Kazakhs and Russians Don’t Believe Fake News -- But Want Ever More of It, Scholars Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 13 – In Kazakhstan’s Central Asian Monitor, Saule Isibayeva says that Kazakhs and Russians don’t really believe the fake news that Moscow puts out but want ever more of it, a reflection of the unusual common cultural-political matrix that the two nations share.

            She begins her analysis by citing the observation of Moscow sociologist Aleksey Levinson who observes that the Russian case with regard to the use of “the Big Lie” is very different than that of the Germans under the Nazis (camonitor.kz/31924-kak-rossiyskie-feyki-vliyayut-na-kazahstanskoe-obschestvo.html).

                Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels favored using the big lie as an instrument to influence the masses, Levinson says. “But he had in mind that people would believe in it. Repeat something 100 time and they’ll believe you.” But the situation in Russia and Kazakhstan as well is very different.

            “In our case,” Levinson continues, “the mechanism is different: repeat something 100 times but don’t expect that people will believe you. Instead, the people will demand that you ‘repeat it 101 times.’ That is the form of socialization” people in both nations have experienced. Her if you want is the social contract, but only in the most bestial of forms.”

            Kazakhstan political analyst Talgat Mamyrayymov says that the situation is very similar in Kazakhstan to what it is in Russia in this regard. Kazakhs like Russians have never had the independent standing to allow them to pass the kind of judgments one might expect and thus accept propaganda claims as givens they can’t challenge even when they do not believe them.

            What is striking, the political analyst continues, is that Kazakhs react to Kazakhstan media the same way they do to Russian media largely uncritically but without much belief. The problem is that Russian media is better produced, more timely, and thus more effective than its Kazakhstan counterpart.

            Diana Okremova, head of the Kazakhstan’s Media Center says that most Kazakhs choose the Russian First Channel by habit rather than by design. She adds that in her view, few Kazakhs recognize fake news and thus are not in a position to evaluate it. They really do accept it, something that is likely less true of Russians, and that can represent a serious threat to the state.

            Few Kazakhs know foreign languages other than Russian and so can’t compare what they are told, other media specialists say.  And most mouth what they hear because they have neither comparisons nor reasons not to do so.  For them, it is just a given neither true nor false.  “Who is to blame for this, the media or the authorities, is a separate question,” Isibayeva concludes.