DOCSLIB.ORG

Enigma Variations a Special Report on Russia November 29Th 2008

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Enigma Variations a Special Report on Russia November 29Th 2008 Enigma variations A special report on Russia November 29th 2008 RRussiaCOV.inddussiaCOV.indd 1 118/11/088/11/08 115:48:445:48:44 The Economist November 29th 2008 A special report on Russia 1 Enigma variations Also in this section The long arm of the state The nancial crisis may lead to renational• isation by stealth. Page 3 Grease my palm Bribery and corruption have become endemic. Page 6 A matter of judgment Russia’s legal system is deeply awed. Page 7 The incredible shrinking people Russians are dying out, with dire consequences. Page 8 The wild south Russia’s treatment of its republics in the Caucasus has turned them into tinderboxes. Page 10 Handle with care A cornered Russia could pose greater risks. Russia is not the Soviet Union, but what is it? A recovering world Page 13 poweror a corrupt oligopoly with a market economy of sorts? Arkady Ostrovsky explains why it is both N DECEMBER 25th 1991 the Soviet ag lapse, crossed an internationally recog• Oabove the Kremlin was lowered for nised border and fought a short, victorious the last time and the last president of the war: with Georgia. Russia’s leaders said Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, made they were defending two breakaway terri• his resignation speech. The totalitarian tories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, from Acknowledgments system has been eliminatedðfree elec• Georgia’s aggression. But at home they The author would like to thank all those quoted in this report, and also the many others who gave generously of tionsðfree press, freedom of worship, rep• also hinted that this was a proxy war with their time and knowledge; in particular, Natalia resentative legislatures and a multi•party America which had tried to muscle its way Abbakumova; Peter Aven of Alfa Bank; Magomed Bakarov; system have all become reality. into what Russia calls the region of privi• Milly Bell; Zeljko Bogetic of the World Bank; Larisa Burakova; Larisa Dorogova; Mikhail Fridman of the Alfa A few hours later, America’s then presi• leged interest. It was a dening moment Group; Murray Feshbach of the Woodrow Wilson Center; dent, George Bush senior, declared victory for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president until Yevsey Gurvich of the Economic Expert Group; Rebecca in the cold war. For over 40 years the Un• the election in March this year of Dmitry Hewitt; Valery Khatazhukov; Mark Kirsh of Linklaters; John Lloyd of the Reuters Institute of Journalism; Rory ited States led the West in the struggle Medvedev and still the man who, from his MacFarquhar of Goldman Sachs; Michael McFaul of against communism and the threat it new job as prime minister, holds the reins Stanford University; Natalia Orlova of Alfa Bank; Inna posed to our most precious valuesðThat of power. Solovyova of the Moscow Art Theatre School; Angela Stent of Georgetown University; Alexei Venediktov of Ekho confrontation is now over. The United To many, the conict brought back Moskvy; Chris Weafer of Uralsib; Yevgeny Yasin of the States recognises and welcomes the emer• memories of the cold war and portrayed Higher School of Economics; Tatyana Yembulgayeva of the gence of a free, independent and demo• Russia as a Soviet Union mark two, trying EBRD; Nazim Efendiev of Uralmash; Yahia Yevloyev; Pavel Zolotarev of the Institute of the USA and Canada; and cratic Russia. to regain its former territories. All the signs Andrei Zorin of Oxford University. The collapse of the Soviet empire was appear to be in place: Russia is ruled by for• inevitable, rapid and largely bloodless. In mer KGB men like Mr Putin who see ene• A list of sources is at its aftermath the world watched, with a mies everywhere; its political opposition is www.economist.com/specialreports mixture of hope and despair, the emer• crushed; independent journalists occa• gence of a new country that turned out a sionally get killed; and the state media An audio interview with the author is at lot less free and democratic than adver• pump out anti•American propaganda. www.economist.com/audiovideo tised. Confrontation with America did not Once again military parades are being held disappear but took on a new meaning. in Red Square. And in his belligerent state• A country brieng on Russia is at In early August this year the Russian of•the•nation address on November 5th www.economist.com/russia army, for the rst time since the Soviet col• Mr Medvedev threatened to station short• 1 2 A special report on Russia The Economist November 29th 2008 2 range missiles in the Kaliningrad region, aiming them at Europe, unless America backed o from its plan to put a missile•de• fence system into eastern Europe. But the parallels with the cold war are misleading. Russia is not the Soviet Union. It does not have a communist (or any oth• er) ideology, nor does it have much faith in central planning. It has private businesses, a free market of sorts and a great taste for consumption. Russian rms are listed on foreign stock exchanges. Their managers y business class to factories in the Urals, read nancial newspapers and labour over spreadsheets on their laptops. Members of the country’s elite have many personal ties with the West: they own property in London, send their chil• dren to British and American universities and hold foreign bank accounts. But none of this stops the Kremlin from being anti• Mr Putin has positioned himself as the ly, like a rock. American and autocratic. symbol of a resurgent nation recovering Similarly, in reaction to the current eco• So far the state has not interfered in peo• from years of humiliation and weakness. nomic turmoil, Mr Putin declared the Rus• ple’s personal lives. It gives them freedom In fact, few Russians in the 1990s brooded sian economy to be a safe haven for for• to make money, consume, travel abroad, on such feelings; most were too busy get• eign capital. On the other hand, the trust drive foreign cars and listen to any music ting on with their lives. But there was one in America as the leader of the free world they like. They are even free to criticise the group that had good reason to be ag• and free economy is blown for ever. Kremlin on radio, in print and on the inter• grieved: members of the former KGB. net, though not on television. And al• When Mr Putin came to power in 2000, A love­hate relationship though Russia’s elections are stage•man• they projected their views onto the whole The paradox of Russia’s nationalism is that aged, the support for Mr Putin is genuine. country. America’s hawkishness towards its patriotic zeal closely follows the Ameri• During the war in Georgia it hit almost 90% Russia made their job easier. can model. One of the biggest pop hits in in opinion polls. The biased television cov• Mr Putin also accurately sensed and Russia a few years ago was a song called I erage plays its part, but unlike Soviet pro• cleverly exploited nostalgia for Soviet cul• Was Made in the USSR, rst performed in pagandists, who told people what to think, tural symbols. One of the rst decrees of 2005 in the Kremlin, in front of Mr Putin. Russian propagandists tell people what his presidency in 2000 was to restore the Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldo• they want to hear, says Georgy Satarov, Soviet national anthem. Soviet icons were vait is my countryðKazakhstan and the who used to be an aide to a former presi• revived not because of their connection Caucasus as well as the Balticsit is my dent, Boris Yeltsin, and now runs INDEM, a with communism but as symbols of stabil• countryðI was born in the Soviet Union; think•tank. What people want to hear, es• ity, continuity and power. A TV show, The made in the USSR, its lyrics go. As the au• pecially as they are getting richer, is that Name of Russia, based on a British pro• dience rose to applaud, it was perhaps un• their country is rising from its knees, gramme, 100 Great Britons, lists Joseph aware that the tune was the same as Bruce sticking its ag in the Arctic Circle, winning Stalin as one of the country’s ve all•time Springsteen’s Born in the USA. football games and chasing the Americans greats. Most Russians associate him not Konstantin Ernst, the boss of Russia’s out of Georgia. with repression and terror but with the main TV channel, which churns out na• power and respect which their country tionalistic, anti•American propaganda, once commanded. worshipped Francis Ford Coppola, an Pride before the fall 1 Our foreign policy is clear. It is a policy American lm•maker. These days he pro• Russia’s GDP, % change on year earlier of preserving peace and strengthening duces American•style blockbusters on a trade relations with all countriesðThose Russian theme and sells distribution rights 12 who want peace and seek a business rela• in Hollywood. 10 tionship with us will always nd our sup• The loudest anti•Americans in Russia 8 port. And those who try to attack our coun• are not the unreformed communists but 6 try will be dealt a deadly blow, to deter the well•dressed, English•speaking speech• 4 them from sticking their snouts into our writers from the perestroika era. The Krem• 2 + Soviet backyard. Stalin made this speech lin’s confrontation with the West is based 0 – in 1934, reecting on a recent world eco• not on di erences of ideology or economic 2 nomic crisis which, as he explained, systems but on the conviction that Russia 4 spread to credits and liquidity, turning up• is no di erent from America and that the 6 side down nancial and credit relation• West’s values are no stronger or better than 1997 99 2001 03 05 07 08* ships between countriesðAmidst this Russia’s.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Social Media and Civil Society in the Russian Protests, December 2011
    Department of Informatics and Media Social Science – major in Media and Communication Studies Fall 2013 Master Two Years Thesis Social Media and Civil Society in the Russian Protests, December 2011 The role of social media in engagement of people in the protests and their self- identification with civil society Daria Dmitrieva Fall 2013 Supervisor: Dr. Gregory Simons Researcher at Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies 1 2 ABSTRACT The study examines the phenomenon of the December protests in Russia when thousands of citizens were involved in the protest movement after the frauds during the Parliamentary elections. There was a popular opinion in the Internet media that at that moment Russia experienced establishment of civil society, since so many people were ready to express their discontent publically for the first time in 20 years. The focus of this study is made on the analysis of the roles that social media played in the protest movement. As it could be observed at the first glance, recruiting and mobilising individuals to participation in the rallies were mainly conducted via social media. The research analyses the concept of civil society and its relevance to the protest rhetoric and investigates, whether there was a phenomenon of civil society indeed and how it was connected to individuals‘ motivation for joining the protest. The concept of civil society is discussed through the social capital, social and political trust, e- democracy and mediatisation frameworks. The study provides a comprehensive description of the events, based on mainstream and new media sources, in order to depict the nature and the development of the movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Content Revolution Set to Shake up Mipcom 2017
    16-19 October 2017, Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France Press Release RUSSIAN CONTENT REVOLUTION SET TO SHAKE UP MIPCOM 2017 PREMIERE DRAMA AND ANIMATION SCREENINGS TO REVEAL NEW VITALITY FROM RUSSIA Paris, 4 October 2017 – A century after the October Revolution in Russia, the Russian Content Revolution is taking place and will be in the spotlight at MIPCOM 2017. World Premiere Screenings, a series of International Screenings, conferences and networking opportunities will bring fresh high-end content from Russia to the attention of global TV industry. “This autumn marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Two of its protagonists were Lenin and Trotsky. Channel One will showcase on this occasion the docu-drama about Lenin based on previously-unseen archives, while Trotsky will be presented to audiences as the hero of a drama series,” said Konstantin Ernst, CEO of Channel One Russia, producer of the series “Trotsky”. The World Premiere Screening of “Trotsky”, presented by Channel One and Sreda Production, will be the flagship event of the Russian Content Revolution showcase. Its creators hope the series will be an international hit due to its high production values, compelling script, and its complex lead character. “Leon Trotsky was the real mastermind and executive of the October upheaval, virtually its producer. He is an international star of the last 100 years, a real pop-icon, a man of great achievements, who met a tragic fate. Our series is the first drama dedicated to Trotsky in the history of Russia, so we hope to rouse both Russian and international audiences’ interest in this project,” added Ernst.
    [Show full text]
  • S:\FULLCO~1\HEARIN~1\Committee Print 2018\Henry\Jan. 9 Report
    Embargoed for Media Publication / Coverage until 6:00AM EST Wednesday, January 10. 1 115TH CONGRESS " ! S. PRT. 2d Session COMMITTEE PRINT 115–21 PUTIN’S ASYMMETRIC ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA AND EUROPE: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY A MINORITY STAFF REPORT PREPARED FOR THE USE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JANUARY 10, 2018 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations Available via World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 28–110 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5012 Sfmt 5012 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER seneagle Embargoed for Media Publication / Coverage until 6:00AM EST Wednesday, January 10. COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland MARCO RUBIO, Florida ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico TODD YOUNG, Indiana CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming TIM KAINE, Virginia JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon RAND PAUL, Kentucky CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey TODD WOMACK, Staff Director JESSICA LEWIS, Democratic Staff Director JOHN DUTTON, Chief Clerk (II) VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN.
    [Show full text]
  • The Kremlin's Proxy War on Independent Journalism
    Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper University of Oxford WEEDING OUT THE UPSTARTS: THE KREMLIN’S PROXY WAR ON INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM by Alexey Eremenko Trinity Term 2015 Sponsor: The Wincott Foundation 1 Table of Contents: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 3 INTRODUCTION 4 1. INTERNET & FREEDOM 7 1.1 STATISTICAL OVERVIEW 7 1.2 MEDIA REGULATIONS 8 1.3 SITES USED 9 2. ‘LINKS OF THE GODDAMN CHAIN’ 12 2.1 EDITORIAL TAKEOVER 12 2.2 DIRECT HIT 17 2.3 FINDINGS 22 3. THE MISSING LINKS 24 3.1 THE UNAFFECTED 24 3.2 WHAT’S NOT DONE 26 4. MORE PUTIN! A CASE STUDY IN COVERAGE CHANGE 30 4.1 CATEGORIES 30 4.2 KEYWORDS 31 4.3 STORY SUBJECTS 32 4.4 SENTIMENT ANALYSIS 32 5. CONCLUSIONS 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY 38 2 Acknowledgments I am immensely grateful, first and foremost, to the fellows at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, whose expertise and good spirits made for a Platonic ideal of a research environment. James Painter and John Lloyd provided invaluable academic insight, and my past and present employers at the Moscow Times and NBC News, respectively, have my undying gratitude for agreeing to spare me for three whole eventful months, an eternity in the news gathering business. Finally, my sponsor, the Wincott Foundation, and the Reuters Institute itself, believed in me and my topic enough to make this paper possible and deserve the ultimate credit for whatever meager contribution it makes to the academia and, hopefully, upholding the freedom of speech in the world. 3 Introduction “Freedom of speech was and remains a sacrosanct value of the Russian democracy,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin said in his first state of the nation in 2000.
    [Show full text]
  • BASEES Sampler
    R O U T L E D G E . TAYLOR & FRANCIS Slavonic & East European Studies A Chapter and Journal Article Sampler www.routledge.com/carees3 Contents Art and Protest in Putin's Russia by Laurien 1 Crump Introduction Freedom of Speech in Russia edited by Piotr 21 Dutkiewicz, Sakwa Richard, Kulikov Vladimir Chapter 8: The Putin regime: patrimonial media The Capitalist Transformation of State 103 Socialism by David Lane Chapter 11: The move to capitalism and the alternatives Europe-Asia Studies 115 Identity in transformation: Russian speakers in Post- Soviet Ukrane by Volodymyr Kulyk Post-Soviet Affairs 138 The logic of competitive influence-seeking: Russia, Ukraine, and the conflict in Donbas by Tatyana Malyarenko and Stefan Wolff 20% Discount Available Enjoy a 20% discount across our entire portfolio of books. Simply add the discount code FGT07 at the checkout. Please note: This discount code cannot be combined with any other discount or offer and is only valid on print titles purchased directly from www.routledge.com. www.routledge.com/carees4 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group. Not for distribution. 1 Introduction It was freezing cold in Moscow on 24 December 2011 – the day of the largest mass protest in Russia since 1993. A crowd of about 100 000 people had gathered to protest against electoral fraud in the Russian parliamentary elections, which had taken place nearly three weeks before. As more and more people joined the demonstration, their euphoria grew to fever pitch. Although the 24 December demonstration changed Russia, the period of euphoria was tolerated only until Vladimir Putin was once again installed as president in May 2012.
    [Show full text]
  • The Russian Chronologies July - September 2009 Dr Mark a Smith
    Research & Assessment Branch The Russian Chronologies July - September 2009 Dr Mark A Smith 09/13 RUSSIAN DOMESTIC CHRONOLOGY JULY 2009 – SEPTEMBER 2009 1 July 2009 The head of the commission for the Caucasus and first deputy speaker of the Federation Council, Aleksandr Torshin, criticises the assessment of the situation in the North Caucasus made by the human rights organization Amnesty International. 1 July 2009 President Dmitry Medvedev speaks at a state reception for graduates of military educational institutions in the Kremlin. He discusses military reform. 1 July 2009 Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov discusses with Vladimir Putin the development of seaport construction. Ivanov states: In 1998-99, of the total volume of import and export operations, 75 per cent of our cargoes were shipped through foreign ports, mostly Ukrainian and Baltic ones, and only 25 per cent through Russian ports. Now the proportion is as follows: 87 per cent of all cargoes are already shipped and processed through Russian ports, and only 13 per cent through foreign ports. I think that's fairly good dynamics, and in the foreseeable future we will completely get rid of dependence on foreign ports. This is very important from the economic point of view, and of course additional jobs. 1 July 2009 The head of the Rosnano state corporation Anatoly Chubays addresses the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs innovation policy committee. He discusses the need to develop an innovative economy in the Russian Federation. 1 July 2009 Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev says that alcohol abuse or poisoning causes each fifth death in Russia.
    [Show full text]
  • A Film by Alexey German Jr
    A film by Alexey German Jr. Russia | Poland | Serbia - 2018 - HD - 1:2.39 - 5.1 - 126 min - Russian références PANTONE : références CMJN : TRES IMPORTANT ! Pantone fluo 814 Violet C=55% ; M=60 ; J=0% ; N=0% Lors de changement d’échel du logo pensez à agrandir et/ou réduir proportionnellement Pantone Process Black Noir C=40% ; M=0% ; J=0 % ; N=100% le flou gaussien qui est de 12 pix pour le symbole “alpha” et de 8 pix pour le mot “violet”. Dovlatov is the new film by Alexey German Jr. (Silver Bear for Under Electric Clouds, Silver Lion for Paper Soldier) who for the first time turns his camera on his hometown, ‘70s Leningrad (St. Petersburg) to portray the lives of young Soviet writers Sergei Dovlatov, Joseph Brodsky and other repressed artists in the ‘70s. Logline Dovlatov charts six days in the life of the brilliant, ironic writer Sergei Dovlatov who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Together with his friend and poet Joseph, he fought preserve his own talent and integrity while seeing their artist friends getting crushed by the iron-willed state machinery, which they would later escape by emigrating to New York, losing all they had back home. Dovlatov - by Alexey German Jr. Page 2 / 14 Director Alexey German Jr “I got to read Dovlatov very late in life – when I was 26 or 27 – but all in one sitting. Back then I already thought that it would be great to make a film about him, but for almost 15 years I could not figure out how.
    [Show full text]
  • 11 Georgia and Moldova: Staying the Course
    11 Georgia and Moldova: Staying the Course Mamuka Tsereteli The West’s response to the recent Russian aggression in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated the limited immediate ability of the United States and the EU to challenge Russia’s actions. The U.S. and the EU are, however, in search of a long-term strategy that could, if needed, impose substantial costs on the Rus- sian Federation. Some elements of the strategy were embedded in the EU’s Eastern Partnership project, which was designed after the Russian-Georgian war and the ensuing Russian occupation of Georgian territories. The intent of the project is to ex- pand the area under the umbrella of Western values and to promote economic rules and trade with countries in the immediate vicinity of the EU which aspire to further European integration. While participant countries were not provided with a perspective of membership, the project was clearly initiated to bring those countries closer to the EU. The Eastern Partnership initiative, led by Sweden and Poland, was launched in 2009, and by November 2013, Georgia and Moldova had initialized an Association Agreement (AA) with the EU, which they signed in June 2014. The magnitude of Russia’s resistance to the EU’s Eastern Partnership initiative was vividly demonstrated by Moscow’s steps to prevent Armenia from initial- izing the AA, as well as by the pressure applied to Ukraine, which Russia per- suaded not to sign the AA, just days before the Vilnius Summit (These cases are studied in detail in the contributions of Armen Grigoryan and James Sherr to this volume).
    [Show full text]
  • 23668 RO Fall.Qxd
    Fall 2008 The Georgia Watershed By Leon Aron On August 8, following Georgia’s reckless attack on the Russia-supported separatist enclave of South Ossetia, Russia invaded Georgia. For the first time in post-Soviet history, Russian troops crossed the internationally recognized border of a sovereign neighboring state. Yet there were several other lines that may have been crossed. This short war looks more and more like a culmination and an emblem of the troubling evolution in the Kremlin’s values and priorities and, by extension, its vision of the country’s national interests. It may have heralded the onset of a distinct, and profoundly disconcerting, agenda both inside and outside the country. What has been said and done by the Russian authorities since last August strengthens this impression. The principles and priorities of Russian foreign “civilized world”) is no longer accepted even as a policy have changed in concert with the evolu- distant goal. Today, “Russia is inclined not only tion toward authoritarianism inside the country completely to reject Western values but even to Russian Outlook guided by Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has refuse to admit that something like that exists,” steadily repossessed key economic resources and one of the most astute observers of Russian foreign reestablished control of the media, justice, and all policy, Fyodor Lukyanov, wrote in August of this national political institutions. The government year.4 These “values,” another leading Russian and the national media have stoked the sense of expert noted,
    [Show full text]
  • What Drives Demand for Government-Controlled News in Russia?∗
    What Drives Demand for Government-Controlled News in Russia?∗ Andrey Simonov Justin Rao Columbia University HomeAway, Inc. 8th February 2018 News consumers in many authoritarian countries read government-controlled sources even when independent sources are available. What drives this demand for government-controlled news? We separate out two potential sources of such demand, preferences for pro-government coverage of sen- sitive events and persistent preferences for news outlets. Identification strategy relies on exogenous shifts in the volume of sensitive events over time. Demand estimates in the Russian online news market reveal that an average consumer has a distaste for pro-government ideology but strong persistent preferences for state-owned outlets. The state-owned outlets would have 20.3% higher market share without the pro-government bias in their reporting. ∗Simonov (corresponding author): [email protected]; Rao: [email protected]. Andrey is grateful to his advisors and dissertation committee members Pradeep Chintagunta, Jean-Pierre Dub´e, Matthew Gentzkow and G¨unter Hitsch for their guidance and support. We thank Charles Angelucci, Ruben Enikolopov, Matt Goldman, Elisabeth Honka, Sanjog Misra, Chris Nosko, Miklos Sarvary, Bradley Shapiro, Raluca Ursu, Ali Yurukoglu, participants of the 16th Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, 2016 AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium, 2016 Economics of Media and Communications Conference, 2017 Marketing Science Conference and the 15th Media Economics Workshop, seminar participants at the University of Chicago, Stigler Center at Chicago Booth, HKUST, University of Minnesota, University of Rochester, UCSD, Duke, LBS, Columbia, Southern Methodist University, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, UCLA and University of Southern California for advice and suggestions. All opinions represent our own and not those of our current or past employers.
    [Show full text]
  • Media Elites in Post-Soviet Russia and Their Strategies for Success | Elisabeth Schimpfössl 28/10/2017, 2002
    Media Elites in Post-Soviet Russia and their Strategies for Success | Elisabeth Schimpfössl 28/10/2017, 2002 Elisabeth Schimpfössl Media Elites in Post-Soviet Russia and their Strategies for Success 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. Co-author: Ilya Yablokov Russian Politics, 2/1, 2017, 32-54 Introduction In this article we look at media managers through the prism of two distinct dimensions of analysis. From the perspective of elite studies – our first dimension – this group is crucial for generating collectively held views (e.g. consent to war) and entrenching divisions (e.g. separation and ousting of the political opposition, named ‘fifth column’). Adhering
    [Show full text]
  • Government Control in Online News Markets∗
    Demand for (Un)Biased News: Government Control in Online News Markets∗ Andrey Simonov Justin Rao Columbia University HomeAway, Inc. 9th August 2017 First draft: 25th January 2016 Anecdotal evidence suggests consumers navigate to news outlets that are government controlled (GC) and pro-government biased even in the presence of independent news outlets. Does this imply a demand for pro-government bias in the news? Or do consumers enjoy other aspects of GC news outlets such as quality or brand? To answer these questions, we examine consumers' demand in the Russian online news market. We use publication records of the top 48 online news outlets to characterize the methods of government control in the news and identify the news that is sensitive for the government. We then use temporal variation in the amount of sensitive news and click-level browsing panel data to estimate the demand for news. The average consumer prefers the quality and brand of the GC news outlets but the news coverage with less pro-government bias, and there is a substantial heterogeneity in preferences. In a counterfactual simulation, we show that the GC news outlets would have 16.9% higher market shares in the absence of control and 42.9% lower market shares if their quality was at the level of the independent news outlets. Higher quality of the GC news outlets expands their share of online attention from 21.98% to 33.1%, substantially increasing their media power. ∗Corresponding author: [email protected]. Andrey is grateful to his advisors and dissertation committee members Pradeep Chintagunta, Jean-Pierre Dub´e, Matthew Gentzkow and G¨unter Hitsch for their guidance and support.
    [Show full text]