Abstract
In response to the massive street protests “For Fair Elections” that shook Russia in 2011/12, the country’s leadership implemented a range of measures aimed at curbing dissent. How, why and with what consequences have Russia’s political elites transformed the country’s media landscape in the years since 2011? In order to answer these questions, this article leverages a recent theory of “authoritarian publics” proposed by one of the authors. According to this theoretical account, the multiple public sphere of contemporary authoritarian regimes can be productively imagined as being comprised of a myriad of competing partial publics of three types: (1) uncritical, (2) policy-critical, and (3) leadership-critical. Adopting this framework as a lens, the article argues that the measures implemented by Russia’s leadership in the wake of the protests significantly reduced the audience reach of leadership-critical publics, but did not entirely eradicate publics of this type. On a more abstract level, the measures taken are interpreted here as measures of “institutional gardening” deployed by the country’s ruling elites in order to fine-tune the balance between the three types of publics. By so doing, they created an authoritarian public at large that better met their reconfigured needs.
References
AGORA International (2018). Internet freedom 2017: Creeping Criminalisation. http://en.agora.legal/articles/Report-of-Agora-International-%E2%80%98Internet-Freedom-2017-Creeping-Criminalisation%E2%80%99/8. Accessed 15 Mar 2018.
Asen, R. (2000). Seeking the “counter” in counterpublics. Communication Theory, 10(4), 424–446.
BBC (2015). The publisher of Forbes has sold the Russian business. https://www.bbc.com/russian/rolling_news/2015/09/150917_rn_alex_springer_russia. Accessed 15 Mar 2018.
Bodrunova, S., & Litvinenko, A. (2013). New media and the political protest: The formation of a public counter-sphere in Russia of 2008–2012. In A. Makarychev & A. Mommen (Eds.), Russia’s changing economic and political regimes (pp. 29–65). London: Routledge.
Breese, E. B. (2011). Mapping the variety of public spheres. Communication Theory, 21(2), 130–149.
Central Election Committee (2018). Results of the election of the President of the Russian Federation. http://www.cikrf.ru/analog/prezidentskiye-vybory-2018/itogi-golosovaniya/. Accessed 25 Mar 2018.
D’Amora, D. (2014). Curbs on foreign ownership will gut Russia’s media. https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/curbs-on-foreign-ownership-will-gut-russias-media-39828. Accessed 15 Mar 2018.
Denisova, A. (2017). Democracy, protest and public sphere in Russia after the 2011–2012 anti-government protests: Digital media at stake. Media, Culture & Society, 39(7), 976–994.
Deutsche Welle (2017). Protest actions in Russia: What has changed in 2017. http://catcut.net/0ZAv. Accessed 20 Apr 2018.
Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text(25/26), 56–80.
Fredheim, R. (2017). The loyal editor effect: Russian online journalism after independence. Post-Soviet Affairs, 33(1), 34–48.
Gel’man, V. (2015a). The politics of fear. Russian Politics & Law, 53(5–6), 6–26.
Gel’man, V. (2015b). Political opposition in Russia: A troubled transformation. Europe-Asia Studies, 67(2), 177–191.
Gerschewski, J. (2013). The three pillars of stability: Legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes. Democratization, 20(1), 13–38.
Golos (2018a). Preliminary statements on results of public monitoring of the presidential elections. https://www.golosinfo.org/en/articles/142589. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Golos (2018b). Investigation of “Golos”: Tambov digital slavery of state employees and officials. https://www.golosinfo.org/ru/articles/142452. Accessed 16 May 2018.
Golubeva, A. (2017). Media-2017. http://www.colta.ru/articles/media/17013. Accessed 16 May 2018.
Grigoriev, V. (Ed.). (2014). Russian periodical press. Moscow: Federal agency for print media and mass communications.
Gunitsky, S. (2015). Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability. Perspectives on Politics, 13(1), 42–54.
Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press. first published in 1962.
Internetlivestats.com (2018). Russia Internet users. http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/russia/. Accessed 16 May 2018.
Klyueva, A. (2016). Taming online political engagement in Russia: Disempowered publics, empowered state, and challenges of the fully functioning society. International Journal of communication, 10, 4661–4680.
Koltsova, O., & Shcherbak, A. (2015). ‘LiveJournal Libra!’: The political blogosphere and voting preferences in Russia in 2011–2012. New Media & Society, 17(10), 1715–1732.
Lagacé, C. B., & Gandhi, J. (2015). Authoritarian institutions. In J. Gandhi & R. Ruiz-Rufino (Eds.), Routledge handbook of comparative political institutions (pp. 278–291). New York: Routledge.
Levada (2013). Russian public opinion 2012–2013. www.levada.ru/sites/default/files/2012_eng.pdf. Accessed 20 Apr 2018.
Levada (2017). Russian media landscape: The main trends of media use – 2017. https://www.levada.ru/2017/08/22/16440/. Accessed 20 Apr 2018.
Levada (2018). Sources of information. https://www.levada.ru/2018/04/18/informatsionnye-istochniki/. Accessed 3 June 2018.
Litvinenko, A. (2012). The role of social media in political mobilization in Russia (On the example of parliamentary elections 2011). In Proceedings of the International Conference for E‑Democracy and Open Government 2012 (pp. 181–189).
Litvinenko, A., & Kharuk, I. (2016) „Unsichtbare rote Linien“: Internet-Regulierung und ihre Konsequenzen für den Online-Journalismus in Russland. Russland Analysen, 324, 2–5.
Litvinenko, A. (2019). YouTube as alternative television in Russia: Political videos during the 2018 presidential elections (Unpublished manuscript).
Lunt, P., & Livingstone, S. (2013). Media studies’ fascination with the concept of the public sphere: Critical reflections and emerging debates. Media, Culture & Society, 35(1), 87–96.
MacFarquhar, N. (2018). Inside the Russian troll factory: Zombies and a breakneck pace. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html. Accessed 20 Apr 2018.
Meduza (2016). 12 newsrooms in 5 years: How the Russian authorities decimated a news industry. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2016/05/18/12-newsrooms-in-5-years. Accessed 15 Mar 2018.
Meduza (2017). “Yarovaya Package” was adopted more than six months ago. How does it work? https://meduza.io/feature/2017/02/13/zakon-yarovoy-prinyat-bolshe-polugoda-nazad-kak-on-rabotaet. Accessed 12 Apr 2017.
Meduza (2018). Employees of municipal enterprises in Moscow district were forced to like posts of officials. http://catcut.net/9ZAv. Accessed 15 Mar 2018.
Nathan, A.J. (2003). Authoritarian Resilience. Journal of Democracy, 14(1), 6–17.
Nikolaeva, Y. (2013). TOP-20 news media of Runet. http://www.sostav.ru/publication/top-20-novostnykh-media-runeta-6891.html. Accessed 20 Apr 2018.
Oates, S. (2013). Revolution stalled. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pavlovsky, G. (2018). Precipitate of political technologies. How seven election campaigns formed Russia. Moscow Carnegie Centre. https://carnegie.ru/commentary/75808. Accessed 15 May 2018.
RBC.ru. (2018). Due to the threat of blocking, Telegram has become the fastest growing instant messenger, https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/19/12/2017/5a37ca449a794754b1c07cd9. Accessed 15 May 2018.
RIA (2013). Trends in the development of the news segment of the media industry in Russia. http://pano.ria.ru/Advert/Research2013_pdf2.pdf. Accessed 15 Mar 2018.
Richter, A. (2008). Post-Soviet perspective on censorship and freedom of the media: An overview. International Communication Gazette, 70(5), 307–324.
Schedler, A. (2009). The new institutionalism in the study of authoritarian regimes. Totalitarismus und Demokratie, 6(2), 323–340.
Schedler, A. (2013). The politics of uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smyth, R., & Oates, S. (2015). Mind the gaps: Media use and mass action in Russia. Europe-Asia Studies, 67(2), 285–305.
Snob (2018). “We were taught to be free”. Authors of anonymous Telegram-channels about the life after the blockage of the messenger. https://snob.ru/selected/entry/136325. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Soldatov, A. (2018). The Kremlin’s ticking tech bomb. https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/the-kremlins-ticking-tech-bomb-op-ed-60397. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Stockmann, D. (2013). Media commercialization and authoritarian rule in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thomson Reuters Foundation (2016). Media regulation in Russia. A landscape analysis of laws and trends. http://www.trust.org/contentAsset/raw-data/4798c68a-eed1-4660-b7c9-fc16a0032cc9/file. Accessed 12 May 2018.
Toepfl, F. (2012). Blogging for the sake of the president: The online diaries of Russian governors. Europe-Asia Studies, 64(8), 1435–1459.
Toepfl, F. (2018a). Comparing authoritarian publics: The benefits and risks of three types of publics for autocrats. ICA Annual Conference 2018.
Toepfl, F. (2018b). From connective to collective action: Internet elections as a digital tool to centralize and formalize protest in Russia. Information, Communication & Society, 21(4), 531–547.
Toepfl, F., & Litvinenko, A. (2018). Transferring control from the backend to the frontend: A comparison of the discourse architectures of comment sections on news websites across the post-Soviet world. New Media & Society, 20(8), 2844–2861.
Usachev, R. (2018). Appeal to paid bloggers // Elections 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1cSJ5_jB2g. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Vedomosti (2012). How Alexey Navalny earns money. http://catcut.net/mZAv. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Zeit.de (2018). Wahlen in Russland. 70/70 ist die Zielmarke. https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2018-03/wahlen-russland-wahlbeteiligung-unregelmaessigkeiten-mehrfach-stimmen-wladimir-putin. Accessed 3 June 2018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Litvinenko, A., Toepfl, F. The “Gardening” of an Authoritarian Public at Large: How Russia’s Ruling Elites Transformed the Country’s Media Landscape After the 2011/12 Protests “For Fair Elections”. Publizistik 64, 225–240 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-019-00486-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-019-00486-2