Media Elites in Post-Soviet Russia and their Strategies for Success

Elisabeth Schimpfossl, Ilya Yablokov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Media managers are key in the relations between, on the one side the authorities, to whom they enjoy privileged access, and, on the other side the newsroom, the functioning of which they define. Contrary to the popular view, held both in Russia and abroad, that the Kremlin controls the majority of the country’s media, we argue that media managers have a fair bit of agency and are players in their own rights, able to shape their audiences’ attitudes and modify individual as well as collective behavior. To be able to exert this power they must, however, tread a very fine line: they have to demonstrate adekvatnost’ (literally adequacy, but better translated as appropriateness, or ‘the right feel for the game’) and demand adekvatnost’ from their journalists and editors. Focusing on two dimensions – elite theory and the concept of adekvatnost’ – this article analyses the data gleaned from interviews with a range of media managers.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)32-53
JournalRussian Politics
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV.

Keywords

  • elite
  • adekvatnost’
  • Kremlin
  • Russia
  • media
  • (self-)censorship

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Media Elites in Post-Soviet Russia and their Strategies for Success'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this