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Sofya Glazunova Thesis DIGITAL MEDIA AS A TOOL FOR NON- SYSTEMIC OPPOSITION IN RUSSIA: A CASE STUDY OF ALEXEY NAVALNY’S POPULIST COMMUNICATIONS ON YOUTUBE Sofya Glazunova Bachelor, Master Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Communication Creative Industry Faculty Queensland University of Technology 2020 Keywords Content analysis; digital activism; investigative journalism; Alexey Navalny; network society; political communication; political performance; populism; press freedom; Vladimir Putin; Russian opposition; Russian politics; Russian media; truth; visual aesthetics; YouTube. Digital Media as a Tool for Non-Systemic Opposition in Russia: A Case Study of Alexey Navalny’s Populist Communications on YouTube i Abstract This Doctor of Philosophy project explores how Russia’s opposition figurehead Alexey Navalny uses YouTube’s affordances to communicate populist discourses that establish him as a successful leader and combatant of the elite of long-running leader Vladimir Putin. The project draws on theories of populism, investigative journalism, and digital media. Text transcripts and screenshots of Navalny’s YouTube videos during his electoral campaign for the 2018 presidential election are studied through mixed-method content analysis. Political communication in the 21st century is characterised in many countries by a decline in trust in conventional news media, the emergence of new political communication actors such as social media platforms and the rise of populist content. The constant search for new journalistic practices that take advantage of the affordances of new and alternative media has led many political activists to create new communication projects that seek to challenge and expose political elites by playing a watchdog role in society. In the Russian context, the primary reference point is opposition leader Navalny, who uses these political communication “shifts” to challenge Putin’s elite and to overcome the limited press freedom in the country by creating a direct pipeline of information to the people. Navalny exemplifies Russia’s so-called “non-systemic” opposition, which has been forced to operate from the “ghetto” since the 2011-2012 mass protests that he played a key role in instigating. Despite the frequent harassment from the police and authorities, Navalny’s online and offline popularity continues to grow through the years due to digital instruments available to the activist and his anti-corruption investigations published on new media, most particularly on YouTube. He often resorts to a populist style of communication, which employs people-centric and anti- elitist ideology and a set of populist performances to attract the peripheral electorate. The results show that Navalny uses different types of “populisms” in his YouTube narration: these have been termed superficial, radical, investigative, and advocacy populism. The latter combines investigative journalism and digital activism practices to call people to action. Navalny is one of the few activists who is able to regularly and successfully hold mass protests in contemporary Russia, and the research ii Digital Media as a Tool for Non-Systemic Opposition in Russia: A Case Study of Alexey Navalny’s Populist Communications on YouTube data indicates that he uses advocacy populism in his YouTube narrations specifically before protests to maximise the political participation from the audience. Among other things, Navalny employs the stylistic elements of visual aesthetics for his populist performance on YouTube, such as stage, body, and colour representations to show his exceptionality as a leader while also creating a feeling of intimacy with the audience. The opposition leader performs as a typical “YouTuber” stylising his message for the needs of the platform and its audience, involving idiosyncratic YouTube functions and genres to make his videos viral. This research contributes a case study of Russia’s main opposition leader to the vibrant research field of populism as mediated through social media. It particularly focuses on the YouTube platform — the most popular platform in Russia by volume of users, often overshadowed in studies of political communication by “political” Facebook and Twitter. Digital Media as a Tool for Non-Systemic Opposition in Russia: A Case Study of Alexey Navalny’s Populist Communications on YouTube iii Table of Contents Keywords .................................................................................................................................. i Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ viii List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... ix Statement of Original Authorship ........................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ xii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background .................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Context ........................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Purpose ........................................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Significance and scope ................................................................................................... 6 1.5 Thesis outline ................................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 2: Political communication: new actors, practices, and narratives 11 2.1 Political communication and the rising power of digital media ................................... 12 2.2 Digital investigative Journalism. A shift towards an advocacy continuum .................. 27 2.3 Populist communication and populist narratives .......................................................... 42 2.4 Significance, theoretical gaps and research questions .................................................. 58 Chapter 3: The political communication ecosphere in Russia ..................... 63 3.1 Non-systemic opposition, electoral authoritarianism, and populism in Russia ............ 63 3.2 The media in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s .............................................. 69 3.3 The “Sovereign Internet” and social media in Russia .................................................. 73 3.4 Alexey Navalny in Russian political communication environment ............................. 78 Chapter 4: Research Design and Methodology ............................................ 83 4.1 Measuring populism ..................................................................................................... 83 4.2 Methods ....................................................................................................................... 86 4.3 Characteristics of the overall sample of Navalny’s YouTube videos ........................... 96 4.4 Research stages ............................................................................................................ 99 4.5 Ethics and limitations ................................................................................................. 123 4.6 Summary .................................................................................................................... 123 Chapter 5: Themes, symbols, and ideological content of Navalny’s communication ................................................................................................. 125 iv Digital Media as a Tool for Non-Systemic Opposition in Russia: A Case Study of Alexey Navalny’s Populist Communications on YouTube 5.1 Themes of Navalny’s communication ....................................................................... 125 5.2 Targeting executive and economic powers in Russia ................................................ 138 5.3 Discrediting the elite and appealing to “the people” .................................................. 148 5.4 Structure of Navalny’s populist narration .................................................................. 155 5.5 Four themes and four populisms ................................................................................ 158 5.6 Summary .................................................................................................................... 161 Chapter 6: Four types of populism in Navalny’s communication .............. 163 6.1 Superficial populism .................................................................................................. 163 6.2 Investigative populism ............................................................................................... 166 6.3 Radical populism ......................................................................................................
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