorsk residents may have displayed little discontent (or perhaps even some enthusiasm) vis-à-vis the DNR authorities. Two things are worth noting here.

First, there is a marked absence of references to historical identity during the period of occupation (such as the “Novorossiia” project,63 the “Russian World,”64 or Donbas identity65).

Within the Novosti Kramatorska corpus, the discussion is slightly more complex. In December 2013, Novosti Kramatorska expressed its reservations about the Euromaidan demonstrations and their increasingly political character:

If the daily rallies, which have been going on since November 24, initially didn’t allow for the use of party symbols, this rule has now been violated. The local Svoboda66 branch […] came to the rally this time around. The Svoboda members indicated that the participation of political parties [in the demonstrations] is now inevitable, because revolution and change require the involvement of professional people. Party flags were held up by young people who for some reason covered their faces.67

Starting in late February, however, Novosti Kramatorska began to express support for the pro-Euromaidan protesters and discomfort with the ongoing “Antimaidan” (or Anti-Euromaidan) demonstrations going on in the city.68 In March, the website’s writers’ discomfort about the polarizing effect of the demonstrations and the revolution on the population became more explicit. On March 11, a Novosti Kramatorska editorial expressed concern that the rising tensions in the city might lead to violence in the near future:

On March 9, people again met on the central square of the city and demanded a referendum. Citizens with a pro-Russian orientation want to be heard and fear repression by the new authorities. On Sunday, some of the demonstrators left for Donetsk, hence why the demonstration was not as large as on Saturday. Activists set up shop right next to the Lenin monument, where they put up posters and took out a red flag. One of the members of the group was giving out leaflets for state employees that alleged that the employees would be fired if they did not sign a document stating that they fully support the authorities in Kyiv and will oppose the federalization of the country. The leaflet called on its readers to refuse to sign such documents altogether, as “they can’t fire everyone.” […] There were no attempts to take over any administrative buildings. […] What will come of this, only time will tell. We can only hope (dai bog) that there will be no bloodshed.69

The author is ambivalent toward the demonstration. On the one hand, she indicates that the protesters came to their beliefs in a sincere manner and are expressing them peacefully, with the approval of the local authorities. On the other hand, she expresses uncertainty about potential misinformation that is being spread by these same protesters, which may exacerbate local fears and anxieties about the Euromaidan revolution.

Following the annexation of Crimea in mid-March, articles in Novosti Kramatorska became more positive about Ukrainian national sentiments. One article reported on a march in support of Ukrainian unity and expressed approval of the diversity and supposed character of the demonstrators:

Today, near the fountain on Trade Unions Square, there began a march for peace and unity and “for a United Ukraine.” The march passed through the center of Kramatorsk and ended on Parkovaia Street. Members of the “Forum” organization for disabled people and the women’s club “Pany,” as well as activists of the local Euromaidan, all took part. It is symbolic that people with disabilities decided to show their citizenship in this way—even people in wheelchairs took part in the march. What’s more, they were perhaps the most active participants of all.”70

Note here the use of the word “citizenship” in the context of a nationalist demonstration, indicative of a shift from a local to a national focus. Novosti Kramatorska’s coverage of national holidays, but also of the Ukrainian army and government, became both more prominent and more positive. In October 2014, Novosti Kramatorska celebrated the Ukrainian parliamentary elections and expressed gratitude to the Ukrainian army for defending the city:

Novosti Kramatorska will be showing all the most interesting moments of the parliamentary elections of 2014 live. Our editorial office plans to livestream all of the interesting moments of the election day on October 26, 2014. We will visit the polling stations and show how ordinary citizens vote, as well as the activities of the regional authorities and the Ukrainian military, which is protecting the city.71

Another article discussed Ukrainian Independence Day, going into detail about the history of independent Ukraine.72 Outright patriotic coverage also became more common, as, for instance, in an article about a “patriotic action” called “My homeland, my fatherland—our Ukraine!” that took place in the city between August 18 and 22.73

At the local level, conflicts over the war and its relation to Ukrainian identity also played out on the pages of Novosti Kramatorska. One controversial topic was a new policy, introduced in August 2014, that required schoolteachers to give lessons on “love for Ukraine.” In contrast with the pre-occupation period, there is no ambiguity about which side the paper supported:

During the first classes in schools in Kramatorsk, teachers will talk with students about their love for Ukraine. [….] The theme of the first lesson will be “United Ukraine.” In all Kramatorsk schools, teachers will discuss with children, having survived the war, how important it is to keep the peace and keep Ukraine united. However, far from all teachers of the city share this opinion. During the occupation of the city by pro-Russian militants, some of them not only actively supported the militants’ position, but also assisted terrorists at checkpoints. Therefore, community activists plan to attend some of these lessons and listen to what such teachers will tell their students.74

Both corpora thus display a similar pattern. Before the occupation, discourse about local, regional, and national identity was highly ambiguous. Reflecting local tensions and skepticism about the Euromaidan demonstrations, neither news outlet explicitly identified with either Euromaidan or the counterdemonstrations that were going on in Kramatorsk.

During the occupation, the DNR appears to have ignored local identity-building almost entirely. For example, the word “Novorossiia”75 is not mentioned in any of the articles published in Tekhnopolis during the occupation, and only sporadically in Novosti Kramatorska (32 times in total and 0 times during the occupation). In the case of the latter, the term “Novorossiia” is primarily used as a historical term (for example to refer back to the time of the Russian Empire76 or to refer to the names of DNR-based media outlets).77 This is despite the official declaration of the “Novorossiia Confederation” by DNR officials on May 22, 2014,78 and contradicts earlier work on the importance of “Novorossiia” in the early stages of the conflict.79 Similarly, neither Tekhnopolis nor Novosti Kramatorska promoted a coherent message about the values and identity of the DNR, Donbas,80 the “Russian World,”81 or even the Soviet Union (or a sense of nostalgia of it82).

Second, even in hindsight, there was no discussion about the identity aspect of the DNR project of which Kramatorsk was briefly a part, whether in a positive or a negative light. This runs counter to what Anthony Smith calls a “primary function” of a budding state, namely the creation of “loyalty based on consent.”83

The annexation of Crimea, but particularly the occupation of Kramatorsk, served as a catalyst for national self-identification. After the occupation was over, local themes became intermixed with identification with Ukraine, politically as well as culturally.

War

The conflict in Kramatorsk began on April 12, 2014, when unknown assailants attacked the Kramatorsk airfield. Military aircraft were seen patrolling the area, and gunshots and explosions were heard throughout the city. This ignited concern that similar things may be happening in Kramatorsk as had happened in Donetsk, where several local administrative buildings were being occupied by anti-government forces. And indeed, the activities at the airfield marked the beginning of a three-month-long series of clashes inside and at the outer edges of the city.

Figure 4 shows the Tf-Idf graph for terms related to war in the Tekhnopolis corpus. From the graph, it is clear that the conflict was a highly salient topic in Tekhnopolis’ coverage during the occupation. Tekhnopolis published numerous reports about military engagements, combat operations, and artillery shellings. After the occupation, the contact line was established approximately 50 kilometers from the city, and military engagements continued to occur almost daily. Yet despite this continuation of the conflict, Tekhnopolis’ coverage of it decreased and the war declined as a topic of discussion. The only term related to the “war” theme that remained relevant after the occupation was “voennyi,” which means “military [adj.]” or “soldier.” The rest of the terms were primarily relevant during the occupation itself.

Figure 4. Tf-Idf Graph for “War”

In terms of how Tekhnopolis portrayed the people who were responsible for occupying the city after the occupation, there is a clear distinction between “we” (citizens of Kramatorsk opposed to the occupation) and “they” (DNR officials):

The war has receded from the region, but its echoes continue to remind us of it. Unexploded ammunition, mines, and deadly “tripwires” are scattered about [the city]. It’s quite probable that some people, after leaving the barricades, are keeping military weapons at home. It is also possible that those who supported separatism and were part of the armed militia groups have now returned to the city and are trying to hide their criminal past.84

The narrative that emerges from articles discussing the conflict and its aftermath does not focus on reconciliation, but rather on the opposite. Those who participated in the occupation on the side of the DNR are described as “criminal,” and reports describe citizens of Kramatorsk who joined the DNR (openly or in secret) in a tone of betrayal.

In Novosti Kramatorska, journalists reported that there was initially a high degree of skepticism among Kramatorsk residents about the arrival of the Ukrainian army just after the start of the occupation:

On the afternoon of April 15, we received information that Ukrainian soldiers had landed in the area of the airfield and that there was shooting going on. Helicopters were flying over the city. All of this indicated that an anti-terrorist operation was being carried out in the city. The situation seriously worried the protesters who are currently holding the building of the executive committee of the city council under their control. In this crowd, rumors began to spread about peaceful civilians being wounded and killed in the area around the airfield. Many people were panicking. To protect unarmed people, many began to call their friends and acquaintances, asking them to join the militia and to stop the [Ukrainian] military. Hundreds of Kramatorsk residents joined.85

The protesters in the administrative buildings are portrayed as local residents who had good reason to fear the Ukrainian army. A regiment of Ukrainian paratroopers from Dnipro (then Dnipropetrovsk) was stopped by a group of locals and not allowed to proceed. It is not clear who these locals were or whom they supported, but Novosti Kramatorska pointed out the soldiers’ low morale and poor preparation:86

Townspeople continue to detain security forces from Dnipropetrovsk at a railway crossing in the village of Pchelkino. According to sources, at 17:00, twelve armored personnel carriers with Ukrainian paratroopers were still standing motionless in the village. Despite the soldiers’ requests to let them go to Dnipropetrovsk, the citizens reacted skeptically and did not let them leave. Residents of the village fed the soldiers, who, it turned out, had not eaten for two days.87

When the Kramatorsk airfield was recaptured by Ukrainian forces on April 17,88 this initial skepticism was abandoned. The Novosti Kramatorska report called the action a “liberation” (osvobozhdenie) and pointed out that no one was hurt or killed. At the same time, the report is short on detail regarding exactly who the airfield was recaptured from; the DNR and its (ideological) motivations are scarcely mentioned.

Local identity, however, was revisited occasionally. An op-ed in Novosti Kramatorska reflected on the battle for the airfield as a moment that put Kramatorsk on the map. The author mentioned a meme (demotivator) made by an anonymous local resident that reflected a sense of pride in Kramatorsk’s position at the center of attention (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. A meme reflecting the newfound fame of Kramatorsk. The text says: “So where is the Donbas Arena located?” “In Donetsk.” “And where is this??” “Next to Kramatorsk.” “Ah, right, got it.”89

The occupation of the city was not yet over, however, as several administration buildings in Kramatorsk were still being occupied by unknown assailants. On April 22, a Novosti Kramatorska journalist managed to talk to a few soldiers who were stationed at the airfield, which was now under Ukrainian control. She described the chaotic situation in the city:

Having arrived at the roadblock close to the airfield, a journalist saw a couple dozen Kramatorsk residents, who were brought there after a demonstration on the square [...] Part of them (about 50 people) went to the airfield, and another part, which had separated itself, went to the local city department and began shouting, “the police is with the people!” (militsiia s narodom!). After a few hours, the city department was again occupied by unknown people.90

A comment posted underneath this article by “Serhii Platyna” reflects Novosti Kramatorska readers’ struggle to come to terms with the fact that the Ukrainian army was now fighting local residents:

May the arrival of holy Easter dispel the darkness over the city, and may people understand that these paratroopers from Dnipropetrovsk—they are ours. They are our army. They are order and protection. And these vanquished goblins … they are also ours. Our shame.

Like that of Tekhnopolis, Novosti Kramatorska’s position before and during the occupation is ambivalent: on the one hand, there is a sense of embarrassment that some locals enthusiastically joined the side of the DNR, while on the other hand, the DNR was portrayed as an outside occupying force. This ambiguity disappeared after the occupation ended. “Terrorist” became a common term to describe members of the DNR, and articles published in Novosti Kramatorska began to openly take sides:

As a result of cooperation between the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the press center of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, hostages from Kramatorsk were released. Yesterday, on August 26, a prisoner exchange took place. For each DNR fighter, four Ukrainians returned home. Two of them are volunteers from Kramatorsk: Sergei Gakov and Eduard Kulinich. The guys were captured not far from one of the villages in the territory controlled by the terrorists. Novosti Kramatorska joins the congratulations and is proud of its countrymen (zemliaki).91

After a period of initial ambivalence, during which both Novosti Kramatorsk and Tekhnopolis remained on the sidelines in their assessment of the emerging conflict, both suddenly came to support Ukraine during the occupation. This support proved sustainable, and patriotic coverage about the conflict and the army became commonplace.

Conclusion

The occupation of Kramatorsk prompted a sustained discursive shift from a local to a national perspective. In 2013, well before the occupation began, both Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska wrote about local affairs without making much reference to Ukraine or Ukrainian identity. During the Euromaidan demonstrations, more and more discussions about local identity and Kramatorsk’s place as a Ukrainian city began to appear on the pages of the newspapers: conflicting viewpoints collided in news articles and op-eds, especially with regard to the ongoing protests and whether then-president Ianukovych should intervene to end them. What Ukraine was, and what it meant to be Ukrainian, began to be contested.

After the occupation, little was left of this initial ambiguity. Ukrainian identity was now not only enthusiastically shared and encouraged on the pages of Novosti Kramatorska and Tekhnopolis, but also used as a way to distinguish those who were on the side of Ukraine throughout the occupation from those who (even temporarily) supported the opposing side. Generally speaking, the news became much more politicized: sports coverage, in particular, took on a political dimension, making references to the conflict or national politics that had been rare before the occupation. Cultural celebrations and national holidays went from being local events to being part of a national project: representatives of the Ukrainian state and army—and cultural artefacts such as the writer/poet Taras Shevchenko—came to be featured in both outlets’ coverage. Even as the shift toward national rather than local identity continued, however, the conflict as a topic of discussion receded from view. This shift was driven not by direct discussions of the conflict on the pages of the two news outlets, but by the conflict itself: the increased identification with Ukraine persisted even as the conflict itself lost its urgency. Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska returned to a set of familiar discursive themes (about Ukraine) rather than searching for new ones. The occupation thus contributed to a stronger identification with previous conceptions of identity relating to the Ukrainian nation, its army, and its people.

It is an open question to what extent this discursive shift is representative of the rest of Donbas or is unique to Kramatorsk. For example, like Kramatorsk, Mariupol and Slaviansk were both temporarily occupied by the DNR, but it is not clear whether these two cities underwent the same developments as Kramatorsk. Indeed, Kimitaka Matsuzato suggests that political developments in Mariupol and Kramatorsk diverged radically after the occupation (with Kramatorsk developing a highly competitive political landscape while Mariupol maintained a status quo where one party was highly dominant),92 which suggests that questions relating to identity also underwent dissimilar developments. It is possible, for example, that Mariupol media discourse did not display the same shift toward a pro-Ukrainian identity as its Kramatorsk counterpart.

This article also shows that there was no coherent identity project discernible in newspaper content during the initial phase of the development of the DNR in early 2014. The occupiers did not directly employ the media for identity-building purposes in order to generate support, despite being in firm control of media content production. Topics that typically perform an identity-building function, such as sports and arts & culture, receded from view and were not replaced with articles that might promote local people’s identification with the occupying authorities. Most of the attempts to foster support for the DNR were focused on economic or practical issues (such as bus fares) rather than on building up a local identity. Considering the degree of control that DNR officials had over local media at the time of the occupation, it is safe to say that, had identity-building been an important element of the DNR’s strategy to foster support for its presence, such articles would have been much more numerous.

This article limited itself to print media only. While it offers a number of important insights, future work could complement the results and conclusions presented here. For example, the discussion could be expanded to include visual media (e.g., television) or other print media published in the city. In addition, this article has focused on identity discourse and has not examined language use outside of this domain. Other linguistic and discursive questions—for example, whether coverage in Tekhnopolis and Novosti Kramatorska became more or less sensationalized or “tabloid-like” over time—fell outside of this article’s scope. Such an analysis would complement this article by offering further insight into the interplay between identity-building and the evolution of eastern Ukraine’s media landscape after the conflict, and go some way toward answering important questions about media and democratization in conflict zones.

Appendices

(Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 are available online at http://demokratizatsiya.pub/journalplus.php.)

Appendix 3. Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is an algebraic way of dividing a matrix into two smaller matrices, the product of which approximates the original matrix. The advantage of doing this is that the two smaller matrices are made up of far fewer elements than the original, so that the latter is reduced to fewer components. “Non-negative” simply means that none of the numbers in any of the matrices is below 0; this makes sense, since the values in the matrices represent words and documents, and negative values are of little use in this regard. Matrix factorization is visualized in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Matrix factorization93

Matrices have two dimensions: columns and rows. For our topic model of a set of written documents, let us assume that the matrix V represents the full text corpus. In matrix V, rows (horizontal) list the documents in the corpus, while the columns (vertical) list the words that these documents contain. In other words, V is a matrix with dimensions m and n, where m is the total number of documents in the corpus and n is the total number of words.

Figure 7. A Document-Word Matrix

V

W1

W2

W3

W4

W5

Wn

D1

0

1

0

3

2

x

D2

1

0

3

0

1

y

D3

2

1

0

1

2

z

Dn

a

b

c

d

e

f

In Figure 7, word 1 (W1) appears in document 1 (D1) zero times, word 2 (W2) appears in D1 once, and so on. What NMF does is construct two matrices from matrix V, namely W and H, where W is a document-topics matrix and H is a topic-words matrix. In other words, W is a matrix with dimensions m and k, and H is a matrix with dimensions k and n, where k stands for the number of topics and m and n stand for the total number of documents and the total number of words, respectively. Multiplying W by H returns an approximation of the original matrix V (see Figure 6). The NMF algorithm finds W and H through an iterative process that aims to solve an optimization problem by using various ways of measuring distances between multidimensional mathematical objects like matrices or probability distributions.94

To summarize, NMF algorithms can optimize matrices W and H by assigning a probability to each document belonging to a topic for matrix W and to each word belonging in a topic for matrix H. One can then tell the algorithm to list, for example, the 10 words that have the highest probability of belonging to topic k=1, and so on.95

Appendix 4. Topic Coherence

Greene’s TC-W2V (or Topic Coherence-Word2Vec) measure relies on the use of a word-embedding model that calculates whether two given words from the corpus have similar “contexts”—that is, whether the same words are likely to appear around two given words. The Word2Vec-algorithm contains a “window size” parameter that determines how many words around any given word the algorithm takes into account. The default for this is 5, meaning that the algorithm considers the 5 words before and after a word as part of the word’s “context.” The W2V-algorithm represents each word in the corpus as a one-hot96 vector with as many components (or bits) as there are unique words in the corpus. It then calculates the context probability for each unique word vis-à-vis each other word.

Topic coherence is calculated by first pairing each word in the W2V model with each corresponding word in the NMF model. The similarity between the two words in the pair (or, to be more precise, the similarity between the vectors corresponding to both words) is then calculated. Next, we calculate the mean pair score per topic. Finally, we measure the mean coherence score across all topics by dividing the overall coherence score by the number of topics selected. The final result is a topic coherence score between 0 and 1. The higher the score, the more coherent the topic model.97 We then apply this same method to a range of values for the number of topics, and then choose the highest value.

Appendix 5. Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency

Determining the importance of a word in a text corpus was one of the first tasks undertaken by computational language processing. An intuitive way to do this would be to count the number of times a given term appears in each time stamp, and then draw a graph of occurrences over time. This is commonly called the “term frequency.”98 However, this would not be a very good indicator of a term’s relevance, as the documents in one time stamp might be longer or shorter on average than in another, meaning that it is possible for a term to appear more times in absolute terms yet be less relevant in relative terms. Furthermore, common words such as “the” or “he” tend to receive high term-frequency scores, even though they are not relevant, semantically speaking. Therefore, it is helpful to also employ a statistic that lowers the weight of terms that appear frequently across many documents in the corpus and raises the weight of terms that appear in few documents. This statistic is called the “inverse document frequency.”99

Multiplying the term frequency by its inverse document frequency provides the “Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency” (Tf-Idf) statistic. Tf-Idf normalizes the term’s weight in a relatively simple manner and is commonly used to assess how important a word is to a given document in a given corpus. Calculating the Tf-Idf of the terms in each time stamp in the corpus therefore allows one to trace the relevance of this term across time stamps. One can then visualize the Tf-Idf per term per time stamp in a graph.

The Tf-Idf statistic was calculated for each word in the Tekhnopolis corpus using Python’s Scikit Learn library. The full script written for this purpose can be obtained from the author upon request.

1 The Euromaidan revolution, locally known as the Revolution of Dignity (revoliutsiia hidnosti), was a series of demonstrations in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine between December 2013 and February 2014. Protesters initially took to the streets to voice their disagreement with then-president Viktor Ianukovych’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union. After several escalations, the demonstrations came to a head when violent clashes in Kyiv between police forces and protesters caused the death of around 100 people, eventually leading to Ianukovych’s ouster and the installation of a new government.

2 Kimitaka Matsuzato. 2017. “The Donbass War: Outbreak and Deadlock.” Demokratizatsiya 25: 2: 175–201.

3 OSCE. 2019. OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, At https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine.

4 Victoria Butenko and Nick Paton Walsh. “Ukrainian Authorities: Separatists Cleared from 2 Eastern Cities.” CNN. July 5, 2014, At https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/05/world/meast/ukraine-crisis/index.html.

5 Kimitaka Matsuzato. 2018. “The Donbas War and Politics in Cities on the Front: Mariupol and Kramatorsk.” Nationalities Papers 46: 6: 1008–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2018.1480598.

6 Marina Henrikson. 2016. “Nation-Building in Times of Conflict: The Discursive Construction of Russian National Identity through the Russo-Georgian War.” PhD diss., University of Manchester; Andrew Wilson. 2016. “The Donbas in 2014: Explaining Civil Conflict Perhaps, but Not Civil War.” Europe-Asia Studies 68: 4: 631–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2016.1176994; Elise Giuliano. 2018. “Who Supported Separatism in Donbas? Ethnicity and Popular Opinion at the Start of the Ukraine Crisis.” Post-Soviet Affairs 34: 2–3: 158–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1447769.

7 Mikhail Horodetskii. “Torezskuiu gazetu ‘Gorniak’ razgromili separatisty.” [Torezsky’s Gornyak Newspaper was Defeated by Separatists]. Www.day.kyiv.ua. May 8, 2014, At http://day.kyiv.ua/ru/article/media/torezskuyu-gazetu-gornyak-razgromili-separatisty; Natal’ia Prigodich. “Glavnyi redaktor gazety ‘Donbass’ Aleksandr Brizh: ‘Iz redaktsii menia vyveli pod dulom avtomata.’” [Alexander Bryzh, Editor-in-Chief of Donbass newspaper: “I was Taken Out of the Editorial Office at the Barrel of a Machine Gun]. Www.tut.by. February 20, 2015, At https://news.tut.by/society/436459.html?crnd=4043; Novosti Donbassa. “Budni ‘DNR’: V Toreze sozhgli ofis gazety ‘Gorniak.’” [DNR Weekdays: The Office of the Gornyak Newspaper was Set on Fire in Torez]. Www.novosti.dn.ua. June 6, 2014, At http://novosti.dn.ua/news/209637-budny-dnr-v-toreze-sozhgly-ofys-gazety-gornyak.

8 Novosti Kramatorska. “Komu rinadlezhat kramatorskie SMI i kto opredeliaet ikh redaktsionnuiu politiku i soderzhanie.” [Who Owns Kramatorsk Media and Who Determines Their Editorial Policy and Content]. Www.hi.dn.ua. February 13, 2017, https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72966:2017-02-12-14-48-49&catid=55.:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

9 Podrobnosti. “V Kramatorske prekrashchaiut vypusk gazet.” [Newspapers Have Stopped Being Issued in Kramatorsk]. Www.podrobnosti.ua. May 6, 2014, At http://podrobnosti.ua/974644-v-kramatorske-prekraschajut-vypusk-gazet.html.

10 Morris Janowitz. 1967. The Community Press in an Urban Setting: The Social Elements of Urbanism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; Bob Franklin and David Murphy. 1998. “Changing Times: Local Newspapers, Technology and Markets.” In Bob Franklin and David Murphy, eds., Local Journalism and Local Media: Making the Local News. London: Routledge, 8.

11 Ibid., 130. See also Kristy Hess and Lisa Waller. 2017. Local Journalism in a Digital World. London: Palgrave, 8.

12 The difference being that community media cater to any community, not necessarily geographical ones alone.

13 Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2015. “Local Newspapers as Keystone Media: The Increased Importance of Diminished Newspapers for Local Political Information Environments.” In Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, ed., Local Journalism: The Decline of Newspapers and the Rise of Digital Media. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 51.

14 Michael Chan. 2014. “(Re)categorizing Intergroup Relations and Social Identities through News Discourse: The Case of the China Daily’s Reporting on Regional Conflict.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 33: 2: 144–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X13508125.

15 Klaus Eder. 2006. “Europe’s Borders.” European Journal of Social Theory 9: 2: 255–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431006063345.

16 Rogers Brubaker. 1996. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See also Henrikson, “Nation-Building in Times of Conflict,” 46, and John Hutchinson. 2017. War and Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 13.

17 Hutchinson, War and Nationalism, 49.

18 Nicholas Sambanis, Stergios Skaperdas, and William C. Wohlforth. 2015. “Nation-Building through War.” American Political Science Review 109: 2: 279–96. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055415000088.

19 Michael Bromley. 2004. “Nationalism in Local Media During International Conflict: Text Mining Domestic News Reports of the China–Philippines Maritime Dispute.” In Stuart Allan and Barbie Zelizer, eds., Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime. London: Routledge, 224–243.

20 Its website can be found here: www.tehnopolis.com.ua. Institut Masovoï Informatsiï. 2016. Analysis of Media-Situation in Southern and Eastern Oblasts of Ukraine: Donetsk Oblast, At https://imi.org.ua/en/articles/analysis-of-media-situation-in-southern-and-eastern-oblasts-of-ukraine-donetsk-oblast/.

21 Novosti Kramatorska, “Komu prinadlezhat kramatorskie SMI.”

22 Institut Masovoï Informatsiï, Analysis of Media-Situation.

23 Website: http://www.hi.dn.ua.

24 Novosti Kramatorska, “Komu prinadlezhat kramatorskie SMI.”

25 Institut Masovoï Informatsiï. 2014. Holovred ‘Novosti Kramatorska’ vyïkhav z donechchyny. Redaktsiia pratsioe pid tyskom DNR [The Editor-in-Chief of Novosti Kramatorska Has Left Donetsk Oblast. The Editorial Office is Working under Pressure from the DNR], At http://imi.org.ua/news/golovred-novosti-kramatorska-vijihav-z-donechchini-redaktsiya-pratsyue-pid-tiskom-dnr/.

26 Novosti Kramatorska, “Komu prinadlezhat kramatorskie SMI.”

27 Institut Masovoï Informatsiï, Analysis of Media-Situation.

28 For example, browsing through the websites of Vostochnyi Proekt (http://vp.donetsk.ua), Kramatorskaia Pravda (http://krampravda.dn.ua/), and Nash Kramatorsk (https://n-k.com.ua/) reveals that these websites, at least on the surface, describe themselves as Ukrainian and appear to support the Ukrainian government over the DNR/LNR. This does not, however, mean that this was always the case. It is not clear whether these newspapers were once sympathetic to the DNR/LNR and switched sides at some point during the conflict.

29 It was difficult to include other corpora in this article for a variety of reasons, including data scraping limitations (e.g., inconsistencies in a website’s internal .html structure) and usage rights (some websites prohibit or limit data scraping).

30 Martins Balodis. 2018. Google Chrome Webscraper, At https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-scraper/jnhgnonknehpejjnehehllkliplmbmhn?hl=en.

31 This randomization was conducted using Excel’s rand() function.

32 Ricardo A. Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto. 1999. Modern Information Retrieval. Cambridge, MA: Addison Wesley; David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng, and Michael I. Jordan. 2003. “Latent Dirichlet Allocation.” Journal of Machine Learning Research 3 (Jan.): 993–1022.

33 Derek Greene and James P. Cross. 2016. “Exploring the Political Agenda of the European Parliament Using a Dynamic Topic Modeling Approach.” CoRR abs/1607.0, At http://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03055; David M. Blei and John D. Lafferty. 2006. “Dynamic Topic Models.” In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML ’06. New York: ACM, 113–20. https://doi.org/10.1145/1143844.1143859.

34 Greene and Cross, “Exploring the Political Agenda.”

35 Derek Greene. 2016. Dynamic-Nmf: Dynamic Topic Modelling, At https://github.com/derekgreene/dynamic-nmf.

36 It is not entirely clear why this was the case; one possible explanation is that the Tekhnopolis corpus is relatively small in each time stamp compared to Novosti Kramatorska (approximately 280 articles versus approximately 620 in each time stamp). This may impair the capacity of the algorithm to detect statistical relations between words in the corpus, a known problem in topic modelling. Considering the novelty of the dynamic topic modeling method (it was invented in 2016 for NMF), and its lack of use in published research, it is possible that the number of documents in each time stamp was simply too low for the dynamic NMF model to produce coherent results. Another (less likely) possibility is that the documents themselves were too short for the topic model to be able to pick up on coherent topics. This is known to happen, for example when attempting to run a topic model over a corpus of tweets downloaded from Twitter—see David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng, and Michael I. Jordan. 2003. “Latent Dirichlet Allocation.” Journal of Machine Learning Research 3: 993–1022, At http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=944919.944937; Wayne Xin Zhao et al. 2011. “Comparing Twitter and Traditional Media Using Topic Models.” In European Conference on Information Retrieval. Springer, 338–49; Liangjie Hong and Brian D. Davison. 2010. “Empirical Study of Topic Modeling in Twitter.” In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Social Media Analytics. ACM, 80–88.

37 Hans Peter Luhn. 1957. “A Statistical Approach to Mechanized Encoding and Searching of Literary Information.” IBM Journal of Research and Development 1: 4 (October): 309–17. https://doi.org/10.1147/rd.14.0309.

38 This is to some extent an arbitrary cut-off. The choice of calculating only the top 50 Tf-Idf scores was made because the Tf-Idf scores per time stamp taper off rapidly after 50 and approach 0.

39 Florian Kohlbacher. 2006. “The Use of Qualitative Content Analysis in Case Study Research.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 7: 1. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-7.1.75.

40 Michael Billig. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: SAGE Publications Inc.

41 Tehnopolis. “Kaban’ia Korrida Otmeniaetsia!” [The Bull Run Has Been Canceled!]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. September 4, 2013, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4579:2013-09-09-203606&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

42 Sergei Len’kov. 2014. “Kramatorskie opolchentsy sobralis’ pered gorotdelom.” [Insurgents from Kramatorsk Have Gathered in Front of the City Department]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. April 21, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5689:2014-04-21-14-19-00&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

43 Alina Mikhailiuk. “Ukhodiashchii Kramatorsk: reportazh po pamiati zhitel’nitsy razrushennogo goroda.” [Departing Kramatorsk: A Report from the Memory of a Resident of the Destroyed City]. Novaya Gazeta. July 2, 2014, At https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2014/07/02/60195-uhodyaschiy-kramatorsk.

44 Ibid.

45 Ol’ga Stadnichenko. “Kramatorsk otmechaet svoe 146-letie (foto).” Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. September 27, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9550:---146-&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

46 Marina Sidel’nikova. “Uchashchiesia kramatorskoi ukrainskoi gimnazii ugoshchali soldat medom i varen’em.” Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. October 16, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10052:2014-10-16-08-41-18&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

47 Oleg Karp’iak. “Pokrova: prazdnik voinov, khristian i Iiazychnikov.” BBC Ukraina. October 14, 2015, At https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/ukraine_in_russian/2015/10/151014_ru_s_pokrova_holiday.

48 For more information, see Paul Robert Magosci. 2010. A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 193.

49 Ibid., 695–97.

50 Liuba Sidorenko. “Kramatorskie kazaki otmetili prazdnik pokrova.” [Cossacks from Kramatorsk Celebrate Pokrov Day]. Tehnopolis. October 19, 2011, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1574:2011-10-25-08-55-20&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

51 Petro Poroshenko. 2014. “UKAZ PREZIDENTA UKRAÏNY №806/2014: Pro Den’ Zakhisnika Ukraïny.” Public Law №806/2014, At https://www.president.gov.ua/documents/8062014-17816.

52 Natalia Gurkovskaia. “Kramatorskaia shkola no. 2 poluchila gramotu ot upravleniia GAI.” [Kramatorsk School no. 2 Received a Letter from the Traffic Police]. Novosti Kramatorska. November 5, 2013, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39380&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

53 Anna Stepanova. “Festival’ ‘Zdorovyi gorod’ v Kramatorske.” [The ’Healthy City’ Festival in Kramatorsk.] Novosti Kramatorska. September 3, 2013, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37009&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

54 Vasilii Hnatiuk. 2015. Nash sopernik: Avangard Kramatorsk [Our Rival: Avangard Kramatorsk], At http://www.fcgornyak.dp.ua/newss/archive/3882-nash-sopernik-avangard-kramatorsk.html.

55 Press-sluzhba FK “Avangard” Kramatorsk. 2014. Match ‘Avangard’ Kramatorsk—‘Gelios’ Khar’kov perenesen [Match ‘Vanguard’ Kramatorsk — ‘Helios’ Khar’kov Rescheduled], At http://fc-avangard.com.ua/news/864-match-avangard-kramatorsk-gelios-kharkov-perenesen.

56 Tehnopolis. “Kramatorchane i vseukrainskaia aktsiia protesta.” [Kramatorsk Residents and the All-Ukrainian Protest Action]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. December 2, 2013, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4989:2013-12-02-141513&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

57 Igor Bondarev. “Napriazhenie” [Tension]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. December 4, 2013, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5056:2013-12-15-220831&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

58 Natal’ia Mironenko. “Miting vozmushcheniia.” [Rally of Indignation]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. January 25, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5206:2014-01-25-180009&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

59 Milana Chitak. “Dolgo li, korotko li kamatorchanam razblokirovat’ pensiiu?” Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. June 26, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7064:2014-06-26-07-42-58&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

60 “Veche” is a word for a popular assembly in medieval Slavic-speaking countries and city-states. It was also later used to mean “parliament.”

61 Ol’ga Stadnichenko. “V Kramatorske vo vremia veche ozvuchili protest i nedoverie (video)” [Protest and Distrust Were Voiced in Kramatorsk during the Veche (Video)]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. September 14, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9197:2014-09-14-06-07-16&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

62 Ol’ga Stadnichenko. “Kak DNR ‘dogovarivalas’’ s ATP o snizhenii tarifa.” Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. August 3, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8124:-lr-&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

63 See John O’Loughlin, Gerard Toal, and Vladimir Kolosov. 2017. “The Rise and Fall of ‘Novorossiya’: Examining Support for a Separatist Geopolitical Imaginary in Southeast Ukraine.” Post-Soviet Affairs 33: 2: 124–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2016.1146452; Marlene Laruelle. 2016. “The Three Colors of Novorossiya, or the Russian Nationalist Mythmaking of the Ukrainian Crisis.” Post-Soviet Affairs 32: 1: 55–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2015.1023004.

64 John O’Loughlin, Gerard Toal, and Vladimir Kolosov. 2016. “Who Identifies with the ‘Russian World’? Geopolitical Attitudes in Southeastern Ukraine, Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 57: 6 (November): 745–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2017.1295275.

65 See Hiroaki Kuromiya. 1998. Freedom and Terror in the Donbas: A Ukrainian-Russian Borderland, 1870s-1990s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Gwendolyn Sasse and Alice Lackner. 2018. “War and Identity: The Case of the Donbas in Ukraine.” Post-Soviet Affairs 34: 2–3: 139–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1452209.

66 Svoboda is a far-right political party in Ukraine.

67 Ol’ga Iurasova. “Na kramatorskom Evromaidane poiavilis’ politicheskie flagi.” [Political Flags Appeared on the Kramatorsk Euromaidan]. Novosti Kramatorska. December 2, 2013, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40338&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

68 Ol’ga Iurasova. “Maidanovtsev zabrosali iaitsami—provokatsiia ne udalas’.” Novosti Kramatorska. February 23, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43576&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

69 Ol’ga Iurasova. “Gorozhane khotiat referenduma?” [Do Citizens Want a Referendum?] Novosti Kramatorska. March 11, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44333&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

70 Ol’ga Iurasova. “Organizatsiia invalidov i ‘Pani’ proshli Marsh Mira” [Organization of Disabled People and “Pani” Participated in Peace March]. Novosti Kramatorska. March 22, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44831&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

71 Novosti Kramatorska. “‘Novosti Kramatorska’ predstsavliaiut: Vybory-Online” [Novosti Kramatorska Introduces “Elections Online”]. October 26, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51083&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

72 Valerii Monaenko. “S dnem nezavisimosti Ukrainy!” [Happy Ukrainian Independence Day!] Novosti Kramatorska. August 24, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49380&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

73 Ol’ga Iurasova. “V patrioty s pelenok.” [Patriots from the Cradle]. Novosti Kramatorska. August 29, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49547&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

74 Novosti Kramatorska. “Novyi uchebnyi god v Kramatorske nachnetsia s patriotizma.” [The New School Year in Kramatorsk will Begin with Patriotism]. Novosti Kramatorska. August 30, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49557&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

75 O’Loughlin, Toal, and Kolosov, “The Rise and Fall of ‘Novorossiya.’”

76 Valerii Monaenko. “Segodnia 18 iiunia, sreda. Pogoda, narodnye primety, den’ v istorii.” [Today is June 18, Wednesday. Weather, Horoscopes, This Day in History]. Novosti Kramatorska. June 18, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47746&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

77 Valerii Monaenko. “SBU prosit zablokirovat’ dva kramatorskikh saita. Za ekstremizm.” [SBU Asks to Block Two Kramatorsk Sites. For Extremism]. Novosti Kramatorska. August 5, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48826&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

78 Mat Babiak. 2014. “Welcome to New Russia.” Ukrainian Policy (May), At http://ukrainianpolicy.com/welcome-to-new-russia/.

79 O’Loughlin, Toal, and Kolosov, “The Rise and Fall of ‘Novorossiya.’”

80 Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror in the Donbas.

81 O’Loughlin, Toal, and Kolosov, “Who Identifies with the ‘Russian World’?”

82 Adam Swain. 2007. Re-Constructing the Post-Soviet Industrial Region: The Donbas in Transition. London: Routledge.

83 See Anthony D. Smith. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin, 257, quoted in Porter, “Sport and National Identity,” 479.

84 Tehnopolis. “SBU obrashchaetsia k kramatorchanam.” [SBU Addresses Kramatorsk Residents]. Www.tehnopolis.com.ua. September 17, 2014, At https://tehnopolis.com.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9277:2014-09-17-13-00-56&catid=59:2011-01-11-21-18-52&Itemid=15.

85 Novosti Kramatorska. “Mer Kramatorska nedopustil provedenie voennoi operatsii protiv mirnykh zhitelei.” [The Mayor of Kramatorsk Prevented a Military Operation against Civilians]. Novosti Kramatorska. April 16, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45872&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

86 The newspaper even mentioned that Ukrainian soldiers were deserting to the DNR voluntarily; see Novosti Kramatorska. “‘V Kramatorske na storonu DNR pereshli voennye s tekhnikoi’—ochevidets.” [In Kramatorsk, Soldiers Went Over to the DPR’s side with Their Equipment—An Eyewitness]. Novosti Kramatorska. April 16, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45880&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

87 Natalia Gurkovskaia. “Dnepropetovskie voennye, zablokirovannye na Pchelkino, prosiatsia domoi.” [Dnepropetrovsk Soldiers, Blocked on Pchelkino, Ask to Go Home]. Novosti Kramatorska. April 16, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45916&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

88 Anna Stepanova. “Kak proshla spetsoperatsiia po osvobozhdeniiu aerodroma v Kramatorske.” [How the Special Operation to Liberate the Airfield in Kramatorsk Went]. Novosti Kramatorska. April 17, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45931&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

89 Natalia Gurkovskaia. “Chem Kramatorsk zapomnitsia vsemu miru? (VIDEO).” [What about Kramatorsk will be Remembered by the Whole World? (VIDEO)]. Novosti Kramatorska. April 18, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45969&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

90 Anna Stepanova. “Zhurnalist ‘NK’ pobyval na KPP kramatorskogo aerodroma (foto).” [Journalist ‘NK’ Visited the Checkpoint of the Kramatorsk Airfield (Photo)]. Novosti Kramatorska. April 22, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46131&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

91 Ol’ga Iurasova. “Iz plena udalos’ osvobodit’ dvukh kramatorskikh volonterov.” [Two Volunteers from Kramatorsk Managed to Get Themselves Released]. Novosti Kramatorska. August 27, 2014, At https://hi.dn.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49465&catid=55:kramatorsk&Itemid=147.

92 Kimitaka Matsuzato. 2018. “The Donbas War and Politics in Cities on the Front: Mariupol and Kramatorsk.” Nationalities Papers 46: 6: 1008–1027. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2018.1480598.

93 Wikipedia. 2018. Non-Negative Matrix Factorization, At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-negative_matrix_factorization.

94 Roger A. Horn and Charles R. Johnson. 1990. Matrix Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; James M. Joyce. 2011. “Kullback-Leibler Divergence.” In Miodrag Lovric, ed., International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, 720–22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04898-2_327; Solomon Kullback and Richard A. Leibler. 1951. “On Information and Sufficiency.” The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 22: 1: 79–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2236703; Gene H. Golub and Charles F. Van Loan. 1996. Matrix Computations, 3rd ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.

95 Python’s Scikit Learn NMF implementation was used to construct the topic models in this paper, using Derek Greene’s Github repository for much of the code. See Greene, “Dynamic-Nmf: Dynamic Topic Modelling”; Derek Greene, Derek O’Callaghan, and Pádraig Cunningham. 2014. “How Many Topics? Stability Analysis for Topic Models.” CoRR abs/1404.4, At http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.4606.

96 A one-hot vector is a vector or group of bits in which only one “high” value is allowed and all others must be “low,” e.g., 00000100 or 01000000.

97 Chris McCormick. 2016. Word2Vec Tutorial—The Skip-Gram Model, http://mccormickml.com/2016/04/19/word2vec-tutorial-the-skip-gram-model/.

98 Luhn, “A Statistical Approach to Mechanized Encoding and Searching of Literary Information.”

99 Karen Spärck Jones. 1972. “A Statistical Interpretation of Term Specificity and Its Application in Retrieval.” Journal of Documentation 28: 11–21.

Jon Roozenbeek works at the University of Cambridge on media and identity in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” in eastern Ukraine. He also works at Cambridge’s Department of Psychology on misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories. Contact: jjr51@cam.ac.uk.

Integration or Absorption?

Analyzing the Propagandist Narratives Generated by Russia-Backed Online Regional Media in Belarus

Vasil Navumau

University of Tartu

Abstract: This article analyzes the plethora of disinformation materials that emerged during the most recent negotiations between Russia and Belarus on “further integration”—that is, the process of “political and economic absorption” of Belarus—that took place between December 2018 and April 2019. Russian media used deceptive news articles to put forward their agenda and interpellate support among Belarusian citizens. The paper uses framing theory to identify the characteristics of pro-integration discourses in resources launched by the Russian authorities in the Belarusian regions between December 2018 and April 2019. The media disguised themselves as “objective” regional Internet media by publishing neutral articles, but came to disseminate disinformation and materials that promoted Russia’s agenda.

This article is devoted to the analysis of propagandist messages in local Russia-backed media outlets that were disguised as Belarusian outlets. In 2017, Russia launched a media network in Belarus. The network publishes seemingly neutral materials intermingled with heavily ideological articles that promote Russia’s agenda. Moreover, although the media outlets are positioned—both in appearance and content—as local news sources, they frequently discuss events of regional and global significance. For instance, the bloggers who generate most of the local media content devoted a great deal of attention to the Russia-Belarus negotiations on the “tax maneuver” and “further integration” that took place between December 2018 and April 2019.1 The goal of these efforts has been to influence public opinion in a context of limited information about the negotiation process.

During the talks, Belarusian and foreign political scientists and journalists alike have found themselves caught up in a heated discussion about whether Belarus could become “the next Crimea.”2 These speculations have arisen due to the evident inability of the two countries to reach an agreement on compensation for the “tax maneuver,” which has been discussed by the leaders of Belarus and Russia since the end of 2018. Russia intends to support its oil refining industry by increasing the barrelage tax, removing export tariffs (which currently stand at 30 percent), and introducing a negative excise tax. According to the estimations of experts at Belneftekhim, the implementation of the tax maneuver would cause oil prices to skyrocket $20 per ton. Taking into account price increases over the next six years, Belarus therefore stands to lose about $8 billion.3 As such, Belarus would like to mitigate these losses by receiving a reimbursement, and the Russian authorities are prepared to pay compensation by means of a direct transfer. This, however, would cause Belarus to lose important leverage in the discussions and become less autonomous in political decision-making. For example, Russia could refuse to transfer financial support to its neighbor were Belarus to become too Western-oriented in its policies.4 Belarus, which has historically sought to maintain relationships with both Russia and the EU, would therefore prefer that the compensation not be paid directly, but instead be incorporated into the oil price. Even this is not a straightforward proposition: making compensation part of the oil price would make it difficult to renegotiate the conditions of financial support, as the oil-supply agreements may last for several years.

This difficult situation became a dangerous one with a massive information attack via local media that sought to promote a pro-Russia agenda. The Kremlin has made extensive use of local media to increase Russia’s influence in the Belarusian regions and discredit the political opposition.

The main aim of this article is thus to reveal the strategic narratives used by propagandist bloggers to describe key events in the political life of Belarus and the country’s most significant political figures. I chose to analyze the narratives of bloggers because their texts provide a clear picture of what Russia is doing. As a rule, there are no journalists working for these media, which mostly republish news articles from other media or engage in primitive copywriting. Bloggers’ texts usually appear between neutral news about international, national, or regional events and provide commentary framing the issues in Russia’s favor.5

I understand local media as a tool of soft power by means of which the authoritarian Russian government seeks to extend hegemonic discourse to neighboring countries to achieve its strategic aims. I use framing and agenda-setting theories to address pro-integration discourses in the Russian news media and to reconstruct the propagandist narratives constructed between December 2018 and March 2019.

The majority of academic media studies analyze the role of media in Western democracies. Only a handful of scholars study the role of media in authoritarian regimes,6 and even fewer explore how one authoritarian regime uses the regional media of another to promote strategic messages that increase support among the latter’s population and interfere with its decision-making process. Belarus represents an interesting case in this regard because the main message of the state media largely coincides with the message promoted by Russia-backed media: rhetoric on the importance of maintaining and even strengthening “brotherly ties” with Russia by deepening integration. This reality calls for nuanced investigation.

The article proceeds as follows. First, I describe the current context of Russia-Belarus relations and negotiations about integration between the two countries, a context that makes the threat of Russian media interference with Belarusian regional online media especially relevant. Next, I briefly analyze the literature, discussing Russia’s attempts to influence various actors both within and beyond its borders. After that, I describe the key characteristics of Belarusian media structure, outlining the fundamental division between state-owned and independent media, as well as the issues that result from competition between the two. I then explain how Russia has attempted to win public sympathy in the regions by launching a network of propagandist media disguised as local media, before introducing the methodology and case studies that comprise my study. Finally, I use media reports published in the propagandist media between late December 2018 and early March 2019 to reconstruct the propagandist narrative of “deepened integration.”

The Union State and the Most Important Negotiations in the History of Belarus

Since the signing of the document that established the Union State in 1996, the relationship between Belarus and Russia has seen a lot of ups and downs, including innumerable disputes about gas prices and around milk supplies. At least rhetorically, however, the Belarusian authorities have never wavered from their commitment to integration with “brotherly Russia.” Politicians and analysts have been less sanguine, viewing this creeping integration as a threat to Belarus’ sovereignty. Nor are these fears unfounded: developments between 2018 and 2020—including the elaboration of roadmaps for building supranational bodies and introducing a common currency—tilted the balance of power. The current relationship between the Russian and Belarusian authorities hit rock bottom after the negotiations on deepened integration led to nothing. At the beginning of 2020, the two countries engaged in an “oil war” that ended with Belarus looking for alternative energy sources, leading to a weakening of the Belarusian ruble and an economic crisis. The countries reached an agreement on the oil supply only months later, amid a pandemic-induced price drop. Public officials only exacerbated the confrontation when they exchanged heated comments on the measures introduced by their counterparts to cope with the fallout from COVID-19.7 A new round of integration talks is now expected to begin either on the eve of the August presidential election in Belarus or shortly thereafter.8

The latest integration talks in this decades-long process, which relate to the so-called “tax maneuver,” could significantly increase Belarus’ economic and political dependence on Russia. Indeed, political scientist Artyom Shraibman has called the integration talks “the most important negotiations in the modern history” of Belarus.9

Experts believe that the main motive for Russian attempts to allegedly bring about the dependency of Belarus was the “2024 problem”: how Putin could remain in power after 2024, when the term limits in the Russian Constitution would have mandated that he step down. Some experts predicted that he would repeat his “castling move” of 2008, when Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev temporarily took over as President. This seemed unlikely, however, as the first “castling move” met with opposition from Russian civil society. Other experts therefore suggested that Belarus would be incorporated into Russia and a new constitution adopted for the Union State, allowing Putin to remain in power as president not of Russia, but of the Union State. In the end, of course, Putin did neither of these things. Instead, he solved the “2024 problem” discouragingly easily by amending the Constitution to extend term limits and make terms served prior to 2024 not count against these limits.

Coinciding with the negotiations, there have been an increasing number of reports about Belarus in the Russian media, especially in outlets infamous for disseminating disinformation (Regnum, Politoboz, Tsargrad, etc.).10 Coverage of the integration talks has also shown up in regional media that portray themselves as Belarusian, some of which have either promoted consciously distorted versions of the events or exclusively put forward the Russian agenda. Taken together, these reports appear to be akin to the information warfare that Russia has been waging in Eastern Ukraine.

According to a 2017 study, state TV channels still represent the main information source for a significant part of the Belarusian population. About 29.4% of Belarusians receive information about world events from state-owned media, followed by Russian state TV channels (24%), with independent websites in third place (10.7%).11 This suggests that Belarusians still hold Russian media in high regard, a hypothesis borne out by another 2017 study, which found that 75% of Belarusians trust Russian media partly or fully.12 This dependence on Russian meida is exacerbated by weak national identity and the precarious position of the Belarusian language as a result of intentional policies launched by the Belarusian authorities as early as the mid-1990s:13 according to surveys, only about 10% of Belarusians regularly speak the national language.14 Russia has sought to take full advantage of its language advantage to increase its influence.

Russian Media Influence on Neighboring Countries

The Russian media have generated many disinformation pieces and emotionally charged false reports to sow discord between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian residents of Ukraine,15 and in Belarus16 to repress opponents of the regime.17

In Ukraine, Russian authorities actively used a combination of traditional power and various measures of “cyber coercion”—such as “amplification of propaganda with bots and troll farms”—to sow discord, delegitimize their opponents, maintain e-battle operations, and create chaos.18 Khaldarova and Pantti analyzed Channel One, concluding its news stories served as “extreme projections of Russia’s strategic narratives.”19 They found that these strategic narratives aim not merely to deceive viewers, but to erase the line between fact and fiction and create a medium within which to promote other messages. The Ukrainian anti-fake project Stopfake.org, meanwhile, debunks these false narratives to help readers/viewers restore a picture of reality that is built upon facts. 20

The Russian authorities have used a variety of measures to “keep alive and capitalize on the divisions within societies and between nations.”21 In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, citizens themselves have been turned into “propaganda machines,” disseminating disinformation and thereby contributing to the formation of hostile narratives. The Russian authorities are “reinventing reality and translating it into political action,”22 a process that led to the emergence of the concept of Novorossiya and made it possible for the Kremlin to legitimize the support of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, which sought to break off from Ukraine.

In the second half of the 2000s, the most popular Russian TV channels in Belarus (such as NTV, Channel One, and RTR) were replaced by so-called “hybrid channels” that broadcast content in both Russian and Belarusian (namely, NTV-Belarus, ONT, and RTR-Belarus). Nevertheless, content generated by the Russian media continued to amount to 65 percent of total programming, according to calculations made by the president’s deputy chief of staff in 2016.23 RTR-Belarus, NTV-Belarus, and MIR broadcast mostly Russian TV shows,24 while Belarus 1 is the Belarusian broadcaster that has the highest share of programs that promote a pro-Russian agenda (38.18% Russian content). Recent research suggests that “content generated by Russian media” and broadcast by the “hybrid” channels contributes to the formation of a Russia-centered image of the world.

Online resources also play a significant role in indoctrinating Belarusians. The Internet is the second most popular source of information for Belarusians: 84.7% of adult Belarusians regularly watch TV, while 63.8% use the Internet, according to SATIO 2016 polls.25 Moreover, even as the popularity of TV channels is slowly decreasing, especially among the younger generation and more highly educated Belarusians, Russia’s efforts to promote the Russian worldview online mean that it continues to pose a threat to Belarus.

In 2016, Yeliseyeu and Laputska26 examined the Belarus-related content in Russian media, finding that between 2014 and 2016, such propaganda outlets as Imperiyanews.ru, Regnum.ru, Eurasia Daily (EADaily), Zapadrus.su and Sputnikipogrom.com increased their publication of anti-Belarusian materials. In light of Russia’s extensive use of information warfare both during and after the war with Ukraine, this is a worrying trend.

Local Media as a Tool of Influence in the Belarusian Regions

According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Information, as of 2019 there were around 1,616 print media outlets, of which 434 were state-owned and the rest were independent. (Notably, only 30 of these independent media outlets cover social and political events in Belarus.) Of the total 1,616, just 32 cover events exclusively in Belarusian, while 837 use exclusively Russian and the rest take a mixed-language approach.27 Hradiushka28 states that there are 135 state-printed regional media outlets, all of which have online versions. Hence, the global process of digitalization of local media is likewise ongoing in Belarus, although elements of this process—especially relating to the differences between state and independent media—are unique.

The popularity of online versions of regional state publications varies. Those that simply reprint material from their print editions have lower readership than those that publish additional content online. This is not surprising, given the highly ideological content of state media and the unattractiveness of this kind of content for younger Belarusians. The low popularity of online state regional media—Hrodzenska Prauda has the highest readership of such sources, at 19,800 unique readers per day, while Narodnaya Trybuna has the lowest, at just 30 visitors per day—has led to competition between state-owned and independent online regional news outlets in Belarus. The latter have been quicker to adjust their content to the interests of the younger population: less serious materials, use of slang, more attention paid to entertaining content, etc. Whereas online versions of state-owned regional outlets serve to channel the official point of view and in most cases do not allow citizens to express their own opinions (or else have forums that can be be censored), independent urban portals theoretically make it possible to share diverse views on important regional issues. In an ideal world, these media could serve as communication platforms for networking and discussing the news. However, (self-)censorship means that there is in reality a shortage of such platforms in Belarus. Since 2018, Russia-backed local media have proliferated in an attempt to fill this lacuna.

Another difference is the speed with which state and private media can react. Journalists from the state-owned media used to get approval from the editor on a specific interpretation of social and political events, which leads to slower reactions and flexibility concerning various events. The journalists from independent media are more autonomous and react quickly to vibrant topics in the social and political spheres.29 However, they are constantly experiencing pressure from the side of law-enforcement agencies.

As a rule, the state-owned online versions of regional outlets rarely have a vibrant presence in social media, which adversely influences their outreach. In most cases, they simply republish the news on the most popular Russian-language social media sites (Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte), without making an attempt to “work” with the audience (that is, to generate unique entertaining content in the form of memes, etc.). They have not adjusted to the new situation in which, given abundant sources of information and dynamic social life, people no longer have the time to read thoughtful long articles and prefer short synopses and entertainment content.

This lack of attention to the interests of the audience may also be explained by the fact that state-owned online versions of regional outlets have guaranteed funding from the state budget, while independent outlets usually rely on advertising revenue, pushing them to attract as many visitors as possible. Another trend is the crisis of trust between the public and the experts cited in traditional state-owned media. When the audience encounters inaccuracies, it becomes disillusioned with expert opinions and begins to search for various information leaks in order to learn more. As Krivolap argued with regard to the lack of information about the integration talks: “When there is no official information, people start looking for gossip […], because there is neither openness nor trust.”30

As early as 2018, Russian actors began to launch local media outlets. These represented themselves as authentic regional resources, and some eventually managed to attract an audience comparable to the audience of online versions of popular regional outlets. Russia aimed to use these outlets to increase Belarusian support for the Union State project by promoting the Russian agenda and disseminating disinformation.

Methodology: Case Selection, Methods and Data Collection

Case Selection

In this research, I take as my point of departure the findings of Yeliseyeu (2019),31 who revealed several important trends that indicate the intensification of Russian information attacks on Belarus. The most important of these trends is the launch of more than 40 local media outlets focused on promoting the Russian agenda. In order to attract a wide range of readers/viewers, some materials published by these outlets take a neutral view of events, while others advance the Russian agenda by providing intentionally distorted information. Significantly, these media make derogatory remarks about Belarusian opposition leaders, popularize Russia-centric frameworks, degrade the Belarusian language and culture, and so on. More importantly, all of them appear to be participating in a disinformation attack that was initiated by Russia on the eve of the negotiations surrounding deepened integration and continues to this day.

In this article, I will concentrate on those media that position themselves as having a regional focus. I selected eight online resources that disguise themselves as regional sites about recent events: Dranik.org and Berestje-news.org (Brest region), Teleskop-by.org (Minsk region), Vitbich.org (Viciebsk region), Sozh.info (Homel region), Mogilew.by and Podneprovie-info.com (Mahileu region), and Grodnodaily (Hrodna region). Two further media outlets (BRoss-bel.ru and Politring.com) directly criticize the Belarusian authorities without attempting to represent themselves as neutral. I analyzed the content of these media during the first six months that talks about the “tax maneuver” and deepened integration were being held between the Russian and Belarusian political elites—that is, between November 1, 2018, and April 15, 2019. Although the talks continued through 2019 and into 2020, this early period appears to be rich in cases that reveal the unique features of Russian disinformation attacks. The media outlets under study masterfully took advantage of the lack of information provided by the Belarusian public officials, Belarusian journalists’ lack of professionalism, and the unique characteristics of the Belarusian media sphere.

Media Discourse: Theoretical Setting

In the post-Soviet context, media outlets are typically instruments of influence wielded by their owners.32 In other words, the outlet is thought to promote the messages of the actor that owns it; employees—from journalists to editors to photographers—are merely transmitters of that message.33 This process is facilitated when owners of media outlets employ only journalists who are ideologically aligned with them. 34

Accordingly, this article considers the content of local media outlets launched by Russian ideologists to be the continuation of the hegemonic discourse in the authoritarian Russian context, an instrument of “soft power”35 that is intended to influence Belarusian citizens and shape their views. Significantly, this discourse intersects and intertwines in some respects with the propagandist discourse promoted by state-owned Belarusian media.

Methods

This analysis of online media utilizes the framing method. First, a priori coding of the extracted qualitative data is conducted to reduce the volume of material by systematization according to chosen criteria.36 After categorizing the texts, it becomes possible to compare them and reveal the underlying patterns.

Framing theory explains how media highlights certain events and then give them specific contextual meaning. In a way, framing theory appears to be an extension of agenda-setting theory:37 it not only reveals the processes by which certain events are represented as important and worthy of an audience’s attention (and hence come to be discussed by the media), but also what the audience should think or feel about the issue.38 The same event, framed in various ways, can hold a different meaning for the audience, shaping its general perception of the situation. In particular, I will show how important events are framed by Russian public officials and state-owned media. I will further demonstrate that regional media are used to amplify pro-Russian messages and disseminate them in the Belarusian regions.

To develop subcategories of content for this research, I used the hybrid deductive-inductive approach.39 The main advantage of this approach is its flexibility: the categories may be built both on the basis of theory and during the process of analysis.

Data Collection

Content was obtained from media outlets based on the following three categories identified during my preparatory research: “Union State,” “Integration,” and “Opposition.” These categories were chosen to identify articles covering the major political events during the period under consideration: the integration talks and the collective actions by regime opponents, whether organized to celebrate calendar events (such as Freedom Day or Chernobyl Day) or to protest against the negotiations between the two countries. I identified 136 articles relevant to the topic of “Union State” and 143 articles relevant to “protest events,” for a total of 279.

Expert interviews were also used to identify the main strategies of disinformation used by the pro-Russian local media during the period under consideration. In particular, I refer to interviews with two Belarusian media experts—media researcher and Deutsche Welle journalist Pauluk Bykowski and ECLAB media expert Alexey Krivolap—that help to illustrate the role of the media in promoting a Russia-centric agenda, as well as explore the significance of the regional media in this process. The main aim of the interviews was to establish a link between the Russian disinformation campaign and local media.

Integration or Absorption: Strategic Narratives in the Pro-Russian Media Flow

Pro-Russian regional media outlets have a clear content production strategy. Generally speaking, media oriented toward the eastern regions (Homel, Viciebsk, and Mahileu regions), which border Russia, are less aggressive and generate more content justifying further integration of the Union State. This is likely due to the fact that Russia’s cultural influence in these regions is historically higher than in the western regions, so it is not always necessary to aggressively convince citizens that further integration with Russia is vital. The western regions (Hrodna and Brest), meanwhile, are less susceptible to pro-Russian propaganda, so media must be more assertive in order to win popular support for their positions. Thus, the first job of the pro-Russian propagandist outlets is to discredit opposition politicians.

In terms of design, several of the media under study—Berestje-news, Vitbich, Podneprovie-info, and Sozh—were developed on the basis of the same design samples. They cover news from the same five or six basic thematic categories and do not display aggressive symbols.

All of the media under analysis contain neutral content, such as news and entertainment content about regional and national events. Some of these stories, which appear in the “World,” “Belarus,” and “Politics” sections, are clearly republished from other sources. Certain ones are rewritten for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes; others are simply reposted. The media also contain original materials about the Union State or the activities of the Belarusian opposition. They frequently criticize Belarusian journalists, politicians, and civil society activists—actors to whom official Belarusian outlets do not generally pay attention—which makes their propagandist narrative more dynamic and trust-worthy. For example, the bloggers Mirsalimova40 and Dudinov41 describe the researcher Andrei Yeliseyeu as a marionette who is in the pocket of Western donors. Such texts are written in an aggressive manner and usually appear in the “Blogs” section.

This blend of articles allows these media to attract a higher number of readers—as some like aggressive texts while others prefer neutral ones—while simultaneously justifying the hate speech used by the bloggers as a feature of their personal style. In general, these media outlets have a low number of unique users (around 10,000 per month), but this number varies over time.

The number of materials published by most of these regional outlets increased in late 2018 and early 2019—that is, the period when the negotiations on the tax maneuver were held. Since the owners of these local media clearly have a content strategy—a geographical focus on the major events in Belarus—we can infer that the increase in the volume of content about the opposition and the Union State during the negotiations on the tax maneuver was also a concerted strategy.

The Union State

One illustrative example of Russian “agenda-setting” and framing occurred during the integration talks, when the Russian outlet Kommersant repeatedly leaked information about the negotiation process. Stories provided by Kommersant were disseminated by the regional media in three ways: as an official version of the results of the negotiations; via interviews with Russian officials (Lavrov and Babich) without any attempt to put their comments in context; and bloggers’ interpretations.

The whole story began with the publication of the so-called “Medvedev ultimatum,” which has been widely shared and cited by both Russian and Belarusian media. The news emerged during the negotiations on the “tax maneuver,” as Belarus and Russia were discussing a new formula for compensation within the Eurasian Economic Union. As discussed earlier, this is a complicated issue that requires significant explanation to make it accessible to a general audience. However, Kommersant’s framing of the negotiations was far less nuanced and far harsher than the explanations provided by public officials. This approach ultimately led to protest actions organized by opposition leaders.

Russia continually framed the negotiations in such a way as to “sell” the Belarusian and Russian publics the idea of a binary choice: either deepened integration with Russia or imminent economic collapse. This idea was widely disseminated by regional Russia-backed media and picked up by journalists from independent media. Belarusian journalists were unwilling or unable to verify the information and delve deeper into the complex issues discussed during the negotiations. Instead, Bykowski42 stresses, they preferred the vivid but oversimplified version of events suggested by Kommersant: “Medvedev’s ultimatum” of deepened integration with supranational bodies and the Russian ruble as a common currency in exchange for economic subsidies.

Significantly, the Belarusian authorities remained silent on the progress of the negotiation process. Public officials said merely that the talks were going as planned and would not lead to the loss of independence. The Russia-backed outlets immediately took advantage of this lack of information to repeatedly put forward their own version. The Belarusian independent media then translated the Russian version of events without checking the facts. Such hastiness and unprofessionalism on the part of the Belarusian independent media, combined with the reluctance of Belarusian public officials to give interviews, resulted in the dominance of the Russian narrative about the talks in the Belarusian media flow.

The Russia-sourced regional media played a crucial role in this process because they continued disseminating Russia’s version of events. The Union State was one of the most frequently discussed topics in the local media, with those focusing on Hrodna, Viciebsk, Brest, Mahileu and Minsk regions regularly publishing articles and news about this issue.

For example, Vitbich published several articles around the December 25 meeting between Putin and Lukashenka in the Kremlin. This included republishing an interview given by Mikhail Babich to TASS,43 in which the then-Russian envoy to Belarus and special representative of Russia in the working group on integration harshly criticized Belarus in general and Lukashenka over his position on the tax maneuver. In another article, the head of CIS-EMO44 and co-chair of the civic initiative “Union” Byshok, commenting on the future of the Union State, suggested ignoring the current problems in relations between the two states and continuing the harmonization of laws between them, building supranational political bodies, and implementing an information campaign among the population, especially in Russia.45 In a third article, Krishtapovich stated46 that an independent Belarus is not possible outside of the Union State, as the country is really a quasi-state that needs to recognize that its “real sovereignty” lies within an integrated post-Soviet space.

In the same period, Sozh.info published an interview with Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. He said that around 65% of Belarusians support the integration, with the difficult negotiations a temporary stumbling-block: the two countries, he said, would eventually overcome their problems and deepen their relations.47 Palachanin explained the main issues in the relations between the two countries and suggested that the Union State is something imminent and already settled, saying that the talks are going in the right direction and the conflict around the tax maneuver will be inevitably solved.48

Podneprovie-info.com republished an interview Babich gave to RT in which he said that the main issue is not finding the solution to specific problems, but completing the construction of the Union State.49 The website also posted an interview with Lavrov, in which he reiterated that everything was going as planned and that the working group would find a way to reach an agreement.50

In sum, in the articles listed above, the regional news sites gave Russian public officials a platform, transmitting the official point of view on the negotiations around the tax maneuver. The articles frame the audience’s perception of the problem, suggesting that Russia subsidizes the Belarusian economy and that deepened integration is the logical continuation of relations between the two sides. They also set the specific agenda, suggesting that integration talks are crucial for the future of Belarus.51

Of the media under study, Ross-bel.ru appears to be the most ideological: it painted the most one-sided picture of the integration talks. In particular, Sergeyev, the author of an article published on Ross-bel.ru,52 was adamant that the Union State was an economic project with no ideological component; to further the integration process, he said, required an appropriate ideology, such as the idea of the “Russian World.”53 It is worth mentioning that the “Russian World” ideology has been used by the authorities to justify its aggressive foreign policy vis-à-vis neighboring countries.54

However, in order to make room for the new ideology, one has to eliminate the competitors. Kirshtapovich55 considers the Belarusian nationalist project to be such a competitor. The country is said to be the battlefield between two contradictory “civilizational projects”: the Fourth Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian World. While the former is perceived as purely ideological, aiming to indoctrinate Belarusian people and separate them from “Russian civilization,” the latter is deployed in the economic and social sphere, potentially bringing Belarus a lot of benefits. Belarusian sovereignty is represented only as an extension of the Union State: “the statehood of both Russia and Belarus is fully functional only within the Union,” with the building of the Union State seen as the “national idea of Belarus.”56

Some articles engage in more nuanced propaganda, emphasizing certain historical facts while omitting others. For example, Lev Krishtapovich57 describes at great length the need for deepened integration with Russia (in fact, the absorption of Belarus), suggesting an alternative version of Belarusian history in which the country is represented as being devoid of any cultural and historical identity. In this version of events, the formation of the Belarusian People’s Republic, which historians consider the birth of sovereign Belarus, is the result of pure opportunism on the part of Belarusian intellectuals. Krishtapovich uses a propagandist cliché that represents Western countries as an aggressive military powerhouse that aim to conquer Russia and force regime change either by increasing economic dependency or through military duress.

In all these articles, the bloggers construct an image of the Belarusian people as dependent, lacking national identity and language. They substantiate this claim by referring to the common Soviet history while ignoring events that took place before the establishment of the Soviet Union. In many respects, this view reflects the Soviet collective identity project, which “has been conceptually framed by the state ideology adopted in 2003.”58 This project dates the emergence of Belarus to World War Two, when the Belarusian people made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism. Within this project, the national language, history, and culture—which are central to the “nativist project of national identity” promoted by Belarusian nationalists—are put on the back burner, while the traditional symbols of the white-red-white flag and Pahonya coat of arms are ignored. Up until 2014, Belarusian authorities prioritized the “creole” identity project,59 mixing elements of the Soviet project with anti-Belarusian nationalism, a negative attitude toward pro-Western values, and orientation toward Russia as a civilizational choice.60 Both Russian and Belarusian ideologists are unanimous in their treatment of the USSR’s dissolution, which is represented as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe. In this context, signing the Union Treaty holds ultimate benefits, because it allows reestablishment of the brotherly ties between the two countries.

Some of the authors directly equate Belarusians to Russians: “The Russian people—a specific multi-million Eastern Slavic national-cultural community (Belarusians, Great Russians, Ruthenians, Little Russians), united by Russian self-awareness.”61 Others stress that the Belarusian people did not exist before the 18th century,62 while the Belarusian language itself was “artificially created” at the beginning of the 20th century63 and its symbols—the Pahonya coat of arms and the white-red-white flag—“call to mind the fascist occupation.”64 They also stress that the name of the country itself is incorrect—it should be known as “the Western region” (Zapadnyi Krai).65

In this sense, deepened integration is justified as the ultimate aim of Belarus: only by becoming part of the Russian World and adopting the Russian language and culture as their own can the Belarusian people realize their full potential and instill their empty form with substance.

Opposition

The Belarusian “opposition” (to use the general term deployed by propagandist Russian and Belarusian media to describe civil society activists, journalists from independent media, and the leaders of opposition political parties/movements) is considered one of the main “enemies” of the Union State. Since 1996, its activists have been struggling against the supranational formation, which they see as the ultimate threat to Belarusian sovereignty. At the end of 1996, frustration around the signing of the Union Treaty66 contributed to arguably the largest and most aggressive protests in the history of Belarus (the so-called “Hot Spring” and “Hot Autumn” of 1996). Protests organized by the nationalist Belarusian People’s Front, which was responsible for the majority of the actions throughout the 1990s, attracted more than 30,000 people. Lukashenka recognized the dangers of “street politics” under nationalist banners and ordered the repression of the protests and the arrest of activists. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, this led to the launch of so-called “death squads,” which are alleged to have kidnapped and killed former Minister of Internal Affairs and outspoken regime critic Youri Zacharchenko; businessman Anatoly Krasovsky; politician Viktor Gonchar; and journalist Dmitry Zavadsky. Following the wave of color revolutions in the early 2000s, Lukasahenko became even more wary of the peaceful protests taking place in Belarus. He therefore ordered the brutal dispersal of the “Jeans Revolution” in 2006 and the 2010 protest against the falsification of the presidential election results, both of which had been organized by various figures in the political opposition.

Since opposition actors usually rely on nationalist sentiments, it is hardly surprising that Russian propagandist websites devote significant attention to criticizing opposition initiatives. To use Prekevicus’67 classification of styles employed by reporters at propagandist outlets, bloggers typically use negative description and negative prediction against opposition leaders. In general, the opposition is considered to exist because of Western financial support: some authors describe opposition activists as “traitors” who “leak information to the West (including confidential materials) for individual profit or in the name of higher ideas.”68 In this narrative, the West is constantly plotting to initiate a coup in Belarus as a result of a color revolution (“Ploshcha”), with Poland and Ukraine (“AntiRussia”) serving as proxies who can equip activists with weapons and provide other support.69

One blogger, who writes under the name Andrey Korshunov, specializes in harsh criticism of opposition leaders, using derogatory and aggressive terms in his article. Interestingly, he sometimes refers to arguments used against certain opposition leaders by other members of opposition political circles, indicating that Korshunov has fairly in-depth knowledge of the subject. In his article devoted to Andrey Dmitriev’s position on the presidential elections, Korshunov said that the leader of the political movement “Say Truth” is desperately trying to increase societal nervousness and “launch a revolution by someone else’s hands.”70 The author hints at the events of 2006, when Dmitriev was arrested by the KGB and allegedly cut a deal with the authorities in exchange for his release. In this context, Dmitriev is represented as being devoid of courage and responsibility, key qualities of a politician that are necessary for winning the trust of the population.

In another article,71 Korshunov equates the Belarusian civil activists who filed complaints against the Belarusian government with the Human Rights Committee of the UNOHCHR to passive homosexuals. In particular, he mentions a derogatory prison epithet72 used by the Belarusian Minister of Internal Affairs with regards to the LGBT community. This is obviously done to invoke the social stigma associated with the LGBT community, which is still shared by the majority of people in the conservative Belarusian society.73 This article subtly promotes the idea that civil society activists should not try to look for justice beyond the borders of Belarus and should, instead, be silent and obedient, calling to mind another rule of prison etiquette that remains quite popular in Belarusian society: “It is beneath someone to complain about problems.”74

Another frequent target of Korshunov is the leader of the unregistered Belarusian Social Democratic Party, former presidential candidate Mikalaj Statkevich. Statkevich was incarcerated for six years for allegedly organizing civil unrest in Belarus after the 2010 presidential elections. Statkevich, known for his unbending opposition to authoritarian policies and his inclination towards “street politics,” organized several protests almost immediately after his release from prison in 2017. Lukashenka himself considers Statkevich one of the most dangerous opposition leaders in the country: the president has expressed concern that Statkevich is “fixated on Maidan” and ordered that he be detained ahead of the 2020 presidential elections, whereupon he was arrested and sentenced to 15 days in prison. Korshunov stresses that “As a rule, it is Statkevich who is considered a radical force capable of overthrowing the regime. Every year, he is like a broken record, saying the same thing: “We need to unite energy, time and place and organize political and social protest. If needed, we can use the potential of the patriotic rebellion.”75 Interestingly, Korshunov sees Ukraine as a source of this patriotic rebellion, saying Statkevich would use weapons and ammunition provided by the Ukrainians to take over the country.

Discussing the independent journalists who were persecuted by the authorities for allegedly illegally using official information from the website of state-owned BELTA, Korshunov misogynistically claimed that the main culprits identified during the investigations—TUT.by editor-in-chief Marina Zolotova and BelaPAN editor-in-chief Irina Levshina—imposed their views on the Belarusian audience and political opposition instead of “cooking borsch.”76 In a similarly derogatory move, he openly decried opposition leaders—Anisim, Statkevich, Nyaklayev, Lebedzka, and others—as spies who are discrediting the authorities and undermining the Belarusian regime from within.77

Nor is Korshunov the only pro-Russian blogger to deploy derogatory rhetoric against opposition figures. Some bloggers insist that opposition leaders are not autonomous in their actions, comparing individuals like “Spring-96” leader Alex Byalyatsky, Belarusian Social Democratic Party leader Mikalaj Statkevich, and “Say Truth” leader Andrey Dmitriev to sex workers or homosexuals.78 Others frame Belarusian society as passive and easily deceived, suggesting that independent journalists and activists are constantly manipulating citizens for personal gain. In this view, Russia and Belarus are locked into a desperate battle against their enemies, including Russia’s archenemy, the United States, which poses the ultimate threat to world order by not only sponsoring violent revolutions around the globe but also contributing to increasing entropy in international relations.

In sum, bloggers represent Belarusian opposition leaders in a derogatory way, painting them as unreliable, cowardly, corrupt, and shallow people who serve the interests of the West in exchange for salaries. Sometimes they are even openly called spies. It may seem counter-intuitive to criticize opposition leaders so harshly, as they are not particularly popular among the general population of Belarus and are frequently repressed by the Belarusian authorities. One of the reasons for this is that the key ideological messages of the official Belarusian position on the integration process correspond with the Russian ones: Lukashenka frequently reiterates his willingness to deepen integration with Russia (though on fair and equal terms). The Belarusian opposition, meanwhile, not only struggles against the prospect of uniting with Russia, but also provides a viable alternative built upon the unique national culture and language.

In this sense, the Belarusian opposition becomes a scapegoat to explain why the integration process is stumbling. To move forward with cultural, political, and economic integration, opposition leaders must be silenced. In some respects, the defamation of the political opposition is the extension of a defamation campaign that the Russian authorities are conducting against the protesters in their own country; any kind of ideological or political alternative (even in another country) is seen as a potential danger.

Conclusion

Having analyzed these articles, it becomes possible to conclude that Russia has been increasing both the quantity and the quality of its propagandist materials in the recently launched media that focus on the Belarusian regions. Russian propagandists carefully targeted the local level, as the content generated by bloggers quite naturally filled in the lacunae left by the Belarusian authorities. The majority of the local state-owned media merely republish materials from the print versions of media outlets and do not adjust their content to the demands of the online audience. The Russia-sourced media, by contrast, not only provide local news, but also promote various original materials on social media. Moreover, it is easier to disguise the disinformation pieces among quite specific local news and promote a specifically Russian agenda. This strategy represents a concerted approach on the part of Russia’s authoritarian regime to increase the popularity of the country within the Belarusian regions and undermine the hegemonic narrative put forward by the Belarusian state-owned media. By amplifying the effect of certain Belarusian propaganda (such as attacks on the opposition) and providing an exclusively one-sided version of events in the political sphere, Russia has created a nuanced and powerful instrument for influencing public opinion in the Belarusian regions, enabling Russia to extend its soft power to the territory of its long-term ally.

Waves of disinformation materials and propagandist articles mushroom ahead of and during such important political events as high-level meetings between Belarusian and Russian leaders and negotiations on integration. Russian ideologists have been successful in promoting a Russia-centric picture of the world at both regional and national levels via direct messages in aggressive materials and through seemingly neutral articles (such as those suggesting a redacted “russified” version of the history of Belarus).79 Coupled with other initiatives, such as the demarche of Babich (the former Russian envoy to Belarus),80 the production of TV programs, and the promotion of Russian versions of Belarusian developments within the Belarusian public sphere, this could mark the launch of a full-fledged information war against the country.

Although the Belarusian authorities recognize the importance of “information hygiene,” their actions are in many respects reactionary and not entirely adequate. First, they refrain from wholesale “carpet-bombing” censorship of the Russian media, preferring a “rifle” approach. They cut only those programs that openly criticize Belarusian policies and occasionally harass especially active bloggers and journalists. In 2016, for example, they initiated a criminal procedure against three journalists who were writing propagandist materials for the outlets Regnum.ru and EADaily. At the beginning of 2019, Lukashenka publicly recognized the inefficacy of the Belarusian media at securing the interests of the country, going so far as to acknowledge that the authorities were losing “the battle for the Internet.”81 The Belarusian president urged people to withstand the information attacks from the East and the West and develop an Information Security Concept. The document, which was recently adopted,82 introduces the notion of “information neutrality and sovereignty,” as opposed to a shared information space with Russia; devotes particular attention to the Belarusian language and history, which are seen as a source of the state’s security; and pushes back against foreign influence, destabilization, and fake news.83

Experts observe, however, that this Concept will not change anything. Despite its description of Belarus’ challenges, the Concept suggests solving problems using the same methods that contributed to the current situation: the formation of new bureaucratic structures, the launch of new state-funded media, and the introduction of new limitations with regard to independent media. In this context, the most promising ideas could be killed by an ineffective decision-making process and a lack of political will. As such, Belarusian viewers will continue to consume Russian news that puts forward a pro-Kremlin view of major world events.

All in all, Russia continues to have a significant presence on the Belarusian media scene. Its strength derives in no small part from the behavior of Belarusian state-owned media, which in some ways promote a Russia-centric agenda and are sometimes reluctant to deliver important information to the public. When no official information is available, independent media come to rely on news provided by Russian sources, with the result that they present information in the way it is framed by Russia. Local Russia-backed media amplify this effect by transmitting Russian versions of news and providing a platform to Russian public officials without citing Belarusian analysts. This gives the Kremlin significant opportunities to manipulate information in Belarus.

1 The main point of conflict has been Belarus’ demand that Russia continue to uphold the previous practice of relations between the two countries, whereby the exchange of economic subsidies assured political loyalty. However, Russia—no longer satisfied with the attempts of its closest neighbor to strike a balance between West and East—has proposed further integration, which Belarus interprets as a Russian attempt to achieve the political and economic absorption of Belarus.

2 David Marples. “Will Russia Seek to Annex Belarus?” New Eastern Europe, March 6, 2019, At https://emerging-europe.com/voices/will-russia-seek-to-annex-belarus/, accessed March 15, 2019. Artyom Shraibman. “A Brotherly Takeover: Could Russia Annex Belarus?” UDF.by, March 22, 2019, At https://udf.by/english/news-subjects/189650-a-brotherly-takeover-could-russia-annex-belarus.html, accessed March 22, 2019. Vitali Shkliarov. “Will Belarus Be the Next Crimea?” New Eastern Europe, April 8, 2019, At https://neweasterneurope.eu/2019/04/08/will-belarus-be-the-next-crimea/, accessed April 8, 2019.

3 Dmitrii Zaiats. “Skol’ko Belarus’ poteriaet iz-za nalogovogo manevra?” [How Much Will Belarus Lose Because of the Tax Maneuver?]. Naviny.by, July 21, 2020, At https://naviny.by/article/20181130/1543555644-skolko-belarus-poteryaet-iz-za-nalogovogo-manevra, accessed March 15, 2019.

4 Artyom Shraibman. 2018. Den’gi ili suverenitet. Chem zakonchitsja neftjanoj spor Moskvy i Minska [Money or Sovereignty: How the Oil Conflict between Russia and Minsk Will End], At https://carnegie.ru/commentary/77999, accessed January 4, 2019.

5 Joanna Szostek. 2014. “Russia and the News Media in Ukraine: A Case of ‘Soft Power’?” East European Politics and Societies 28: 3 (July): 463-486.

6 Katrin Voltmer, ed. 2013. The Media in Transitional Democracies: Contemporary Political Communication. Cambridge: Polity Press.

7 Andrei Shingarev. “Pandemiia koronavirusa snova rassorila Minsk i Moskvu” [Minsk and Moscow Fell Out Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic]. Meduza, May 12, 2020, At https://meduza.io/feature/2020/05/12/kak-pandemiya-koronavirusa-snova-rassorila-minsk-i-moskvu, accessed July 21, 2020.

8 The results of Belarus’ elections are routinely falsified, so Lukashenka is expected to win, despite growing dissatisfaction with his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

9 Artyom Shraibman. 2019. “Samyj glavnyj torg dlia Lukashenka” [The Most Important Negotiations for Lukashenka], At https://belaruspartisan.by/politic/447196/, accessed April 3, 2019.

10 Andrei Yeliseyeu. 2019. “Fundamental Shifts in Anti-Belarusian Disinformation and Propaganda: Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Changes.” EAST Center, At http://east-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Belarus-Disinformation-Propaganda-2019-ENG.pdf, accessed April 23, 2019.

11 Thinktanks.by. 2018. Opros: Belorusskie gosSMI pol’zuiutsia naibol’shim doveriem belorusov [Survey: Belarusian State Media are Most Trusted by Belarusians], At https://thinktanks.by/publication/2018/11/20/opros-belorusskie-gossmi-polzuyutsya-naibolshim-doveriem-belorusov.html, accessed July 21, 2020.

12 Veronika Laputska and Aleksandr Papko. 2017. “Informatsionnaia bezopasnost’ Belarusi: problemy i puti uluchsheniia” [Belarusian Information Security: Problems and Ways of Improvement], At http://east-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Belarus_information_security_RU.pdf, accessed November 30, 2019, p. 7.

13 T. Chyzhova. 2011. “Oborona Nezaliezhnashchi—aktsii 1996 goda” [The Defense of Independence—Actions of 1996]. In A. Dynko and V. Bulhakau, eds., Khryshchennye natsii. Masavaia aktsii 1988–2009. Belaruskaje histarychnae tavarystva; Vilńja: Instytut belarusistyki; Minsk: Palitychnaia sfera, pp. 228–246; E. Lucas. “V chem Zapad oshibalsya naschet Belarusi?” [Where Did the West Make a Mistake about Belarus?]. News.21.by, May 6, 2011, At http://news.21.by/society/2011/05/06/297344.html, accessed March 4, 2014.

14 V. Smok. 2013. “Belarusian Identity: The Impact of Lukashenka’s Rule.” BelarusDigest analytical paper 3 (December). Minsk and London: Ostrogorski Centre, p. 7.

15 Ulises A. Mejias and Nikolai E. Vokuev. 2017. “Disinformation and the Media: The Case of Russia and Ukraine.” Media, Culture & Society 39: 7: 1027–1042.

16 Yeliseyeu, “Fundamental Shifts.”

17 Galina Nikiporets-Takigawa. 2013. “Tweeting the Russian Protests.” Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media 9: ١-٢٥.

18 Benjamin Jensen, Brandon Valeriano, and Ryan Maness. 2019. “Fancy Bears and Digital Trolls: Cyber Strategy with a Russian Twist.” Journal of Strategic Studies 42: 2: 18.

19 Irina Khaldarova and Mervi Pantti. 2016. “Fake News: The Narrative Battle over the Ukrainian Conflict.” Journalism Practice 10: 7: 891-901, 891.

20 Ibid., p. 900

21 Mejias and Vokuev, “Disinformation and the Media,” 1032.

22 Anastasiya Astapova and Vasil Navumau. 2018. “Veyshnoria: A Fake Country in the Midst of Real Information Warfare.” Journal of American Folklore 131: 522 (October 2018): 435.

23 Marketing.by. 2016. 65% kontenta v belorusskikh SMI—rossiiskii [65% of Belarusian Media Content is Generated by Russian Journalists], At https://marketing.by/novosti-rynka/65-kontenta-v-belorusskikh-smi-rossiyskiy/, accessed July 29, 2020.

24 Belorusskaia Assotsiatsiia Zhurnalistov. 2019. Prodvizhenie “russkogo mira” idet cherez belorusskie TV-kanaly—BAZh prezentoval monitoring prorossiiskoi propagandy [The Promotion of the “Russian World” is Conducted via Belarusian TV Channels—BAJ Presented Monitoring of Pro-Russian Propaganda], At https://baj.by/be/analytics/prodvizhenie-russkogo-mira-idet-cherez-belorusskie-tv-kanaly-bazh-prezentoval-monitoring, accessed March 3, 2019.

25 O. Ageev, A. Bastunets, P. Bykowski et.al. 2016. “Modernizatsiia mediinogo zakonodatel’stva Respubliki Belarus’ v sfere zashhity natsional’nogo informatsionnogo prostranstva” [Modernization of Media Laws of the Republic of Belarus on Information Security]. Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, At https://belinstitute.com/sites/biss.newmediahost.info/files/attached-files/BISS_SA05_2016ru.pdf.

26 Andrei Yeliseyeu and Veranika Laputska. 2016. “Anti-Belarus Disinformation in Russian Media: Trends, Features, Countermeasure.” EAST Center, At http://east-center.org/wp.content/uploads/2016/12/EAST-Media-Review.pdf, accessed March 20, 2018.

27 Laputska and Papko, “Informatsionnaia bezopasnost’ Belarusi,” p. 7.

28 A. Hradiushka. 2014. Regional’nie Internet-SMI Belarusi v usloviiakh transformatsii mediasistemi [Regional Online Media of Belarus in the Conditions of Media-System Transformation], At http://elib.bsu.by/bitstream/123456789/108501/1/Hradziushka_3_2014_031_035.pdf, accessed November 30, 2019.

29 Laputska and Papko, “Informatsionnaia bezopasnost’ Belarusi.”

30 A. Krivolap. 2020. Interviewed by Kiryl Haroshka, Minsk, Belarus, February 1.

31 Yeliseyeu, “Fundamental Shifts.”

32 Heiko Pleines. 2009. “The Political Role of the Oligarchs.” In Juliane Besters-Dilger, ed., Ukraine on Its Way to Europe: Interim Results of the Orange Revolution. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 103-120.

33 Herbert J. Altschull. 1995. Agents of Power: The Media and Public Policy. White Plains, NY: Longman.

34 Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva. 2017. The Instrumentalisation of Mass Media in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Russia’s Presidential Election Campaigns of 2000 and 2008. Stuttgart: Ibidem.

35 Hannah S. Chapman and Theodore P. Gerber. 2019. “Opinion-Formation and Issue-Framing Effects of Russian News in Kyrgyzstan.” International Studies Quarterly 63: 3 (September): 756–769.

36 Iain Hay. 2005. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

37 Agenda-setting refers to the process by which media highlight certain issues and omit others, while also interpreting issues in a certain way in order to influence the importance of certain topics.

38 Dietram A. Scheufele. 1999. “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” Journal of Communication 49: 1: 103–122.

39 Jennifer Fereday and Eimear Muir-Cochrane. 2006. “Demonstrating Rigor Using Thematic Analysis: A Hybrid Approach of Inductive and Deductive Coding and Theme Development.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5:1: 80-92.

40 El’vira Mirsalimova. “Komu dokladyvaet dokladchik Eliseev?” [To Whom Does the Reporter Yeliseyeu Report?]. Mogilew.by, April 27, 2019, At https://mogilew.by/article/188097-elvira-mirsalimova-komu-dokladyvaet-dokladchik-eliseev.html, accessed July 21, 2020.

41 Andrei Dudinov. “Detektor lzhi” [Lie Detector]. Grodno Daily, April 25, 2019, At http://grodnodaily.net/2019/04/25/detektor-lzhi/, accessed February 21, 2019.

42 P. Bykowski. 2020. Interviewed by Kiryl Haroshka, Minsk, Belarus, February 1.

43 Mikhail Babich. “Soiuznoe gosudarstvo sluzhit interesam RF i Belarusi” [The Union State Serves the Interests of Russia and Belarus]. Vitbich, December 19, 2018, At http://vitbich.org/mixail-babich-soyuznoe-gosudarstvo-sluzhit-interesam-rf-i-belarusi/, accessed May 20, 2019.

44 The CIS-EMO launched a series of local media that are, according to Yeliseyeu’s research, closely connected to the Office of the President of Russia.

45 Stanislav Byshok. “Stanislav Byshok: V novyi god—s perspektivoi Soiuznogo Gosudarstva” [Stanislav Byshok: Into the New Year with the Prospect of the Union State]. Vitbich, April 1, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/stanislav-byshok-v-novyj-god-s-perspektivoj-soyuznogo-gosudarstva/, accessed July 21, 2020.

46 Lev Krishtapovich. “Lev Kristapovich: Vne Soiuznogo gosudarstva net nezavisimoi Belarusi” [There is No Independent Belarus without the Union State]. Ross-bel.ru, April 1, 2019, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/lev-krishtapovich-vne-soyuznogo-gosudarstva-net-nezavisimoy-belarusi, accessed April 23, 2019.

47 Natal’ia Makeeva. “Ukraintsy krov’iu zaplatili za nashu stabil’nost’” [Ukrainians Paid with Their Blood for Our Stability]. Sozh, January 19, 2019, At https://sozh.info/ukraincy-krovyu-zaplatili-za-nashu-stabilnost/, accessed February 23, 2019.

48 Ivan Palachanin. “Vsia sut’ spekuliatsii o pogloshhenii Belarusi” [All the Truth about the Speculations about the Absorption of Belarus]. Sozh, January 16, 2019, At https://sozh.info/vsya-sut-spekulyacijj-o-pogloshhenii-belarusi/, accessed January 17, 2019.

49 Mikhail Babich. “Babich: Reshit’ spor o nalogovom manevre v ushherb ili za schet evraziiskikh otnoshenii—eto tozhe nepravil’no.” [Babich: It’s Not Right to Solve the Tax Maneuver at the Expense of Eurasian Relations]. Podneprovie-info.com, February 10, 2019, At http://podneprovie-info.com/2019/02/10/babich-reshit-spor-o-nalogovom-manevre-v-ushherb-ili-za-schet-evrazijskix-otnoshenij-eto-tozhe-nepravilno/, accessed February 21, 2019.

50 Sergei Lavrov. “Lavrov prokommentiroval perspektivy ob”edinenija Belarusi i Rossii: ‘Vokrug etogo voprosa slishkom mnogo emotsii’ [Lavrov Commented on the Prospects of Integration of Belarus and Russia: “Around This Question There Are Too Many Emotions]. Podneprovie-info.com, February 24, 2019, At http://podneprovie-info.com/2019/02/24/lavrov-prokommentiroval-perspektivy-obedineniya-belarusi-i-rossii-vokrug-etogo-voprosa-slishkom-mnogo-emocij/, accessed February 27, 2019.

51 Andrey Geraschenko. “Budushchee Belorussii—tol’ko vmeste s Rossiei [The Future of Belarus: Only with Russia]. Ross-bel.ru, April 17, 2019, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/andrey-gerashchenko-budushcheye-belorussii-tolko-vmeste-s-rossiyey, accessed April 22, 2019.

52 Nikolai Sergeev. “Nikolai Sergeev: Russkij mir kak skrepa Soiuznogo gosudarstva” [Nikolai Sergeev: Russian World as Spiritual Bond of the Union State]. Ross-bel.ru, April 19, 2019, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/nikolay-sergeyev-russkiy-mir-kak-skrepa-soyuznogo-gosudarstva, accessed April 25, 2019.

53 This ideology presupposes that Russia extends beyond its political borders and embraces the Russian-speaking regions of other countries.

54 Mikhail Suslov. 2018. “‘Russian World’ Concept: Post-Soviet Geopolitical Ideology and the Logic of ‘Spheres of Influence.’” Geopolitics 23: 2: 330-353, 347.

55 Lev Krishtapovich. “Obrazovanie Belorusskoi Sovetskoi Socialisticheskoi Respubliki i voina s Pol’shei. Chast’ vtoraia [The Formation of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and the War with Poland: Part II]. Ross-bel.ru, December 7, 2018, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/lev-krishtapovich-obrazovaniye-belorusskoy-sovetskoy-sotsialisticheskoy-respubliki-i-voyna-s-polshey-chast-vtoraya, accessed April 6, 2019.

56 Lev Krishtapovich. “Belorusskaia istoriia neotdelima ot obshherusskogo mira” [Bearusian History Cannot Be Separated from Russian World]. Ross-bel.ru, February 12, 2019, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/lev-krishtapovich-belorusskaya-istoriya-neotdelima-ot-obshcherusskogo-mira, accessed April 2, 2019.

57 Lev Krishtapovich. “Sotsial’no-politicheskoi i kul’turnoi situatsii v preddverii obrazovanija Belorusskoi Sovetskoi Socialisticheskoi Respubliki. Chast’ pervaia [On the Socio-Political and Cultural Situation before the Formation of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. Part I]. Ross-bel.ru, December 3, 2018, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/lev-krishtapovich-o-sotsialno-politicheskoy-i-kulturnoy-situatsii-v-preddverii-obrazovaniya-belorusskoy-sovetskoy-sotsialisticheskoy-respubliki-chast-pervaya, accessed April 6, 2019.

58 Vasil Navumau. 2016. The Belarusian Maidan: A New Social Movement Approach to the Tent Camp Protest in Minsk. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, p. 161.

59 Grigory Ioffe. 2007. “Culture Wars, Soul-Searching, and Belarusian Identity.” East European Politics and Societies 21: 2: 348–381.

60 Relations with Russia took a sharp turn after the annexation of Crimea. Whereas in previous years the authorities had resorted to brutal repressions of opposition activists, under the influence of such tectonic shifts as the “Revolution of Dignity,” the annexation of Crimea, and the war in Ukraine they cautiously began allowing oppositional activists to carry out various projects related to Belarusian language and culture. This is likely a sign that the authorities were coming to perceive “deepened integration with Russia” as a threat, while nationalist aspirations were seen as a strong potential source of self-identification that would be capable of guaranteeing citizens’ loyalty.

61 El’vira Mirsalimova. “Bitva za Belarus’.” [The Struggle for Belarus]. Vitbich, January 6, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/elvira-mirsalimova-bitva-za-belarus/, accessed April 14, 2019.

62 Igor’ Orlovich. “‘Belorusskie zemli byli zakhvacheny Rossiiskoi imperiei’: Zhurnalist ONT v siuzhete ne skryl svoikh simpatii.” [“Belarusian Land was Conquered by the Russian Empire”: ONT Journalist Could Not Hide His Sympathies]. Teleskop.by, March 20, 2019, At http://teleskop-by.org/2019/03/20/belorusskie-zemli-byli-zahvacheny-rossijskoj-imperiej-zhurnalist-ont-v-syuzhete-ne-skryl-svoih-simpatij/, accessed April 21, 2019.

63 Yuliia Chirva. “Ocherednoi HPP v ispugannom voobrazhenii K. Jeggerta” [New HPP in the Frightened Imagination of K. Eggert]. Vitbich, January 5, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/ocherednoj-xpp-v-ispugannom-voobrazhenii-k-eggerta/, accessed April 2, 2019.

64 Ibid.

65 Yuliia Chirva. “Belo-krasno-belyj flag luchshe ne reklamirovat’” [The White-Red-White Flag Should Not Be Advertised]. Teleskop.by, January 9, 2019, At http://teleskop-by.org/2019/01/09/belo-krasno-belyj-flag-luchshe-ne-reklamirovat/, accessed April 7, 2019.

66 Another important topic of protests is the 1995 referendum on expansion of presidential powers, the results of which were falsified.

67 N. Prekevicus. 2005. Dyskurs prapagandy gazety “Sovetskaia Belorussiia” [Sovetskaia Belorussiia and Propaganda Discourse], At http://arche.bymedia.net/2005–4/prekiavicus405.htm, accessed February 2, 2019.

68 Andrey Korshunov. “Dyriiavye” [Full of Holes]. Vitbich, January 21, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/andrej-korshunov-dyryavye/, accessed March 15, 2019.

69 Arkadii Volski. “Pol’skoe schast’e” [Polish Happiness]. Berestje News, January 17, 2019, At http://berestje-news.org/2019/01/17/arkadij-volskij-polskoe-schaste/, accessed March 18, 2019.

70 Andrey Korshunov. “Begi, Lola, Begi” [Run, Lola, Run]. Vitbich, January 13, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/begi-lola-begi/, accessed April 24, 2019.

71 Korshunov, “Dyriiavye.”

72 He uses the slang “dyriiavye” or “holers”—that is, rape targets, who hold the lowest possible status in inmate society.

73 Belarusian Helsinki Committee. 2020. Joint Statement of Human Rights and LGBT Organisations Regarding the Activities Aimed at Discrimination against LGBT People in Belarus, At https://www.belhelcom.org/en/news/joint-statement-human-rights-and-lgbt-organisations-regarding-activities-aimed-discrimination, accessed July 21, 2020.

74 Korshunov, “Dyriiavye.”

75 Korshunov, “Begi, Lola, Begi.”

76 Andrey Korshunov. “Durnaia baba” [Stupid Chick]. Vitbich, March 25, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/arkadij-vertyazin-durnaya/, accessed July 21, 2020.

77 Andrey Korshunov. “Iz mukhi slona” [An Elephant from a Fly]. Vitbich, March 21, 2019, At http://vitbich.org/andrej-korshunov-iz-muxi-slona/, accessed July 21, 2020.

78 Andrey Geraschenko. “Istoriia nravstvennogo padeniia Andreia Sannikova” [The History of Moral Degradation of Andrey Sannikov]. Ross-bel.ru, February 15, 2019, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/andrey-gerashchenko-istoriya-nravstvennogo-padeniya-andreya-sannikova, accessed April 23, 2019.

79 Andrey Geraschenko. “Ot Belorusskoi narodnoi respubliki k Belorusskoi tsentral’noi rade” [From Belarusian People’s Republic to Belarusian National Republic]. Ross-bel.ru, March 21, 2019, At http://ross-bel.ru/analitika-portala-vmeste-s-rossiey/news_post/andrey-gerashchenko-ot-belorusskoy-narodnoy-respubliki-k-belorusskoy-tsentralnoy-rade, accessed April 22, 2019.

80 Babich was dismissed while this paper was being written.

81 Official Internet Portal of President of Republic of Belarus. 2019. O kontseptsii informatsionnoi bezopasnosti [On the Concept of Information Security], At http://president.gov.by/uploads/documents/2019/1post.pdf, accessed April 23, 2019.

82 Ibid.

83 Official Internet Portal of President of Republic of Belarus. 2019. Soveshchanie o novykh podkhodakh v obespechenii informatsionnoj bezopasnosti v Respublike Belarus’ [Meeting on New Approaches to Information Security in the Republic of Belarus], At http://president.gov.by/ru/news_ru/view/soveschanie-o-novyx-podxodax-v-obespechenii-informatsionnoj-bezopasnosti-v-respublike-belarus-20396/, accessed March 2, 2019.

Vasil Navumau is an OSF fellow at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the University of Tartu. In 2014, he obtained a PhD in Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is the author of The Belarusian Maidan: A New Social Movement Approach to the Tent Camp Protest in Minsk. Contact: naumov.vasily@gmail.com.

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Mart Laar Isamaaliit

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Distinguished Former Editorial Board members

Yuri Shchekochikhin 1992–2003

Galina Starovoitova 1994–1998

Alexander N. Yakovlev 1993–2005

Yegor Gaidar 2005–2009

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Demokratizatsiya

The Journal of Post-Soviet

Democratization

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