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“We need more clips about Putin, and lots of them:” Russia's state-commissioned online visual culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Julie Fedor Open the ORCID record for Julie Fedor [Opens in a new window]  and
Rolf Fredheim Open the ORCID record for Rolf Fredheim [Opens in a new window]
Julie Fedor*
Affiliation:
School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Rolf Fredheim
Affiliation:
Centre of Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
*
∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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In this article, we examine how the Putin government is attempting to respond and adapt to the YouTube phenomenon and the vibrant oppositional online visual culture on Runet. We show how these processes are giving rise to new forms of state propaganda, shaped and driven above all by the quest for high-ranking search-engine results and the concomitant desire to appeal to the perceived new sensibilities of the Internet generation through the commissioning and production of “viral videos.” We focus in particular on the videos created by Iurii Degtiarev, a pioneer in the development of this genre, whose works we explore in light of the “Kremlingate” email leaks, which offer inside information on the strategies and aims being pursued on the online visual front of the campaign to manage the Russian mediascape, and Degtiarev's own reflections on this subject. Examining the output of young creatives patronized by the Kremlin offers a “bottom-up” view to supplement studies of the Russian ideological and media landscape as shaped by “political technologists” such as Vladislav Surkov and Gleb Pavlovskii.

Keywords

social mediastate propagandaauthoritarianismviral videoIurii Degtiarev
Type
Special Section: Perspectives on Russian Nationalism
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , March 2017 , pp. 161 - 181
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 The Authors

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