Self -relief

How Putin's propaganda arose and developed

"An active recruiting of all potential violators of the order was carried out that came to Moscow with the only task: to arrange actions for Western pictures here, for social networks and show how they believe that they are power here. At the same time, only 150 detained spent the night in the police department. The rest were released without drawing up a protocol. The authorities behaved extremely correctly."

The audience of the Russia -1 television channel on the evening of July 28, the day after the strict dispersal of the rally of supporters of independent candidates in the center of Moscow, from the mouth of the TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most recognizable people of the Russian official media, heard this assessment. Solovyov’s monologue contained a call for the judicial persecution of opposition and another Panehyryr of the “strong Russian power”. It lasted a couple of minutes - after an hour and a half discussion of Ukraine and before the equally thorough conversation about the new British premiere Boris Johnson.

Soloviev throughout the country made a program speech about protests in Moscow. He urged to judge the participants of the action for calls for the armed (!) Change in the constitutional system. Punishment - up to four years in prison pic.twitter.com/yyvpc3zwi3

- znak.com (@znak_com) July 29, 2019

So one of the main federal channels reacted to the main socio-political event of the last week in the Russian capital. There is nothing unusual in this: the audience of Russian TV has long been accustomed to the fact that the leading political talk shows than the Russian are paid to the affairs of the neighboring country, where, in their constant opinion, everything is terrible, but the opposition-except for such Zyuganov or Zhirinovsky-is present on federal television channels only as “boys boys” (well not in the literal sense, not in the literal sense, well, not in the literal sense, not in the literal sense. Like in Moscow streets).

Detention of one of the participants in the opposition action in the center of Moscow July 27

This is how the main state media of Russia as of the summer of 2019-on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the actual coming to power of Vladimir Putin. However, the current system of media propaganda is the result of a long evolution and developed gradually, says Russian media analyst Vasily Gatov , former Deputy General Director of the RIA Novosti agency, which is currently working at the University of South California. He spoke about the formation of this system and its functions within the framework of the current political regime in an interview with Radio Liberty.

"Baby TsACES"

- When Putin began to pay serious attention to propaganda and decided to crush the media under himself? It was heard that after at the beginning of 2000 he saw, according to rumors, enraged his release of the "Dolls" program called "Baby Tsahes". Or was it really a gradual process without a pre -thought -out plan?

-If you do not get into the head of the president, which we cannot do, but simply compare the facts, it is easy to notice: as soon as at the end of 1999-early 2000, the NTV television channel moved to the front attack in Putin, not scoring, let’s say, completely personal points, the consequences were not long in coming. In this sense, it can probably be said that that program of the "Dolls" played a noticeable role in what began to happen with the Russian media. But further than that I would not go.

The same "Troshka TsACES". Issue of the program "Dolls" on the NTV television channel on January 23, 2000

-And some stages of how the Putin government has worked with the information space for 20 years, can be distinguished? How did this system line up?

- Yes, you can. I would start even a little earlier: the stage that I will call "zero" was from the 1996 presidential election to the appearance of Putin as a successor to Yeltsin. At this time, a reverse incorporation of independent media into the structure of the state took place. This was done still rather softly, the presidential administration began to gradually restore its influence on some media as a whole and individual journalists in particular. These were the famous flyers near Chubais (Anatoly Chubais headed the presidential administration in 1996–97.-RS) , then-at Yumashev (Valentin Yumashev-son-in-law Boris Yeltsin, head of AP in 1997–98.-RS) , then-at Gromov (Alexei Gromov-press secretary of Vladimir Putin in 2000-08. RS) . What was the difference between these gatherings from, say, open white house briefings in the United States? The fact that they passed in the spirit of "well, you understand." No, I do not think that there was initially a certain evil intent - to subordinate the media to the Kremlin. Rather, there was an attempt to make journalists take into account state interests in their activities - as the Kremlin then understood them.

Vasily Gatov

Psychologically, the actions of the authorities in the late 90s were a fear of various kinds of threats and the desire to use the information environment in order to somehow prevent these threats. These were conflicts of various political groups, and the military, whom the then power at one time was very afraid of, and some foreign policy situations-for example, associated with the possible involvement of the West in resolving conflicts in Transnistria and Abkhazia. It was a zero stage. Then the stage No. 1 began. He was associated with the task of electing Putin by the president, which Yumashev and to a lesser extent Gromov decided to conduct in a slightly different way than the election of Yeltsin for a second term in 1996.

There was an attempt to make journalists take into account state interests

- More elegant?

- Oddly enough, somewhat more honestly. In the sense that even a temporary “vertical” did not build, but rely on the fact that the very set of translated by society in connection with Putin’s arrival, the very image of a young, energetic candidate will do their job.

- "Stirlitz is our president ," as the press wrote then?

- Yes. The only large “non -standard” effort in the information sphere was to involve Putin Channel One in the process of promoting Putin, whose resources were provided at the disposal of the Kremlin group Boris Berezovsky.

- But the information war on the fracture of 1999–2000 was tough. The fiery performances of Sergei Dorenko, we remember all these stories from the screen about the intrigues of Primakov ...

Fragment of "Sergey Dorenko Programs" on Channel One, 1999

- Yes, but we are talking about the fact that no "commissioners" were sent to the NTV or RTR then. The only truly combat instrument was Channel One. In relation to the RTR, which was then actually led by Mikhail Lesin , a "sanity policy" was pursued. This is an important concept in the framework of the Putin media model. It suggests that people do not need to explain once again what they should not do. They already understand.

"Editorial No. 6"

- Is this what, with Putin’s “mature”, well, closer to current times, refused more rigid pressure?

- I would say that this policy mutated into a slightly different essence. Returning to the previous one: but no one had yet touched NTV at that moment, they were allowed to sympathize with whom they wanted (NTV television channel Vladimir Gusinsky spoke during the campaigns of 1999–2000 on the side of Vladimir Putin’s opponents and his unity party. - RS) . But in combination with the Second Chechen War, which created the image of the "fair", the Kremlin mediausia allowed Putin to choose a good result. The people who brought him to power received many years of security guarantees. At least they thought so then. So the first stage ended and the second, much less studied. Politically, the essence was that after the election of Putin too much changed. It was impossible to count on the mechanisms that existed under Yeltsin - and not only in the media sector. Meanwhile, the conflict with the Gusinsky and the operation to discard NTV began. And it is then that such a document appears as "Editorial No. 6" .

The key task of the state’s media policy is to take on the eggs of everyone who can be taken

- Is this an unofficial, not approved by anyone, but supposedly existing and leaked to the media plan of the action of the Putin administration?

- Yes, this is a document that shows that even then circles with the Chekist past thought how to organize the state management, so that it looked still quite decent, and inside, in Russia, it was carried out to create a much more stringent and controlled political structure compared to the Yeltsin shaky regime. This should be understood as a draft, as a direction of thought.

- And it determined the content of what you call the second stage in the construction of the Putin system?

- Yes, and this stage was very long. It lasted about 6 years. How did this "direction of thought" relate to the media? If we proceed from "editors No. 6", it was said that in the general media is enemies. That journalists for the most part are led by various kinds of private interests that are not combined with the interests of the state and national security, etc. Therefore, the key task of the state’s media policy is, sorry, to take the eggs of everyone who can be taken. Any journalist who writes on political topics should be “enlightened” by special services: his contacts, family, property, etc.. Those who do not fit into a new, controlled situation should be thrown out of the information field. And this process with different speeds went from about 2000 to 2007. By the end of this period, the only zone, the rules of the game in which the Kremlin not only did not dictate, but did not really understand them, the Internet remained.

See also the three -story government. The history of the political language of Putinism

- What began next?

- In the process of establishing this media administration, political managers discovered such a thing: the stronger you control the main information agenda reported by three main television channels, information agencies and the entire system of controlled media, the more actively, what we call the Putin majority today. That is, a stable, strongly exceeding 50% social layer, inclined to take this virtual agenda that is formed for it for the real state of affairs. Responsibility for understanding how this layer is formed and how to work with it is primarily by the Federal Antimonopoly Service and personally Alexander Oslon . In these years, they found the appropriate technologies for studying public opinion and social engineering , which allow, on the one hand, to see this layer, and on the other, to hold, expand, strengthen it, etc.

- Is this the next stage?

- This is the reason for the transition to the third stage. When Putin’s power forms an understanding: here, we have a tool for managing public opinion. And these are not the FSB and not appointed governors and envoy, but this machine for the formation of the agenda.

Vladimir Putin during the next "Direct Line", 2017

"Fucking chain"

- That is, you want to say that during almost the full two of Putin, this power did not really know how the technologies of manipulation of public opinion work?

“She worked them out.” After all, all these people, with their former or real gabash shoulder straps, with their Soviet life experience, have been used to reading between the lines and, like many former Soviet people, not to trust what they say. So yes, it was somewhat surprising for them to understand how it all works. I do not want to name specific names, but I say this on the basis of conversations with some creators of this system, which I had in the "zero" years.

- Everything for them turned out to be unexpectedly easier than they thought?

The hunting season was opened

- No, not easier, but more complicated. Because holding the course of this machine was not so easy. Contrary to some ideas, it did not work in such a way that 20 people in the presidential administration were sitting and “Temniks” wrote for journalists. They tried to work like that, but an informational failure in connection with the Georgian war showed that a much more complicated structure is needed. So it developed in subsequent years, up to the Ukrainian conflict. I call this the third stage. Moreover, if these information demiurges had the illusion that they could do everything, then in the winter of 2011-12 when “white-open” protests occurred, they realized that they still do not work with the Internet very confidently, given it not only in the information, but also the socio-organizational function. Moreover, unexpectedly for Kremlin people, a number of media organizations then took a professional position - not necessarily opposition, but professional. In response to this, the hunting season was opened. The "fucking chain" began. This season ended with the dismissal of Mironyuk (Svetlana Mironyuk, editor -in -chief of the RIA Novosti agency in 2006-2014. - RS) , the defeat of RIA News and the subordination of the authorities of actually all broadcasting media in Russia.

- And this situation coincided with the Ukrainian conflict and the transition to a new political reality?

- Yes. From this moment, the fourth stage begins, which continues to this day and shows that there are limits of both the technologies of information subordination and the technology of resistance to it.

RIA Novosti editor -in -chief Svetlana Mironyuk and Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the Valdai Club, November 2011

- Here's about these limits: I want to understand where they are. There is such a meme about the "battle of the refrigerator and TV", that is, about the confrontation of reality and the virtual world of propaganda. What wins? The trust of the "Putin majority" that you spoke about and which definitely believed the TV is shaken? The fall of the ratings of the leader , the ruling party , etc. In recent years, it seems to have been talking about it.

- I have no unequivocal answer to this question. It is associated with the very nature of the Putin regime. This regime itself is relatively weak, in the sense - afraid of competition within the country. At the same time, he has enough resources to hold media control. The Russian government can cover any of the alternative sources of information today in two minutes. The fact that the authorities do not do this shows that it is weak: a strong dictatorship would have done it for a long time and stopped worrying about this. But weak power feels its limits and chooses other methods, including those based on certain, well -known effects. For example, on hard use in the last 5-6 years of information priming.

Priming, framing and viewer Putin

“It seems that we can’t do without terminological explanations here.”

- Priming is stimulation, protrusion, intentional activation of certain topics and their interpretations. Priming is when I formulated some idea that is unusual for you. But since I have a powerful transmission channel for this idea and there is an imperious authority, I just make you accept this idea. In a way, this is zombie. The creation of an enemy from Ukraine, suggestion of the idea that Russia is in the ring of enemies, etc. - This is all the priming. But he has a weak side: he works only until the internal situation of the audience is consistent. As soon as the audience has reason to doubt that they are imposed on it, the effect of the priming is sharply weakening.

Priming performed by Dmitry Kiselev: "Russia is able to turn the United States into a radioactive ash"

And there is another thing: framing . This is when I do not pushing the idea to you directly, but, using a set of certain tools, I make you remember that you once thought so. Or supposedly thought. Our consciousness consists of a set of frames (eng. Frame - frame. - RS) , frame representations. Well, let's say, the framework of progress is the idea that the future should be better than the past, that life should improve. Or some frames associated with the structure of the language, thanks to which we can perceive hidden meanings, subtexts, irony. Or strong cultural frames associated, for example, with national history. Their use gives a long -term and very difficult "broken" effect.

Any of the existing alternative sources of information today Russian power can cover in two minutes

- “Was it under Stalin” - is this a frame? They have been actively using it lately?

- Partly yes, but it does not work very well. Too many people "remember wrong." Or they imagine those times not so. Frames associated with the image of the enemy work better. But the problem is that working with frames is a long time. Freering cannot be used as an operational tool. Unlike priming. So, the entire fourth stage of the formation of the Putin system of media administration consists of attempts to catch in the muddy water of public consciousness some frames that will ensure the stability of power. Either Orthodoxy, then imperial, then victory ...

-And the power itself, which plays these games, priming lighting, is affected by their impact? Gleb Pavlovsky-already at this, the current stage of his biography, when he criticizes the Kremlin, and not he himself is there-after the next "straight line of Putin" he wrote: "I am scared. We have a tradrior president." Is that so?

- Yes, of course, Putin is an integral part of the audience.

- How is that? After all, if you construct something for someone, then you usually separate yourself from your product.

- Well, this is done at a different level.

See also Medinsky covered with Panfilovtsy

- That is?

- He is surrounded by a lot of people representing different groups of interests. There are, say, military, there are various kinds of Kovalchuki or Chezesovs , they all have their own interests. And they all use the frames available to Mikhal Ivanovich (according to rumors, nicknames or “Putin’s code name” in the circle of some of his friends and close employees. - RS) , like any other person. Putin himself is fond of priming - well, say, in the case of the famous "there are no them there" regarding the Russian military in the east of Ukraine. This is a typical priming. However, such games are also held in relation to Putin - but framing. He clearly “catches” them badly, like any aging person. This is exactly the same mechanism thanks to which social bubbles form, or filter bubbles : what I believe, I perceive with less criticality, do not strive to check. This is how self-reliance of the President-Telazer.

The head of the Russian Holding Media Holding Today Dmitry Kiselev and Vladimir Putin at the Far Eastern Economic Forum, September 2018

In anticipation of cracks

- Well, if you are not limited to Putin himself, but to look at those who surround the "Mikhal Ivanovich", how are things with them? For a long time such a theory was widespread: they say, all the Kremlin’s confrontation attacks on the West is not seriously, because the Russian elite is tied to the West: she has real estate, money, children ... Nevertheless, Crimea, Donbass, sanctions and everything else came. Is this connected with the effect of self -relief of the entire Putin elite, which began to act contrary to its own interests?

- Well, here it is more difficult, regarding their interests. A certain part of these people, who sits on very large money, understands that as they reduce the investment attractiveness of Russia, their economic power is growing.

- Screening of competition?

The internal weakness of the regime is realized in different ways

- Yes. Because they themselves can buy anything in Russia. But that part of the current ruling group, which sits on the sectors of the economy that is less stuffed with money, suffers from a lack of investment from the outside and tries to convince Putin in the dangers of isolation. These two parts of the system, which, struggling and interwoven with each other, coexist.

- But the top in at least the last 5 years takes isolationist.

- Yes, she has more strength to determine politics, but still not enough to completely "twist" it. That internal weakness of the regime that I spoke about is realized differently. Including in the fact that they do not solve somehow at all ...

- To become North Korea?

- Yes. Restore totalitarian practices of public administration. They also understand that it is quite risky.

RT editor Margarita Simonyan during the sensational interview with Petrov and Boshirov, GRU employees suspected of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK, March 2018

- In this sense, the story with journalist Ivan Kolunov turned out to be an indicative . The unexpected role of the intercessors was played by people like Irada Zeynalova and Margarita Simonyan . It is clear that this was not an independent action, but following the political instruction to the “above”, according to which Golunov should be released. But how symptomatic is this behavior? Imagine the situation of the political crisis in Russia, when the authorities, as at the turn of the 1980-90s, will begin to feel uncertain-how will the state-propaganda machine behave? Will we see the same Simonyan and Zeynalov as the heralds of democracy and civilian freedoms?

- It is possible that it will be so. But here is the most important thing - how exactly the system crisis will occur. It is clear that sooner or later it will happen, it is important - how. The most interesting thing here is that we have no answer to the question about the extent to what extent Putin’s regime is personalist, i.e. tied to his personal power, and in what occupation of state institutions it is one structure, we will conditionally call it the FSB, although in fact it is wider. You can justify both of these hypotheses, but in general this regime all the time goes between them back and forth. He does not dare to become a dictatorship of Putin, nor the power of only the FSB, that is, a purely power oligarchy. Even a very weak, sore and fragmented civil society regularly gains small, but victories, as with the same Golunov. Such a double and internally weak nature of the regime is its tactical strength and strategic weakness. So it is quite possible to expect that in the event of noticeable cracks in the regime, the same cracks will creep along its propaganda system, ”says Mediaanalyst Vasily Gatov.