Context-Dependent Radical Right Rhetoric in Domestic Russian Propaganda

• In Event: Propaganda, Censorship, and Self-Censorship in Putin’s Russia

Abstract

To domestic audiences, the regime in Russia often presents itself as a “politically incorrect challenger,” mirroring narratives from Western European and North American radical right. When discussing these areas, it broadcasts anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and anti-black rhetoric. This paper argues that although for social conservative issues such as homophobia, the regime is consistently radical right across both foreign and domestic contexts, the picture is different for ethnic nationalist issues. Even as its ethnic nationalist rhetoric increased dramatically for Western European and North American contexts, it remained stagnant and low for Russian contexts. Instead, domestic propaganda continues to be notably moderate on ethnic nationalism when discussing Russia, either trying to avoid topics such as immigration or adopting less extreme rhetoric. This stance may be summarised as “ethnonationalism for them, multinationality for us,” and the contrast has been growing more pronounced over time.


To test if that contrast is the case, the paper employs computational text analysis methods using automated transcripts from four propaganda television talk shows such as Mesto Vstrechi and 60 Minut. The subtitles had been made by Google and scraped for this project shortly before the shows were banned from YouTube after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In total, there are approximately 4000 transcripts for the period from late 2016 to early 2022, each representing an episode that lasts one to two hours. The paper makes no claim about the influence of such shows – rather, it is a measurement strategy for regime rhetoric. Previous literature regards them as especially representative of the messages the regime broadcasts. State television is widely watched, particularly by older Russians. The talk shows are more centralised and regulated than social media, have a distinctly domestic orientation as opposed to presidential speeches, and they are more emotionally charged and extreme than news. They must remain popular to stay effective, balancing mass appeal and official approval. Despite such advantages for using them to analyse regime rhetoric, the talk shows are understudied because of technical constraints such as the lack of official subtitles, the absence of transcripts from databases, as well as their ban on platforms like YouTube. The paper aims to address this gap by introducing its novel dataset.


Evidence from propaganda talk show transcripts supports the hypothesis that the regime has increased ethnonationalist rhetoric for Western European and North American contexts but kept it low for Russian contexts. For example, the frequency of terms such as “black-skinned” and “negr” has increased dramatically after the Black Lives Matter protests in May and June 2020. However, rather than gradually disappearing with the news cycle, they became a new staple in the rhetoric, with a similar trajectory to terms such as “transgender” and “LGBT.” Terms related to race were primarily discussed in a fashion that showed antagonism towards anti-racist protests, portrayed white people as being oppressed, and argued that Russia was a fortress of conservative values. This stance resembled the stance of the radical right in Western Europe and North America. Conversely, terms related to ethnic relations in Russia such as “Uzbek” or “Tajik” are almost absent in the transcripts, although there is variation by program. For example, while the term “negr” is mentioned in about 15% of the episodes in 2020-2021, the term “Uzbek” is only mentioned in 1%. Terms related to ethnic minorities from republics in Russia such as Chechens and Bashkirs also do not show any growth or spikes and remain at a low level. These terms typically appear in neutral lists that illustrate Russia’s ethnic diversity. Such near-absence is especially conspicuous as other research shows that terms related to Central Asian immigration are widely used on Russian social media such as Telegram.


Research in political science has consistently revealed that the Russian society has widespread racialised anti-immigrant sentiment. The radical right is regarded in the literature as having issue ownership on immigration, benefitting when such issues take centre stage. The audience is more receptive to sources which are consistent with its ideological dispositions. Indeed, Russia’s regime partially taps into domestic racist and anti-immigrant attitudes by directing them against minorities in Western European and North American contexts. However, in stark contrast, the regime remains reluctant to deploy similar rhetoric at home, either avoiding it in the more regulated media such as talk shows or taking a moderate stance on ethnic diversity.

Author

• Andrey Davydov, McGill University