These publics in turn consist of a variety of partial publics to be discerned through expertise in the regional and socio-cultural context of the given country/ies. We can also look at media consumption and engagement, which when viewed more generally, can point to interest, if not resonance.įlorian Toepfl’s notion of the three types of authoritarian publics - uncritical, policy-critical, or leadership-critical - is useful here. A number of excellent new polling organisations, like Chronicles and Russian Field, are filling in certain gaps. But that doesn’t mean we should stereotype attitudes or dismiss agency. In a country where saying you are against the war carries the potential of a long jail sentence, there should be considerable caution towards using polling as a reliable indicator of mass Russian support for the war. But to understand how - and why - the narratives resonate, we must focus on audiences too. People may well feel such knowledge is ‘safe’ from manipulation but this is actually where the Kremlin’s propaganda excels itself, given that the government and its allies have worked hard to develop and propagate through popular culture a militaristic vision of a resurgent messianic Russian identity at odds with the malicious West.Īs such, the Russian propaganda machine is paradoxically less total and more all-encompassing than it may appear. Often they will create such a framework out of events, memories, emotions they instinctually understand. But when human beings believe nothing can be trusted, they will still look for, and need, some support and criteria through which to parse the world and evaluate events. Capitalising on distrust, they seek to persuade people that it is not possible to discern the truth - about a specific topic or in general. In Russia’s case, the pro-Kremlin media emphasises the manipulative nature of politics, reducing belief in the power of individual or collective political action. Research on Chinese news media found that heavy-handed, over-the-top propaganda backfired in the sense that viewers were less likely to trust and support the narratives however, it also made them less likely to protest, because they interpreted it as a demonstration of the sheer power of the state. In others still, the same item can demobilise opposition, either directly through fear or indirectly by encouraging people to disassociate from the war. A news item or narrative might mobilise support in those who are already inclined to such views but in others it will simply spark what the anthropologist Jeremy Morris calls a ‘defensive consolidation’ - we’re here now so what can we do, let’s stick together. Over the years, the situation for freedom of media and speech degraded further, as exemplified by the wide-ranging censorship laws imposed in March 2022.īut in the 21 st century authoritarian state, it is close to impossible to establish a monopoly on information hence, propaganda needs resonance as well as a platform, although this resonance can be acquired in different ways. Vladimir Putin set out to establish control over the media from the earliest days of his first presidential term in 2000. How does propaganda work in authoritarian states?Īny successful effort at mass persuasion requires two things: a platform, so audiences encounter your narrative and resonance, so it appeals to and fits with viewers’ understandings and experiences of the world. Rather than a totalising attempt to turn audiences into ‘true believers’, state-aligned propaganda tries to nudge them along a spectrum of acceptable information outcomes for the authoritarian state. State-aligned propaganda - or media that is supportive of and constrained by the Kremlin but not necessarily state-controlled - is sensitive to this. However, far from everyone in Russia perceives the war or the Kremlin in black or white. Western-based discussions of the Russian information space and public attitudes tend towards unhelpful binaries of «support» or «don’t support». The ‘zombie’ debate of how many Russians support the war has often eclipsed more analytically useful investigations into broader Russian perceptions of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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