MA Thesis in European Studies (Eastern European
Studies), Graduate School for Humanities,
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Memes, Public Space and Political
Discussion in Online Russia
by
Luke Coughlan
Student number: 10849513
Main Supervisor: Dr. Sudha Rajagopalan
2
ndSupervisor: Dr. Christian Noack
Submitted 1
stJuly 2015
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to my family, friends (WLA) and everyone at the Eastern European Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam for making this possible. Special thanks to Craig Hudson for his help with translations.
Abstract
For a certain strata of contemporary internet users, interaction through memes is a daily occurrence, where humourous subjectivities are communicated
reciprocally between citizens. Memes often relate to political subject matter and the views and values expressed in them can be considered as civic appraisals of political events and the media coverage that surrounds them. As memes can often communicate controversial political messages, this study investigates memetic communication in Russia, a country with a subjugated media sphere. The question of whether memes constitute a public space for discussion that is otherwise unavailable is tested through primary research, considering the meme’s online audience through a Habermasian conception of a public sphere
Table of Contents
Chapter 1- Political Memes in Contemporary Russia: Definitions, Context and Function
1.1- Research Subject 1
1.2- Defining the Meme in an Online Setting 3
1.3- The “Meme” as a Concept 6
1.4- Meme Conventions in Practice 7
1.5- A Historical Comparison: The Soviet Anekdot 10
1.6- Contemporary Limitations on Online Space in Russia 14
1.7- Closing the Gap: Events since the 2011 Protests 17
Chapter 2- Conceptualizing the Meme’s Public Space
2.1- What Kind of “Publics” Do Memes Inhabit? 20
2.2- Public Formation: the “Mundane” and the “Issue” 25
2.3- The “Meme Public”- A Hypothesis 27
2.4- Methodology I- Issue Identification 28
2.5- Methodology II- Meme Collection 34
2.6- Social Media Networks: Politicized or Non-Politicised? VKontakte, Facebook and Twitter 36
Chapter 3- Long-Term Political Issues in Memetic Communication: The Ruble and the Ukrainian Crisis 3.1- General Findings: Patriotism, Self-Censorship and the Political Audience 38 3.2- The Ruble’s Collapse: Citizen Interpretations of a Macro-Economic Event 42 3.3- The Ukrainian Crisis: The Depiction of Putin, Poroshenko and Klitschko 52 3.4- #Crimea’s ours vs. #At least Crimea’s ours- Bipartisan Discussion on Twitter 55
3.5- An Imported Meme: Putin-khuylo 59
Chapter 4- Short-Term Political Issues in Memetic Communication: Minsk, “Direct Line” and the Assassination of Boris Nemtsov
4.1- Long- Term Subjectivity in Focus: Political Characters, Sanctions and the Minsk Peace Summit 65
4.2- Characters on Display in Minsk 68
4.4- Knowledge and Apathy: The Assassination of Boris Nemtsov 78
Chapter 1- Political Memes in Contemporary Russia: Definitions, Context and Function
1.1- Research Subject
In early April 2015, Russian pop singer Valeri Syutkin brought a case against the Russian-language humour website Lurkmore over a “meme” featuring his likeness which combined pictures of him overlaid with a crass sexist epithet1. The meme was generated using images of Syutkin that were
publically available from their dissemination in the online sphere. Users then superimposed the text “Бей бабу по ебалу” on to a given image and shared it in discursive social media spaces, such as social networks and messageboards. Eventually the frequency of this expression became so great that the practice of merging images of Syutkin with this offensive message became an identifiable communicative trope in its own right. In the parlance of its online audience, it had become a “meme”.
Ostensibly, this case would seem to have little to do with political expression, however when placed in the context of Russia’s current political climate, the incident takes on added importance.
Observers have commented that the settlement of this case acted as somewhat of a proxy through which the host of new internet legislation introduced by the Russian state after the 2011-2012 electoral protests against the ruling United Russia party could be interpreted. By setting this judicial precedent, the ruling elite could now reserve judicial and legislative power to selectively proscribe memes about political figures on the grounds of libel. As is common in many countries with a high rate of internet penetration, memes have a notable presence on the Russian internet as a means of humorous communication.
Contemporarily speaking, the term “meme” can define both shared sociological phenomena and a self-defining online practice. Its rise in the online environment can be directly linked to the
inexorable rise of “social media”, a new wave of online platforms and applications that places emphasis on citizen-generated content. Modern media consumption has evolved from a
transmission from centralized sources of information to members of the public, to a situation where media is consumed, re-produced and interacted with by citizens as part of their regular daily
activities. Naturally, this relationship encompasses a consumption of and interaction with political events.
1 Kevin Rothrock, “The Kremlin Declares War on Memes”, Global Voices (10/4/2015) [URL:
The opportunities for political critique and communication afforded to citizens as a result of these modern media dynamics are considerable. Anything that could be considered to be in the public sphere, whether it be a piece of rhetoric or a photo with a political connotation, can be modified by the online citizen to convey relational subjectivity to a political event. If the interpretation has resonance with the wider online public, it can be communicated across diffuse networks facilitated by social media spaces. Even in non-authoritarian systems this is of huge concern to politicians, who have subsequently made great efforts in trying to translate their messages for the online audience. Shifman cites Barack Obama’s2 clever use of online media to spread the positive tone of his 2008
presidential campaign through social networks. Obama’s accessible image resulted in a great deal of citizen interaction, which served to supplement his campaign stratagem of presenting himself as the youthful candidate of “change”. The online audience, however, can compromise as well as enhance the fortunes of political figures. Specific individuals, policy and rhetoric can be criticised and challenged by a public that has the communicative resources to quickly spread alternative understandings. For strongmen like Vladimir Putin who desire to keep overarching control of the framing of political events and construction of national political identity, online memes represent a pertinent modern challenge.
This paper will seek to take stock of politically-motivated memes as they appear on the Russian internet, considering both the implied beliefs and practices of their audience and assessing the platforms through which citizens use the medium of memes to communicate. It will assess the reception of prominent political events by those that create and share memes and judge how their reproduction of political media speaks to the motivations of the online citizenry in their interactions with matters of civic importance. The features of this discursive space will be considered against the national context in which it presently exists. The Russian media sphere is a key constituent of the Putin administration’s “power vertical”3, with the most popular outlets under the control of
patronized Kremlin associates. It will be questioned therefore, to what extent the medium of memes represents a space for civic discussion that would otherwise be unavailable or heavily circumscribed for fear of state reprisal. The analysis will be carried out by identifying political matters of public importance and examining their treatment across a range of social spaces, both prominent social networks and popular websites based around the practice of sharing memes.
2 Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture, (Cambridge (Massachusetts), 2014), p.122
3 Alexander Golts, “Putin’s Power Vertical Stretches Back to Kursk”, The Moscow Times (17/8/2010) [URL:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/putins-power-vertical-stretches-back-to-kursk/412485.html] (Accessed 25/4/15)
1.2- Defining the Meme in an Online Setting
A true phenomenon of internet culture the word “meme” in the context of internet communication could be described as a “unit of cultural transmission”4, “a picture that has taken a shared, iconic,
resonating message”5 or “a piece of culture, typically a joke which gains influence through online
transmission”6.
Although the concept of the meme predates the internet by some 20 years, its transfer from academic writing to the popular lexicon has occurred relatively recently with the advent of newer, more interactive online applications referred to collectively as the “Web 2.0”.
The meme has entered the common verbiage of internet users across the world due to their constant appearance in the public realm of online communication. It has been observed that amongst “netizens” (meaning online citizens) who frequent the participatory multimedia
environment of the “Web 2.0”, the diffusion of memes has become a “ubiquitous and highly visible routine”7.
Indeed, Peter Davison broadly argues that most patterns of communication unique to the internet (such as the sharing of “emoticons”) could be described as memes themselves8, as they are
functional units of communicative cultural information. However, I would argue that there lies a distinction between the academic understanding of memes (emanating from various scholastic disciplines) and their popular understanding amongst modern users of the internet. The meme today is not just a feature of online communication but a self- referential discursive practice, a medium through which participants knowingly communicate ideas and subjectivities with social and political meanings. User generated websites9, pages on social networking sites10 and (sometimes
disparaging) critical opinions from academia and “traditional media”11 all attest to the concept’s
crossover into a more general cultural understanding.
It can be observed that interactive practices on the internet have greatly shaped our present relationship with popular culture. In-keeping with this trend, the practice of making and sharing 4 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, (Oxford, 1976) p.192
5 Jonathan L. Zittrain, “Reflections on Internet Culture”, Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 13, no. 3 (2014) pp.388-394, p.388
6 Peter Davison, “The Language of Memes” in Michael Mandiberg (ed.) The Social Media Reader (New York, 2012) p.122
7 Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture, 17 8 Davison, Language of Memes, 124
9 Know Your Meme, [URL: http://knowyourmeme.com/](Accessed 25/4/15) 10 VKontakte “1001 Mem” [URL: http://vk.com/mem1001] (Accessed 25/4/15)
11 Jamie Bartlett, “Viral Memes are Ruining our Politics. Share if you Agree”, The Daily Telegraph (27/4/2015) [URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11565661/Viral-memes-are-ruining-our-politics.-Share-if-you-agree.html] (Accessed 25/4/15)
memes has evolved into a reservoir of cultural critique and discussion which can be used to appraise anyone or anything in the public sphere. Memes frequently reference and interpolate existing media such as films, books and TV shows12, create internalized tropes and stock characters of their own13
without direct offline influence and are often used to satirize and comment upon political figures and events. Marked with an off-hand and humourous tone, memes serve to amplify and highlight certain characteristics of political occurrences, providing ironic appraisals of popular misgivings and
sometimes inverting mobilizational rhetoric espoused by elites. There is no financial cost or a priori political knowledge required for a person to interact with politics in this way. A citizen simply needs an internet connection, a certain interest (whether it be the person’s own or one that comes into their attention through online interaction) and a basic understanding of meme conventions to participate.
It is this particular feature of memetic communication that this paper is concerned with. It can be identified that a developing corpus of political memes is being generated and shared by internet users in numerous countries, including authoritarian systems such as Russia. Since Vladimir Putin’s accession to power in 1999, the freedom of independent media has contracted, as the leadership has used incentive and enforcement to inspire loyalty amongst Russia’s largest media providers, leaving critical media increasingly marginalized14 and subject to strict central supervision. Similarly,
there are few non-government affiliated civil society institutions that can promote alternative political discourse outside of the restrictive and performative “official” politics of Russia’s limited party system. In particular, universities, think-tanks and independent polling agencies have come under close scrutiny15. Perfunctory e-participation gimmicks such as the website for Vladimir Putin
2012 election campaign which encouraged users to help “change Russia together” via a suggestion-box style comment section16, is evident of the disconnect between (even online) citizens and the
ruling powers in terms of political inclusion.
This study will investigate if, and to what extent, memes represent an area for political interaction that is otherwise limited or unavailable through other communicative mediums. It also will question whether the opinions and values shared in memes constitute a critical political discussion. Should we consider them as simply viral jokes or as units of a broader cultural subjectivity?
12 Tumblr “Sad Keanu” [URL: http://sadkeanu.tumblr.com/] (Accessed 25/4/15)
13 Know Your Meme “Advice Animals” [URL: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/advice-animals#.TqMoYZyvkYs] (Accessed 25/4/15)
14 Maria Lipman, “Media Manipulation and Political Control in Russia”, Carnegie Moscow Centre (3/2/2009) [URL: http://carnegie.ru/publications/?fa=37199] (Accessed 27/4/15) p.4
15 Elena Chebankova, “The Evolution of Russia’s Civil Society under Vladimir Putin: A Cause for Concern of Grounds for Optimism”, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, vol. 10, no. 3 (2009) pp.394-415, p.398 16 Heinrike Schmidt, “The Triple P of RuNet Politics: Protest, Political Technology and Public Space”, Euxeinos, vol.4, no.4 (2012) pp.5-24, p.15
Consider the Putin regime’s typical response to the promotion of unfavourable civic political
discourse. When the foundation of central narratives are challenged to a drastic degree, for example Pussy Riot’s protests in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour or the attempts of Circassians to use the Sochi Olympics to highlight historical grievances17, attempts at iconoclasm in the public sphere have
typically been met with repression and imprisonment. Whilst memes in of themselves cannot be compared to instances of direct action, memes may serve as more subtle agents of contestation. The rationale for state reprisals against recent protests relies on a traditional understanding of the subjectivity between author and reader. What separates the meme and similar online practices, according to Lawrence Lessig, is that it encourages a “read/write” culture as opposed to a “read only” one18, meaning it is not exclusively reliant on the established author to audience model of 20th
century media such as television. Whereas a “read-only” culture circumscribes audience interactivity, participants of a “read/write” culture “add to the culture they read by creating and re-creating the culture around them”19.
Memes in the online setting possess characteristics that allow them to potentially supersede
restricted public spaces20. If we think about the internet meme in terms of an exchange of a cultural
idea, they possess remarkable advantages compared to other forms of communication due to the speed of their transmission, their relative anonymity as a form of (sometimes controversial) communication and their generation of attentive and participatory publics around the values and beliefs they represent in their presentation. As succinct multimedia expressions they can quickly find attention through social media and encourage interaction above and beyond the personal networks in which they originated or were popularized. By sharing memes, users contribute to the “building”21
of the meme in terms of prevalence, exposing it to a potentially expanded audience with every reproduction. The lack of emphasis on attribution and authorship of a meme allows it to surpass economic boundaries, as consumers/ reproducers of memes have “no stake” in the material’s contents22 beyond its immediate cultural communicative function. These attributes allow memes to
act in an unrestricted manner even in an online environment where restrictions, whether they be offline or online, exist in a variety of guises.
17 Al-Jazeera America, “Russia Detains Circassian Leader Protesting Sochi Olympics”, 17/2/2015 [URL:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/17/russia-detains-circassianleaderprotestingsochiolympics.html] (Accessed 29/4/15)
18 Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, (London, 2008) p.28 19 Ibid.
20 Davison, Social Media Reader, 123
21 Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear, “Discussing New Literacies”, Language Arts, vol. 84, no. 1, (2006) pp.78-86, p.84
1.3- The “Meme” as a Concept
The concept of the “meme” was first introduced by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in an effort to create a Darwinian definition of the spread of ideas across time by way of human cultural interaction. Dawkins defined the “meme” as being analogous and functionally identical to the gene. As the gene is a source of biological replication and transmission from one human to another (i.e. parents to children), the meme was defined as its cultural manifestation, taking into account the imitative and communicative practices of society to explain the diffusion of ideas, practices and cultural texts that transcended physical limitations such as time and distance. The theory is a holistic attempt to define innocuous evolutionary practices in human culture and can be applied to virtually any piece of cultural article from the popular songs of the moment, all the way up to the concept of “God”: “just as genes propagate themselves by leaping from body to body”, Dawkins argues, “memes propagate themselves by leaping from brain to brain”23. In true Darwinian tradition,
Dawkins locates the potential for a meme’s influence or endurance in its adeptness to survive in its surroundings. In other words, a meme must have popular significance and encourage civic
participation in order to survive the tests of time, competition and environment24.
For students of the humanities, this concept has value due to its semiotic and anthropological implications. Memes commonly appear on the internet as conscious mutations of existing cultural forms. If successful memes gain wider popularity based on their suitability to other citizens, it could be inferred that they act as a representational short-hand for larger sets of ideas and identities. As if to demonstrate Dawkins’ arguments regarding the transmission and mutability of a cultural idea, the concept of the “meme” has spread to academic writing of many disciplines and has
prompted numerous subsequent redefinitions by Dawkins and others since its original formulation in the 1970’s. An emergence of a rival discourse to regarding memes as being equivalent to genes has been promoted by social scientists such as Dan Sperber25, who compare the diffusion of memes to
the onset of viruses (i.e. a horizontal spread of a fully formed idea from host to host26). This opposes
the notion that cultural ideas self-produce and spread more naturalistically through communication. A major problem with both these comparisons, particular with regard to memes on the internet, is the issue of intentionality. Both the gene and the virus analogy imply an innocuous spread of ideas through communication, disregarding the role of the individual in the propagation of their chosen 23 Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 192
24 Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 194
25 Limor Shifman, “Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker”, Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, vol.38, no.3 (2012) pp.362-377
26 Carlos Marucio Castaño Díaz, “Defining and Characterising the Concept of the Internet Meme”, Revista CES
memes. Conversely, the practice of sharing online meme is frequently self-referential. Internet users, in addition to coming into contact with memes via social networks knowingly seek out existing memes, which is evident by the number of websites who style themselves as meme repositories. This indicates the term’s apparent transfer from an object to a genre (this is evident in Russia as well where the sharing of memes is referred to simply as “мем” or “мемы”). The mass uptake of digital media and its growing ubiquity in developed countries has afforded the “meme” concept a global, networked communicative platform, as well as a new popular definition. The internet’s capacities for rapid communication and accurate replication (i.e. copy and pasting content) mean that the meme’s previous analogical comparisons are perhaps no longer relevant.
1.4- Meme Conventions in Practice
Whether a meme is classified as a virus, gene, or a self-referential cultural unit expressed online, there is a certain aspect that all understandings of the meme concept are concerned with; namely, the act of passing on a meme to others through replication and reproduction. Castaño -Diaz states that memes in all academic and civic definitions are described as passing on a certain “structure and content” which characterizes the meme itself. The structure and content of a meme may remain or change when it is subsequently passed on again27. Concerning the subject matter of this essay, it can
be identified that the stylistic conventions of memetic communication provide a recognizable structure for the use of memes in a political manner.
Consider the image macro, one of the principle and most recognizable vehicles for the expression of memes on the internet. This format is so prevalent that is often interchangeably described as a meme in popular understanding. The image-macro is a concise, readily understandable piece of multimedia communication. It features an image overlaid with a short textual message which can often be played for comic effect in relation to the picture it appears with. The adaptability of this form of communication has endless potentialities and to this end, the average internet user has all the tools that are required. An image search conducted on a given political figure affords the user a choice of a multitude of images available for public access. Considering the vast number of sites that allow users to “make their own memes”28 and the prevalence of the image-macro as a mode of
memetic communication, it could be argued that the structure of image-macro precipitates certain internal values which can be observed even in political memes. This informs generic conventions and standards which cultivates normative effects. For example, a certain font (Impact, white, with black
27 Castaño Díaz, Concept of the Internet Meme, 91
contours) is so predominant in image macros that some have attributed it as the most stable aspect of memes altogether29.
Examples of memes depicting V. Putin from the Runet (left) (trans: “I’ll let you throw”) and from the English speaking internet (right).
Although the content of memes is subject to infinite variations, it possible to draw upon generic characteristics that have proven to be predictive of the success of popular memes and instructive to the medium as a whole. Limor Shifman has identified some of the key common characteristics of the memetic and viral spread of content: humour, simplicity and the option of participation30. The
concise, participatory aspects of memes can be surmised by considering the means of their transmission. Whether the vehicle for a meme is an image macro, a tweet, a video etc. a certain brevity and directness is required for a meme to truly penetrate through the multitude of content that exists online. Shifman argues that a meme must have attractive “packaging” that communicates a clear, simple message, which by logic, should make it more conducive to being shared31. If a clear
and brief message is important to a meme’s success, then equally imperative is an opportunity for netizens to engage with it through reproduction, thus contributing to the “building” of the meme in the public sphere. For the average meme, the urge to participate may simply be to join in with a running joke or trend; however specific examples from Russian politics already indicate the chance to display opinion and challenge rhetoric as a key motivator in meme participation.
#CПАСИБОПУТИНУЗАЭТО (“#ThankstoPutinforthat”) started as a hashtag produced by pro-Kremlin blogger Vladimir Burmatov on Vladimir Putin’s birthday on October 7th 201132, motivated by the
author’s desire to “create some action” online33. Ironically, the “action” Burmatov’s tweet created
29 Kate Brideau and Charles Berret, “A Brief Introduction to Impact: ‘The Meme Font’”, Journal of Visual
Culture, vol. 13 no. 3 (2014) pp.307-313, p.311
30 Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture, 94 31 Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture, 69
32 Michael S. Gorham, “Introduction” in Michael S. Gorham, Ingunn Lunde & Martin Paulsen (eds.) Digital
Russia: The Language, Culture and Politics of New Media Communication (Oxford, 2014) p.1
33 Gregory L. White, “Putin Becomes a Twitter Sensation”, The Wall Street Journal (7/10/2011) [URL:
http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/2011/10/07/vladimir-putin-becomes-a-twitter-sensation/] (Accessed 8/5/15)
was to the opposite of his intention. Burmatov’s hashtag acted as the structure for the online public’s dissenting tweets, as Russian Twitter users gleefully participated in sarcastically appropriating Burmatov’s gratitude to satirize the discontents of Putin’s rule. Tweeters humourously complained about poor social conditions (such as a lack of heating34), made political comments (commenting on
things such as Putin’s imminent return to power35) and compared the current political situation to
Soviet circumstances36 . The example demonstrates that a conducive structure combined with a
concise message and chance to participate can quickly bring a meme national attention. Even more pertinently, the “Thanks to Putin” meme was a popular, oppositional re-appropriation of pro- regime content, indicating that an imbalance in resources (vis-à-vis the communicative power of the state compared to that of the citizen) and limitations on access, are, in the right scenario, no barrier for statist narratives to be hijacked and negotiated by a section of the online community.
A marked emphasis on humour is one of the most recognizable and prescriptive elements of the meme genre. Although memes can relate to more serious subject matter, we can identify the comical tone to be ever-present in online environs. In the highly stylized world of modern politics which features populist rhetoric (the discontents of which, Baran argues, gives people an “incentive to ironize”37) and the sometimes inflexible official presentations of political leaders, it is unsurprising
that political figures and events receive ironic treatment. The use of irony in a political sense has been described as an “instrument for thinking and a discursive political practice”38 and a comical or
ironic outlook may be compatible with the social dynamics of the internet, as people may be more likely to share funny or positive content for subconscious “self-presentational purposes”39. Humour is
such an expected norm within meme communication that there have been instances where non-comical uses of certain memes have been actively rejected by an online community.
Jacqueline Vickery details how the “Confession Bear” meme (an image-macro featuring a picture of a bear revealing embarrassing social faux-pas) caused tension within a certain online community due the violation of certain norms surrounding its use. Diverging form its light-hearted comical intention, Confession Bear eventually became a conduit for darker, more disturbing confessions that lead 34 Twitter User: “@Margo_R4” “Хотя..у меня дома до сих пор отопления нету #CПАСИБОПУТИНУЗАЭТО” [URL:https://twitter.com/Margo_R4/status/122236872247353344”] (Accessed 8/5/15)
35 Twitter User: “@Akshinidze” “(@MedvedevRussia не будет больше президентом
#CПАСИБОПУТИНУЗАЭТО)”- Translation: @MedvedevRussia will no longer be President #ThankstoPutinforthat
[URL:https://twitter.com/Akshinidze/status/122246558359097344] (Accessed 8/5/15)
36 Gregory Asmolov, “Russia: Putin Gets Hashtag for His Birthday” Global Voices 10/10/2011 [URL:
https://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/10/russia-putin-gets-twitter-hashtag-for-his-birthday/] (Accessed 9/5/15
37 Anneli Baran, “Visual Humour on the Internet”, Mäetagused, vol.52, (2012) pp.123-140, p.137
38 Anna G. Sanina. “Visual Political Irony in Russian New Media”, Discourse, Context & Media, vol. 6 (2014) pp.11-21, p.13
moderators on a host site (Reddit) to begin a discussion on whether new uses of the meme were appropriate and in-keeping with the original spirit40. Vickery concludes that “normative assumptions
and hegemonic culture bind the meme”41, an argument that allows memes to be thought about in
terms of a self-contained medium.
1.5- A Historical Comparison: The Soviet Anekdot
It has been suggested by academics studying post-Soviet Russia that the contemporary elite’s increasing propensity to limit or eliminate competition in the public sphere is representative of an increasing trend that has moved Russia away from a “competitive authoritarian” model of
governance (which features typically features at least ostensible space for independent public institutions42) towards a more standard conception of authoritarianism, devoid of functional
democratic elements. Using Levitsky and Way’s three definitional categories of governance (democratic, competitive authoritarian and authoritarian), Will Zimmermann draws a comparison between the present political situation in Russia and post-Stalinist, late era Soviet society.
Zimmermann argues that although Russia had competitive elections, a degree of uncertainty regarding the ruling elite and a degree of plurality in the civic sphere during the 1990s, the 2008 presidential election, in which a scarcely contested transition of power was completed by Putin and his protégé Dmitrii Medvedev, was an indication that the political system in Russia had become “decreasingly open, decreasingly competitive, and increasingly meaningless”43 and thus more
authoritarian in nature.
If we accept Zimmerman’s assertion that both the current regime and the late Soviet Union could be described as authoritarian systems, comparisons may be drawn to the manner in which late Soviet citizens contested and negotiated comparable political environs. The notion that Soviet citizens were simply passive or submissive recipients of official propaganda and state- approved culture has been challenged by a number of authors who have sought to highlight the duality in the public life of Soviet citizens once the machinery of Stalinist repression was scaled back. According to academics who were raised in the late-Soviet era, there existed an “informal” public realm in daily society, in which Soviet citizens expressed reflexive self-awareness about the discontents of state ideology and symbolism alongside their “official” public lives, where they paid lip-service to state ideology through 40 Jacqueline Vickery, “The Curious Case of Confession Bear: The Reappropriation of Online Image Macro Memes”, Information, Communication & Society, vol. 17, no. 3 (2014) pp.301–325, p.313
41 Vickery, Confession Bear, 323
42 Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism” Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no.2, (2002) pp.51-65, p.53
societal institutions and social practices. This was a result of public spheres becoming less defined by collective social settings such as the kolkhoz (a collectivised farm) and the urban communal
apartment, which were gradually replaced in the later Soviet Union with more physical domestic space, which invigorated figurative “areas of individual freedom”44. This limited amount of social
autonomy eventually encouraged practices and cultural activity that fell outside of the “official” realm of Soviet life.
In the late Soviet Union, a number of clandestine cultural practices were undertaken without association to the Soviet bureaucracy or the Party’s approved cultural activities. Practices included the sharing of Samizdat literature, the making, re-recording and sharing of audiotapes, known as “magnitizdat” and the meme’s most notable antecedent; the “anekdot”. It has been argued that these activities contributed to a “private- public sphere”45. Informal modes of popular interaction
spontaneously arose from individual cultural expressions divorced from the collective milieu
encouraged by Soviet authorities (Zdravomyslov and Voronokov refer to it as the “leisure sphere”46),
which in turn encouraged the creation of independent public arenas where like-minded Soviet citizens engaged with each other through the production, re-production and circulation of cultural texts. Because of this, a parallel public reality existed alongside an official sphere that was
increasingly taken for granted.
Considering the ideological circumstances of Soviet rule, any participation in such activities could be considered a political act. Some cultural practices indeed went beyond passive resistance to state regulation and engaged discredited official representations of Soviet life directly. An obvious example is the literary culture of Samizdat which acted effectively as a communal printing press for the literature of the Soviet underground, the typewriter of the Soviet citizen acting as the medium through which unapproved literature usurped the Soviet censor. Arguably even more potent however was the culture of sharing “anekdoty”, satirical jokes transmitted solely through oral communication which took to task the discontents of life under state socialism, challenging the falsity of official rhetoric in a jocular manner and replacing its meanings with “alternative, credible representations of popular experience”47. These socially credible representations of political life, in
particular were replete with jokes about the flaws of the Soviet elite. Although anekdoty engaged with a myriad of common societal experiences, unsurprisingly, a huge amount of them were explicit appraisals of the figures and institutions who represented official public life; the Communist Party, its 44 Elena Zdravomyslova and Viktor Voronkov, 'The Informal Public in Soviet Society: Double Morality at Work',
Social Research, vol. 69, no. 1, (2002), pp.49-69, p.52
45 Ann Komaromi, “Samizdat and Soviet Dissident Publics”, Slavic Review, vol. 71, no. 1 (2012), pp. 70-90, p.71 46 Zdravomyslova & Voronkov,The Informal Public in Soviet Society, 53
47 Seth Graham, “A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot” Dissertation submitted to the University of
leaders, its semiotic presentation and its policies. Despite having a recurrent presence throughout the Soviet Union (and prior to it in Imperial Russia), the sharing of anekdoty as a cultural practice reached a peak during the period between de-Stalinisation and glasnost48, a symptom of the
Brezhnevian stagnation, in which the failings and deficiencies of Soviet administration were hidden beneath a strict adherence to tired ideological tropes and symbols. One such inversion was the satirization of the public presentation of Brezhnev himself.
“Brezhnev is giving a speech: ‘Who says that I always read from a piece of paper? Ha, hyphen, ha, hyphen, ha, hyphen.” 49
Seth Graham, who has extensively examined the linguistic representations present in anekdoty, argues that frequently, anekdoty served as direct response to the state’s control of mass media production, fusing understandable ideological shorthand, such as slogans from official propaganda and popular conceptions of the personality of the Soviet leadership to satirise current events. For example, Brezhnev’s personal flaws and proclivities became interchangeable with the problems being experienced in the Soviet Union on a more general level. Graham sees these satirisations as a direct result of the fractious, yet unified environment that Soviet citizens inhabited, stating that “the individual, “cellular” collectives of the Stagnation era together constituted a larger, more abstract popular collective whose cohesion was defined by the uniformity of its members’ life experiences and also by their common exposure—and response—to mass media texts”50. It is through this
relationship that the subversive effects of the ankedoty are realised. The shared subjectivity of Soviet citizens in terms of their reception of mediated official culture with its fixed, inflexible understanding of everyday life was counteracted by the spread, through oral culture, of a popular counter-narrative shared amongst Soviet citizens. In the anekdot the state acted as an object of derision rather than a culturally mobilising force.
Yurchak recalls the cultural practice of “reeling out” anekdoty being an “omnipresent social ritual”51
from the 1960’s, owing to the lower likelihood of physical reprisal and the cellular- like collectives described by Seth Graham. The collective environments where anekdoty could be shared were numerous, in both public (Yurchak recalls telling anekdoty on smoking breaks at university) and in private, for example in the domestic setting52. Anekdoty became such an ingrained social practice
that it eventually transcended social and even national borders53, becoming an ironic subjective
48 Graham, Russo-Soviet Anekdot, 12 49 Graham, Russo-Soviet Anekdot, 152 50 Seth Graham, Russo-Soviet Anekdot, 114
51 Yurchak, Power, Pretense and the Anekdot, 175 52 Yurchak, Power, Pretense and the Anekdot, 182 53 Ibid.
comment on the state’s overarching control over mass communication. This was achieved without a “civil society” divorced from direct government influence.
Anekdoty, to an even greater extent than textual forms of social interaction such as samizdat, saw the participant acting both the consumer and producer of social commentary. This dynamic begs a comparison to memes in the online environment. As a form of digital communication that ultimately leaves a trace that can be attributed to a certain location or user (through an IP address for example) the meme may not initially appear similar to anecdotal oral communication amongst Soviet citizens in the Stagnation era. However, considering one of the anekdot’s great assets was its near
instantaneous transmission from one citizen to another, facilitated by the cultural practice of gathering and telling them (similar to the way internet users self-classify their use of memes), the lack of emphasis on authorship and its playful appraisal of supposedly serious political material, the meme can be regarded as functionally similar to the oral spread of anekdoty. Similar to the anekdot, the means for constructing memes are de-centralised, open to anyone with an internet connection and access to a virtual online space. Amusing memes, like the successful anekdots of yesteryear, will be shared by a person within their own social network and more diffusely with strangers, who happen to be exposed to them, whether by intention or otherwise. Unlike samizdat or a blog entry, authorship has little relevance in a meme’s communication. A person’s exposure to a meme may represent membership of a larger collective popular understanding of political events. On a meta-level, the medium of memes is a catalyst through which controversial opinions can be
communicated, similar to the demarcated “kitchen”54 setting in Soviet society, where opinions were
more freely expressed.
1.6- Contemporary Limitations on Online Space in Russia
Whereas the “commanding heights”55 of Russia’s “traditional” media sphere were captured in the
2000s and maintained by the use of “surrogates and economic pressure”56, it could never be claimed
that the Russian state has had nearly the same predominance over the online sphere. Part of the reason, could be attributed to the establishment of the “Runet” (the Russian Internet) community in the 1990s, which was spearheaded largely by a small collective of online aficionados divorced from direct government influence. This, it has been argued, has had a lasting effect on the cultural identity
54 Zdravomyslova & Voronkov, The Informal Public in Soviet Society, 49
55 Scott Gehlbach, “Reflections on Putin and the Media”, Post-Soviet Affairs, vol.26, no.1 (2010) pp. 77–87, p.78
of Russian internet by encouraging “grassroots” practices57 and de-emphasizing intellectual
ownership.
As a result of this, the inexorable rise in internet usage in the past few years has presented a
significant challenge for those interested in keeping Vladimir Putin in power. Sarah Oates argues that the spread of internet usage (astronomical in proportion; an increase from 18% in of the population in 2005 to 49% in 201058), motivated in part by government initiatives and catalyzed by a great
number of attractive online services (including social media) has allowed the nascent mass Runet audience to develop the formative democratic characteristics59 of a public space. Whilst that might
be debatable considering the great many cleavages and inequalities that inform internet access and usage in Russia, statistics from Russia’s Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication indicate the internet is beginning to be used more frequently in citizens everyday lives and additionally, is considered an important source for political information60; albeit largely amongst the younger
generation (as the use of internet is shown to significantly decrease amongst respondents who were over 44 years old).
It is this kind of tension, between technological growth on a national level and the inequities of non-democratic regimes that have given rise to the “cyber-optimist” / “cyber-pessimist” debate in scholarly writing over the past 10 years. Optimistic arguments centre on the manner in which the informational capacities of the internet can renegotiate the consumption of media and provide avenues for citizen to citizen communication that can supplement political change. Shirky cites Habermas’s idea of the printing press acting as a democratic force throughout early modern Europe and argues similarly in a contemporary context that societal change would necessitate a society that is “literate enough and densely connected enough to discuss issues presented to the public”61. The
internet and social media can provide the means for this as it affords both communication and cultural production. The counter argument, that the online world replicates offline divides through unequal access or serves to strengthen autocracies due to its potential to “counter-mobilize” political
57 Henrike Schmidt & Katy Teubener, “Our RuNet? Cultural Identity and Media Usage” in Henrike Schmidt, Katy Teubener, Natalja Konradova (eds.) Control + Shift: Public and Private Usages of the Russian Internet (Self Published, 2006) p.15 [URL:
http://www.katy-teubener.de/joomla/images/stories/texts/publikationen/control_shift_01.pdf] (Accessed 10/5/15) 58 Russian Internet Stats (2000-2014) [URL: http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/russia/] (Accessed 9/5/15)
59 Sarah Oates, Revolution Stalled, (Oxford, 2013) p.56
60 The RAND Corporation National Defence Research Institute, Internet Freedom and Political Space (Olesya Tkacheva, Lowell H. Schwartz, Martin C. Libicki, Julie E. Taylor, Jeffrey Martini, Caroline Baxter) (Santa Monica, 2013) p.125
61 Clay Shirky, “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change”
action, collect information on citizens and frame discourse62 has also gained credence and this
argument is particularly relevant when considering recent reports featuring first-hand accounts from internet “trolls” pay-rolled by the Russian government to try influence online discussions63.
Debates like these were fairly prospective until 2011, where a practical example of the Russian citizenry conducting political action facilitated by online means occurred as the result of clear electoral violations on the part of the incumbents during the December 2011 Russian local elections. Against the contextual backdrop of Putin’s imminent return to the Presidency, protestors defied a protest ban, limited mainstream media coverage64 and attempts by the state to reroute public
discourse away from dissatisfaction (circulating online) regarding the election, to make a powerful civic statement against the regime. After a large demonstration at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on the 10th of December (arranged in part by sites such as Facebook and VKontakte, which hosted
wildcat interest groups that served as focal points for information about the protest65), Putin took an
insulting tone in an interview on the 15th of December where he stated that the white ribbons worn by protestors to symbolize mutual solidarity looked like “they had stuck condoms on themselves”66.
At subsequent protests, demonstrators satirized this piece of rhetoric by presenting posters and placards depicting Putin either as a condom or equating him with one. Judging by the convergence of the results of an image search using the keywords “презерватив” “путин” – (“condom” and “Putin” [conducted on google.ru]) and the fact that some of the placards displayed by protestors67
conformed to recognizable stylistic meme conventions (such as demotivators) it is reasonable to assume that many of the images displayed by protestors had an online origin. If this is so, the posters depicting Putin as a condom are a salient example of Anelli Baran’s argument of how many memetic forms of political commentary focus on “temporary failures of public figures: a faux-pas in a decision or uttering”68. In this instance, Putin’s attempts to make a lewd, populist appraisal of the protestors
was rejected, satirized and repurposed by the use of memes, which took an objectionable piece of rhetoric to task and challenged it within an offline public environment.
62 Seva Gunitsky, “Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability”, Perspectives
on Politics, vol.13, no.1 (2015) pp.42-54, p.42
63 Shaun Walker, “Salutin’ Putin: Inside a Russian Troll House”, The Guardian (2/4/15) [URL:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house/] (Accessed 10/5/15)
64 Oates, Revolution Stalled, 172
65 RAND Corporation, Internet Freedom, 142
66 Henry Meyer & Lyubov Pronina “Putin Likens Protesters’ White Solidarity Ribbons to Condoms” Bloomberg
(15/12/2011)
[URL:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-15/putin-likens-protesters-white-solidarity-ribbons-to-condoms] (Accessed 11/5/14)
67 Public Radio International, “Dark Humour Makes a Comeback in Russia” 1/3/2012 [URL:
http://www.pri.org/stories/2012-03-01/dark-humor-makes-comeback-russia] (Accessed 1/5/15) 68 Anelli Baran, Visual Humour, 135
Putin wearing a condom, text: “A magical hat that protects from liberal ideas”
The sign reads “Warning! Do not use a second time”69
1.7- Closing the Gap: Events since the Winter 2011 Protests
Whilst the 2011 protests demonstrated the potential for new media facilitated airing of political grievances in a wider public setting, it can be observed that the incumbent regime has taken great efforts to limit potential contestation in all forms of media ever since70. In the past few years targets
of Putin’s cultural offensive have included quasi-independent media institutions such as radio station Ekho Moskovy, who were reprimanded and threatened with closure for broadcasting eyewitness testimony of fighting between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces during the Crimean invasion71 and
youth-orientated, independent, online-based television station Dozhd (TV Rain), which was forced to 69 Public Radio International, Dark Humour, http://www.pri.org/stories/2012-03-01/dark-humor-makes-comeback-russia]
70 Andrey Tseilkov, “The Tightening Web of Russian Internet Regulation”, The Berkman Center for Internet &
Society, Research Publication no. 2014-15 (2014) pp. 1-25, p.2
71 Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, “Russia's Ekho Moskvy Hit With Official Warning”, 1/11/2014 [URL:
close down briefly in 2014 following a history programme that questioned the decision of Soviet authorities not to sacrifice Leningrad to the Nazis during the siege of 1941-44. Although this same question had been posited in the public sphere prior to its appearance on Dozhd (even allegedly forming a part of the state-approved school curriculum72), the reprisal has been attributed as a
delayed reaction to Dozhd’s coverage of the 2011 protests, during which they gave airtime to opposition figures such as Alexei Navalny73. The channel also displayed the white ribbon worn by
protestors on its rolling news coverage74. Putin’s incursions aren’t merely limited to Russia’s pliant
traditional media however. Indicative of the Kremlin’s recognition of the importance of social networks in the contemporary media sphere, Pavel Durov the founder of VKontakte (often compared to Mark Zuckerberg due to their young age and similar social media platforms) was usurped from his position as CEO, following years of various legal troubles with the state. Durov’s refusal to comply with FSB requests for the personal details of members of protest groups campaigning against former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych75 essentially sealed his fate. In a statement regarding his exit,
Durov identified his replacements as Rosneft’s Igor Sechin and mail.ru’s Alisher Usmanov76, two of
Putin’s oligarchic inner circle. This effectively closed of the gap between the Russian authorities and VKontakte’s 300 million users.
Putin’s potential opponents in the formal political sphere have also not fared well recently. Since his failed attempt to win the Moscow mayoral race in 2013, Aleksei Navalny has encountered a myriad of legal problems (aimed at tarnishing both his personal and political profile) that may greatly hamper his proposed presidential bid at the 2018 election77. The assassination of long-time Putin opponent
Boris Nemtsov, a stone’s throw away from the Kremlin in February 2015 demonstrated that no eminent opponent of Putin in the public sphere could be considered safe.
Russia has also acquired a raft of new internet legislation since 2011, indicating a degree of unease amongst the ruling powers regarding the internet’s potential to enable meaningful political action, a factor that the 2011 protests aptly demonstrated. Firstly, Draft Law № 89417-6/Federal Law № 139 72 Julia Ioffe, “A Week Before the Olympics, the Kremlin is Attacking Russia's Last Independent TV Channel”,
New Republic (31/1/2014) [URL: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116434/putin-attacks-dozhdtv-russias-last-independent-tv-channel] (Accessed 1/5/15)
73 Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, “Opposition Dozhd TV Appears to be Latest Victim of Kremlin Pressure”,
31/1/2015 [URL:http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-dozhd-tv-off-air/25248293.html] (Accessed 2/5/15)
74 Stephen Ennis, “Analysis: Russian TV Grapples With Protest”, BBC (10/12/2011) [URL:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16128473] (Accessed 2/5/15)
75 Carol Matlack, “The Kremlin Tried to Use VKontakte- Russia’s Facebook- To Spy on Ukrainians” Bloomberg
(17/4/2014) [URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-17/the-kremlin-tried-to-use-vkontakte-russias-facebook-to-spy-on-ukrainians] (Accessed 3/5/15)
76 Pavel Durov, “Post on VKontakte- 16/4/14” [URL: https://vk.com/durov?w=wall1_45621] (Accessed 12/5/15)
77 The Week, “Putin’s Men Stop at Nothing in Bid to Silence Alexei Navalny”, 18/3/2013 [URL:
otherwise known as “Russian Internet Restriction Bill” essentially created a “blacklist” for websites overseen by Roskomnadzor, the federal media regulator. According to Tselikov, this allows the Russian state to block IP addresses and websites extra-judicially without the need for evidence or process78. Although marketed to the public as legislation that would protect children from dangerous
material, in practice the law gives the state complete control in terms of banning sites on the Russian internet. Although many of Russia’s domestic social networks are within reach of the state, more recent legislation has targeted international platforms and the domestic online sub terrain. Draft Law № 428884-6/ Federal Law № 97, pursued under the rationale of an anti-terror law demands that bloggers with over 3,000 daily hits register as elements of the mass media, again overseen by Roskomnadzor79. The law also entails enforced collaboration with Roskomnadzor by any sites
deemed to be “information distributors”, including social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Under the law, such sites would be required to keep 6 months’ worth of data on all users which could be surrendered to the state upon request.
As mentioned in the introduction a new interpretation of existing internet laws regarding memes has recently occurred, perhaps an indication that the state regards the practice as having a potential pernicious influence.
The ruling in April 2015 cited the “blacklist” law of 2012 and set a precedent that any image-macro which represented a public figure in a way that was “nothing to do with their personality”80 could be
considered illegal. Considering the multitude of Putin memes on the internet of from all over the world, this ruling may be impossible to enforce uniformly. However it may be more pertinent to note that the verdict demonstrates a total non-acceptance of online political dissent on the part of the Russian authorities.
78 Tseilkov, Russian Internet Regulation, 4 79 Tseilkov, Russian Internet Regulation, 5
Chapter 2- Conceptualizing the Meme’s Public Space
2.1- What Kind of “Publics” Do Memes Inhabit?
Positive appraisals of the internet’s capacity to influence democratic practices in non-democracies centre on a Habermasian concept of a “public sphere”, which features “rational-critical public debate”81 between private citizens, which subsequently forms the development of public opinion
and a literary public sphere. The public’s “self-interpretation”82 is then drawn from accessible cultural
texts which allows for the manifestation of public opinion in the “political public sphere”.
Habermas’s theory has been hugely influential and informative to the necessary pre-conditions for effective public engagement within society. Nevertheless, Habermas was skeptical about the extent to which the “public sphere” could be achieved in modern society, arguing that rational participation was negatively affected by the mass media which he claimed was a public sphere “in appearance only”83. Considering Russia’s lack of democratic tradition, it would be a stretch to say that Russia’s
public sphere, let alone the internet in isolation approximates the Habermasian ideal. Although new media gives citizens a greater capacity to interact discursively, the conclusion should not be made that new communicative technologies will automatically inspire influential popular movements. As ethnographic accounts of Russian internet use in parochial settings attest84, assuming the internet
to be a catalyst for political engagement and self-identification (thus a facilitator for social change) often does not correlate with the actual online practices of Russian internet users. Their online interests, comparable to interests in the West, are shown to be rooted in offline relationships and pastimes. As Jeremy Morris demonstrates, there is no guarantee that all internet users will be 81 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, (original version: Darmstadt, 1962) (translation: Cambridge [Massachusetts], 1989) p.201
82 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 111 83 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 171
84 Jeremy Morris, “Learning How to Shoot Fish on the Internet: New Media in the Russian Margins as Facilitating Immediate and Parochial Social Needs”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 64, no.8 (2012) pp.1546-1564, p.1562
interested in utilizing the “public” functions of the internet to their full potential. To compound this issue (as detailed in Chapter 1) the state is increasingly active in their attempts to control the online environment. Russian citizens (particular website moderators) will no doubt be aware of the expanding legislative and judicial framework in place to punish controversial content, which could foster a climate of self-censorship. Equally, the ruling powers can frame discourse and promote their interests through patronized “trolls” and bloggers, which may distort public discourse in a manner similar to the (traditional) mass media in Habermas’ description.
Considering this, the meaning of the word “public” in relation to memes requires clarification. Memes are a form of private-public online communication inhabiting an infinitesimal media environment. Since the concept of “public opinion” is difficult to reconcile with the corrupting influence of political and media elites85 in the contemporary age, arguments have been put forward
that we should consider modern “public” life not in terms of a consolidated structure (“the” public) but in smaller, stratified and co-habiting units that can be described as “publics”86 (using the singular
“a” public). Michael Warner argues that “publics” are generated through a naturalistic interaction with a certain discourse and presents descriptive criteria for the formation of a “public”. Publics “self-organize” around a cultural text87, encourage interaction between strangers, are initialized and
renewed through attention, reflexively interact with discourse and are informed by the temporality of their communication and the values which they inscribe in their participants88. Under this criteria,
we can talk of the “public” of memes in very broad terms. Memes certainly seem to inscribed values in those who participate and interact with them. The conventional structure and content of popular memes instill a certain brevity in communication, an option for mutability (and therefore further participation) and normally, a humourous, reflexive or satirical disposition. These attributes are not prescriptive but can be readily identified as constituents of the medium.
The temporality of memes is ad hoc and instantaneous. As a form of online communication they are unencumbered by limitations of time and distance and can react rapidly to current events. Memes can also move impassively between strangers in a public setting, particularly if memes appears on an intermediary platform (e.g. a meme website or meme-orientated social media page), taking
advantage of the “weak ties”89 that bind disparate online users. If users participate in these online
collectives, indirect contact with the expressions of other citizens is inevitable.
85 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 212
86 Michael Warner, “Publics and Counter Publics”, Public Culture, vol.14, no.1 (2002), pp.49-90, p.50 87 Ibid.
88 Warner, Public and Counterpublics, 82
89 Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, no.6 (1973) pp.1360- 1390, p.1366
Although we can only talk of “the public sphere” with trepidation in Russia considering the
demographic divides and the lack of independent, national civic institutions, we could perhaps more confidently talk of a wide-ranging group of citizens when considering the audience of the modern media environment. Even though the Russian media audience features a high degree of polarization amongst consumers, for example between young and old viewers (older viewers still prefer television as a source of information, sometimes exclusively90); Sarah Oates has argued that an “internet
generation” is emerging, judging by statistical indications regarding the medium’s use by people under the age of 4091. For the youngest members of this generation, those aged 12-17, VKontakte
has already overtaken television channels as the primary media preference, whilst amongst the age group of 12-34, Yandex and VKontakte was on a par with the major television stations in terms of daily usage92. These findings (which are now 4 years old) validate Oates’ consideration of an
emerging audience of “netizens”. This trend will surely continue judging by the growing rate of internet penetration and the popularity of social media where “weak ties” between interactive users are functionary attributes.
As for the proliferation of news content online, Oates’s research offers another interesting insight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, news in Russia does not exhibit a huge propensity for multi-media crossover (for example Russia’s most popular television station, the state-run Channel One’s website ranks 100th in Alexa’s rankings of the most popular websites in Russia, well behind web-only operations
such as Lenta.ru, which ranks 25th93). There are few hyperlinks on news articles to other sources of
information or other news providers, an attribute that would give the impression of a varied media environment. As Oates argues, “Major news websites appear to serve more as tunnels into narrow selections of news from single producers rather than opportunities to garner more news from a range of sources”94. The single producers Oates mentions could refer not only to the websites
themselves but also the news agencies that provide the information and discursive frames to online news media. Of these agencies, the most pre-dominant is RIA/Novosti, which was recently
“reorganized” in 2013 under the discretion of the Kremlin, with incendiary political TV personality and Putin loyalist Dmitry Kiselev placed in charge95.
90 Sarah Oates, Revolution Stalled: The Political Limits of the Internet in the Post- Soviet Sphere, (Oxford, 2013) p.58
91 Oates, Revolution Stalled, 62 92 Oates, Revolution Stalled, 63
93 Alexa.com “Top Sites in Russia” [URL: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/RU] (Accessed 30/5/15) 94 Oates, Revolution Stalled, 67
95 Stephen Ennis, “RIA Novosti Revamp Prompts Propaganda Fears”, BBC (9/12/2015) [URL:
The effect of these developments on political discussion online (of which memes form a part) could be considered two-fold. On one hand, it can be identified that the Kremlin’s effective takeover of RIA/Novosti (now a media conglomerate under the name of Rossiya Segodnya) is indicative of the ruling elite’s wider plan to regulate the mainstream of media production. Conversely, much like the sharers of anekdoty in the stagnation-era Soviet Union, Russian citizens are exposed to somewhat of a communal repository of current events and state-orientated narratives that binds them as a mass audience. If we consider information regarding political events as being presented in a homogenous fashion common to the Russian media audience (especially considering the lack of dissenting voices amongst large Russian media outlets), added to the fact that an internet connection affords the citizen to create their own input through mediums like memes which blur private and public spheres, there lies the possibility that state propaganda may be not be as successful as could be assumed judging by the Russian state’s ubiquitous control of the media sphere.
Considering the growing number of internet users in Russia, who experience their personal lives and the world around them through a fairly consolidated media sphere, it may be questioned whether we can consider Russia’s mass media audience as an interactive, participatory mass media-public. The difference between modern conceptions of an “audience” and a “public” has been explored by Livingstone, who argues that publics are becoming increasingly mediated (as people communicate, self-organize and spend their leisure time utilizing media), whilst the “unmediated public”96 can be
considered to be shrinking. Media audiences are concurrently becoming increasingly diffuse, moving away from mass audience model which is temporal in nature, towards one where media
consumption is constant and intertwined with the daily life of the individual audience member97-
often termed by academics as “the mundane”. Livingstone suggests that instead of drawing a strict demarcation between “public” and “audience” there should be an intermediary: Dahlgren’s conception of “civic culture”, an idea that bridges between notions of civic and political society. Dahlgren argues that the generation of a civic culture “anchored in everyday life and its horizons”98
can contribute to a “pre or non-political potentiality that becomes actualized at particular moments when politics arise”99. Dahlgren gives the example of the fall of Communism across Eastern Europe to
evidence his assertion that “civic culture” can challenge entrenched governments even without backing from civil society institutions. Similarly, Livingstone argues that civic culture can transcend
96 Sonia Livingstone (ed.), Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement Matters for the Public Sphere (Bristol, 2005) p.26
97 Ibid.
98 Peter Dahlgren, “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milleu” in John Corner and Dick Pels (eds.),
Media and the Restyling of Politics: Consumerism, Celebrity and Cynicism (London, 2003) pp.151-171, p.154
the gaps between the public sphere as a whole, media consumption and public discourse and/or participation.
Compartmentalizing these different aspects within a mediated public environment can be useful when thinking about the possible political effects of memes on a non-democratic polity. It has been argued that the Russian media sphere, whilst featuring a myriad of different outlets, is largely regulated and homogenous in content. However, this may not necessarily be a hindrance to civic political manifestations in the online sphere; as long as a semblance of civic culture is maintained through public discourse and participation. Conceivably therefore, even a public space which possesses strong government influence and oversight such as the internet in Russia could be conduits of political conversations, notwithstanding blanket censorship or totalitarian-esque reprisals. A RAND Corporation report for the US Department of State (meant for policy advice on international “Internet Freedom” programmes) sees a similar link between civic and political space concluding that “the expansion of social space online may lead to the expansion of political space, even when netizens do not at first intend to use the Internet for political purposes”100. The means by
which this is achieved is through internet’s potential to include more actors in creating “frames of understanding”101. These frames of understanding, which may be user generated, can quickly be
publicized through the “weak ties” that exist on social networks, serving to create “information cascades” that can undermine frames promoted by ruling powers. The report also concludes that political action is more likely when targeted at a specific policy outcome. This is in keeping with ethnographic research provided by scholars such as Gladreva & Lonkila, who detailed how residents of a small St. Petersburg tenement were united, despite the lack of strong offline connections, by a pertinent common issue namely the imposition of unpopular building work102 by the local
authorities.
100 The RAND Corporation (Olesya Tkacheva, Lowell H. Schwartz, Martin C. Libicki, Julie E. Taylor, Jeffrey Martini, Caroline Baxter), Internet Freedom and Political Space, (Santa Monica, 2013) p.208
101 The RAND Corporation, Internet Freedom and Political Space, 204
102 Boris Gladarev & Markku Lonkila, “The Role of Social Networking Sites in Civic Activism in Russia and Finland”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol.64, no.8 (2012) pp. 1375-1394, p.1392
