Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 29 – Any Russian
with access to the Internet can get some idea of the dizzying and kaleidoscopic
developments in Ukraine, but Russians who rely on government-controlled
television are being fed a more or less constant diet of propaganda designed to
promote “permanent hysteria” about that country, according to a “Novaya gazeta”
commentator.
In today’s issue, Slava Taroshchina
notes that on the state channel Rossiya-24 news about Ukraine is supplied by
Vadim Zavodchenko who until the end of last year broadcast the weather. But he
is now concerned not with the winds in the natural world but in those defining
“the political climate” (novayagazeta.ru/columns/62000.html).
But he and other
Moscow broadcasters face the same problems propagandists always do: they must
somehow “adapt complex reality” in such a way that it fits into a “simple” and
immediately understandable “picture” and paints that picture in the colors that
their masters want.
Their problem now, Taroshchina says,
is that “the multiplicity of the Maidan” has to be reduced to what are now old
formulas: “The Ukrainian apocalypse is the work of the hands of the West who
have for a long time been preparing militants in special camps. All the Maidan
participants are nationalists or in some case terrorists.” And there are always
stories about Ukrainian cooperation with the Nazis.
This “common mythology” underlies “the
individual methods” of various reporters and anchors, as can be seen in the
case of “the holy trinity” on Russian TV. Each of its three members, Solovyev,
Mamontov, and Zabodchenkov stress one or another of the subthemes, but these
are mutually supportive of the broader narrative.
“Lies and half-truths, and the jury
is still out as to which are worse, have their own smell and special aura,” the
“Novaya”commentator says; but they are almost impossible not to notice when an
effort is being made to subject a complex reality to the Procrustean bed of
official requirements.
Among the things viewers will
certainly notice are that few of the Moscow television personalities give the
same numbers for events in Ukraine, that all the Moscow outlets interview the
same people in Kyiv and Moscow, and that “no one [of these broadcasters] ever
forgets about PR” on behalf of whatever position the Russian government is
taking.
It may be an open question as to who
is giving the orders, but clearly someone is because the coverage Russian
television viewers see is too consistent and at the same time too removed from
complexities on the ground. And clearly that someone is within the regime
because the list of government “servants” who appear on TV is “as stable as
granite.”
But Russian TV’s Mamontov deserves the
last word because he usually provides it: “I want to say these simple clear
words” with regard to Ukraine, he observes. “Fascism won’t succeed.” And then
stopping for just a moment, he add as if on reflection “And neither will
Nazism.”
It is of course
the case, although Taroshchina does not address this directly, that some
Russian viewers may want the simplified pictures of reality state television is
offering. But unlike in the past, most
of them have access to the Internet and thus they are in a position to know
that what is on offer on government television is not very accurate.
More to the point, having been told
by these same government television broadcasters until recently that the
Ukrainian people are in fact part of a Slavic union of peoples, the Russians in
the television audience are now clearly expected to see many Ukrainians as the
enemy. Dictators can turn on a dime, but
whole populations seldom can.
Moreover, and this may be the most
important consequence of Russian television broadcasting about Ukrainian
events: An ever larger percentage of Russians may now not want to have anything
to do with Ukrainians, just as an ever larger percentage of Ukrainians clearly
do not view Russians the way many used to and the way many in Moscow wanted
them to.
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