The Internet in Russia

The virtual world of images co-exists with perceptions in the real world where the identity of communicating subjects, though fluid, limits the boundaries of imagination. Images appear independent from their construction by the media, but those constructed by the media may take on a life of their own. This chapter explains some of the philosophical principles that underpin the construction and interpretation of images of Japanese politicians on Russian television and Russian language internet sites by outlining three strategies of representation: the construction of a radically different 'other', the construction of a familiar or friendly 'other' and the construction of an indifferent or neutral 'other'. The communicative nature of images demands their examination from the viewpoint of relations between the 'other' and the 'self'. TV and internet with their enormous capacity to influence human minds and emotions and the creation of public opinion becomes more politically responsible. Keywords: Japanese politicians; philosophical principles; Russian language internet sites; Russian television; virtual world

Introduction Birgit Beumers, Stephen Hutchings and Natalia Rulyova Part One: Media, Politics and State 1. Free to get rich and fool around Ivan Zassoursky 2. Where did it all go wrong? Russian television in the Putin era John A. Dunn 3. Shifting media and the failure of political communication in Russia Samuel A. Greene 4. The end of independent television? Elite conflict and the reconstructing the Russian television landscape Tina Burrett Part 2: The Language of the Media 5. Putin and the tradition of the interview in Russian discourse Anna Maslennikova 6. What's in a foreign word: Negotiating linguistic culture on Russian radio programmes about language Lara Ryazanova-Clarke Part 3: The Media and Memory 7. The conundrum of memory: Young people and their recollections of Soviet television Ellen Mickiewicz 8. Commemorating the past/performing the present: Television coverage of WWII victory celebrations and the (de)construction of Russian nationhood Stephen Hutchings and Natalia Rulyova Part 4: Culture, State and Empire in Television Serials 9. The culture of serialization, or the serialization of culture Birgit Beumers 10. The State Face: The empire's televisual imagination Nancy Condee Part 5: New Media, Censorship and Identity 11. New media, new Russians, new abroad: Towards a non-nationalist paradigm Robert Saunders 12. Russia's internet media policies: Open space and ideological closure Vlad Strukov

RusNet on the Offensive

The image of Russia is one of the key components for determining the self-identity of the population, the growth of trust in the government, and an understanding of current politics and economics conducted in the country. The purpose of this study is to identify the image of Russia in Russian political and non-political television programs for the period of 2017-2019. The research methodology included content analysis of Russian television programs. Quantitative and qualitative methods, including case studies, were used to interpret the data. The image of a country consists of a spatial (territorial) image, an image of a population, an image of power, and an image of a leader. In the analysis, subjective, objective, spatial, temporal and communicative sections were identified. The performed analysis made it possible to identify some features of the formation of the image of Russia in TV shows. The resulting image is directly dependent on the event context and is its reflection. The underlying parameters, such as political culture, are not considered. The main topics raised in TV shows were the conflict in Ukraine, conflict in Syria, sanctions and international relations of Russia, the USA and the EU, election of the President of the Russian Federation and the election of the President of the United States. The image of the country is translated as strong, cognitively complex, dynamic. Most of the messages are positive, since they are focused on the domestic audience, the policy of the channels themselves is designed to show the diversity of opinions, but, at the same time, to raise the country’s prestige in the eyes of the audience. The negative characteristics of the image involve the comments of foreign politicians and experts, which are broadcast on Russian television. Changes in the spatial image due to the reunification with Crimea are shown most vividly. This topic has been relevant for a period of five years. The political leader is represented as strong both in the international arena and in dealing with domestic issues.

Russia’s Surveillance State

The proliferation and recycling of Soviet popular culture and history is a central ingredient of post-Soviet film and television production, leading to accusations that the Russian media is nurturing nostalgia. Nostalgia can hardly account for the manifold uses of the Soviet past in contemporary Russian television programming. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the Crimean annexation, it became evident that nostalgia for a strong empire with a ‘strong ruling hand’ was part of Putin’s symbolic politics for several years. Keeping these considerations in mind, this article investigates how nostalgia extends into the domain of television and becomes an element of symbolic politics, employing a case study of two documentaries produced during Putin’s presidency to focus the analysis. This study also examines how contemporary Russian television uses footage and film clips from the socialist period and witness testimonies to ‘dismantle’ popular myths.

This paper investigates the relationship between trust in Russian television and belief in conspiracy theories among viewers in Kazakhstan. Drawing on an original 2024 survey, we examine whether individuals who consider Russian broadcast television a reliable source of information are more likely to endorse the conspiracy theory linking 5G networks to the spread of COVID-19. Our findings reveal a significant positive association between trust in Russian TV and belief in this conspiracy theory, even after controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables. In contrast, trust in internet news sites is negatively associated with conspiracy beliefs. These results underscore the importance of cross-border media influence and information politics, especially in contexts where countries share common historical and cultural identity traits, such as a Soviet past and a common language. By exploring how foreign media shape narratives and public trust, the paper contributes to our understanding of the role of propaganda and conspiracy in shaping national identity and collective consciousness. The paper also adds to broader studies on informational sovereignty, symbolic politics, and nation-building in transitional regimes.

The article demonstrates how over the past two decades Russian television has changed its interpretation of the Soviet Past and used myths of the Soviet period in order to shape a new collective identity. The author analyses popular Russian television programs (i.e. those that are broadcast by Russian state channels and have high rating). She argues that the consequences of a cultural trauma (the collapse of the USSR) have not been overcome and that Russian television offers its viewers models of everyday life that do not promote modernization or successful nation building.

In order to understand why the Soviet past is remembered differently, 25 narratives of nine Lithuanian families (parents, grandparents, and grandchildren) were analyzed. The applied theoretical assumption about the “generational effect” on memory: an “interpretative framework” gained during adolescence or early adulthood has an impact on the way we think about the past. In order to trace generational “interpretative frameworks” and indicate memory generations (that do not per se represent cohorts), the study was inductively focused on how the relation to the Soviet past is constructed. The narration of life stories and re-narration of grandparents’ life stories (for those with no or very limited Soviet experience) enable us to methodologically approach the “generational effect” in different Soviet narratives. A participation in family conversations about the recent past and the subsequent interpretative analysis demonstrate three key motives – emphasis, silencing, and justification – that are used by different generations in terms with the Soviet past. Preliminary four memory generations are indicated based on the way grandparents, parents, and grandchildren construct their relation to such aspects as participation in ideological organizations, “illegal practices,” personal or organized resistance, transformations after the Restoration of Independence in 1990, and a higher status in the hierarchy of the Soviet system.

Crafting Preservation Criteria: The National Register of Historic Places and American Historic Preservation By John H. Sprinkle, Jr. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2014. 244 pp. 10 greyscale figures, 6 appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $135.00 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-415-64255-2, $34.95 (paper), ISBN: 978-0-41564256-9 (paper), $34.95 (e-book), ISBN: 978-0-203-08083-2.John H. Sprinkle, Jr.'s book Crafting Preservation Criteria: The National Register of Historic Places and American Historic Preservation fills a prominent gap in the literature on historic preservation, material culture, and collective memory studies. Unlike geographical works by Tim Cresswell, Gareth Hoskins, and others that explore the assignment of cultural significance to physical places (2008, 393), Sprinkle practically reviews the contribution of early twentieth century US federal agents to the development of American site designation protocols during the so-called prehistory of (6). His detailed consideration of the early decisions of preservationists exposes the mutability of early signification processes that is seldom evidenced in established commemoration processes. Although Sprinkle explicitly intends this work to inform students of preservation studies, his original chronicling speaks to interdisciplinary audiences. It critically reminds contemporary scholars of the uncertainties and imperatives that initially inspired politicians, government agents, and land use experts to act collectively for the preservation of American material culture and landscape.The book is unquestionably a masterfully researched and exceptionally detailed rendering of Sprinkle's reviews on sites that draw from original source materials. He deftly weaves together evidence on site decisions gathered from empirical work completed as Historian at the National Park Service (NPS), as well as his earlier published studies on disputes regarding the interpretation of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act criteria. His fluency in reviewing internal Park Service policies and the acts of leading personalities greatly enhances his ability to thematically organize stories about site categories and allows him to assess decisions involving sites situated in different geographical areas and with variable cultural significance.Given Sprinkle's command of the facts, the book is perhaps more narrowly focused than it ought to be. He limits the work to an examination of the series of decisions and deliberations about site authenticity and integrity that occurred in the three decades between the enactment of the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and the National Historic Preservation Act (or NHPA) in 1966. The author seeks to determine what changes in the interpretation of federal preservation criteria caused the tremendous expansion (2) in the number of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the time President Richard Nixon issued the 1972 Executive Order 11593, which dramatically altered the methods for site approval. In his response, Sprinkle primarily considers the varied input of Historians at the National Park Service and their expert collaborators, and secondarily accounts for the influence of surrounding critical political, economic, and cultural circumstances.Methodologically, the author devotes significantly more attention to providing details on various case studies than drawing conclusions. Although weighty at times, his strategy of reading across multiple examples effectively supports the overall investigation, the organization of the work, and development of key arguments. One of the most productive uses of case analyses are his reviews of decisions to signify such well-known sites as George Washington's Residence in the 1930s (62), the Vanderbilt Mansion in 1940, the Robie House of architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957 (118), and Ulysses S. Grant's Tomb in 1958 (181), alongside decisions to preserve such lesser-known places as the tiny pioneer city districts of La Villita in San Antonio, Texas, and the Joseph Bailly Homestead in a sparsely populated area of Indiana. …

Clinical registries play an important role in measuring healthcare delivery and supporting quality improvement for individuals with cardiovascular disease and stroke. Well-designed clinical registry programs provide important mechanisms to monitor patterns of care, evaluate healthcare effectiveness and safety, and improve clinical outcomes. The use of clinical registries is likely to grow given the increasing focus on measuring and improving healthcare delivery and patient outcomes by stakeholders in both the private and public sectors. The American Heart Association (AHA) has a longstanding commitment to promoting the innovative and effective use of clinical registries. The importance of clinical registries was highlighted recently in an AHA Scientific Statement on “Essential Features of a Surveillance System to Support the Prevention and Management of Heart Disease and Stroke” in the United States.1 This policy statement expands on the previous scientific statement by providing recommendations to policy makers and the healthcare community for expansion of the applications of existing and future clinical registries. The term “clinical registry” is defined here as an observational database of a clinical condition, procedure, therapy, or population in which there are often no registry-mandated approaches to therapy and relatively few inclusion or exclusion criteria. The focus of clinical registries is to capture data that reflect “real-world” clinical practice in large patient populations. The data from clinical registries do not replace the need for traditional randomized controlled trials. Rather, registries and trials are complementary approaches, each with unique advantages and imperfections.2 Such clinical registries do not solely contain claims or administrative data yet may be linked to such data sources. There are at least 3 classifications of clinical registries based on the patient population, including procedure/therapy/encounter-based, disease-based, and population-based registries. Registries also can be classified from a functional perspective, such as whether the registry is used to conduct clinical research, …

Reviewed by: The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring by Paulina Bren, and: Namedni: Nasha era. Sobytiia, liudi, iavleniia. To, bez chego nas nevozmozhno predstavit´, eshche trudnee—poniat´ by Leonid Parfenov, and: Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cold War by Kristin Roth-Ey Christine Evans Paulina Bren, The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring. 264pp. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010. ISBN-13 978-0801476426. $24.95. Leonid Parfenov, Namedni: Nasha era. Sobytiia, liudi, iavleniia. To, bez chego nas nevozmozhno predstavit´, eshche trudnee—poniat´ (Recently: Our Era. Events, People, Phenomena. That Without Which It Is Impossible To Imagine Us, Much Less Understand Us). 4 vols. Moscow: Kolibri, 2011. 1961–1970 (278 fenomen desiatiletiia [278 Phenomena of the Decade]). 272 pp. ISBN-13 978-5389002487. 1971–1980 (282 fenomena). 272 pp. ISBN-13 978-5389005754. 1981–1990 (304 fenomena). 288 pp. ISBN-13 978-5389000322. 1991–2000 (342 fenomena). 306 pp. ISBN-13 9789538911076. Kristin Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cold War. 320 pp. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. ISBN-13 978-0801448744. $39.95. Russia’s recent reconsideration of its political present in the streets has been preceded and accompanied by the most extensive public exploration of the Soviet past since the late 1980s. The past under examination is not the Stalin era, however, but the decades that followed, which have come to be seen as relevant to the post-Soviet present. Undermining a decade of efforts to project a vigorous, shirtless masculinity, Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he would run for the Russian presidency again generated a new image, in which Putin’s face—wrinkled, sagging, and with enhanced eyebrows—sits superimposed on Leonid Brezhnev’s be-medaled chest.1 In 1999, Leonid Parfenov, a Russian journalist who has taken a leading role in the recent protests against electoral fraud, began work on a 40-episode documentary [End Page 225] television series titled Namedni (Recently). In the 12 years since he began that project, he writes in a new four-volume work based on the series, his view of the relationship between the recent Soviet past and present changed. “It seemed,” he writes, “that in the future the Russian would take over and replace the Soviet. It turned out that the Russian more often repeats and continues the Soviet” (Namedni: Nasha era, 1961–1970, 6). This new interest in the continuities between the Brezhnev and Putin eras is troubled, however, by the extreme uncertainty, both in Russia and in the West, about how exactly to characterize either that era or the present one. Namedni’s television documentary episodes, each devoted to a single year of Soviet and post-Soviet history, 1961–2001, open with Parfenov in a room full of floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets, apparently representing the vast and diverse contents of the recent past. The labels on each file cannot be made out—how are they organized, if at all? The book, like the television series before it, is likewise organized in the manner of medieval annals, by year, as a kind of list of unconnected memories, “278 Phenomena of the Decade,” as the subtitle of volume 1 indicates.2 Perhaps readers won’t mind; Parfenov’s books are lavishly illustrated and well researched. The photographs alone are invaluable for anyone teaching the post-Stalin period. Yet Parfenov’s editorial choices do reflect a subtle argument about how we can better understand the last Soviet decades: a very large proportion of his vignettes are drawn from the media, and from television in particular. Two important new books, by Paulina Bren and Kristin Roth-Ey, take up the argument that we have much to gain by looking at post-Stalinist socialist societies through the lens of their mass media. Taken together, they offer us a way to understand and begin organizing Parfenov’s vast filing cabinets of post-Stalin memory and experience, one that is likewise centered on the creation and embrace, by the Soviet and Czechoslovak states, of a vast new mass...

In Russia some trauma doctors say watching television is helping them to predict hospital admisssions A few years ago a group of Austrian students was visiting the Institute of Foreign...

This paper deals with the politics of memory in contemporary Georgia’s public space. It explores the relations between official and vernacular commemorations of the Soviet past in Tbilisi. In this paper, I have studied the forms of materialization of vernacular memories in the public space and provided a frame in which they exist, including the ideological background of decommunization in Georgia and peculiarities of the Soviet era museumizing in state museums. The official discourse demonizes the previous epoque and neglects all its benefits, whereas the ordinary people are quite nuanced in their memories of their past – this contradiction leads to manifestations of vernacular memories. Therefore, this paper focuses mostly on Tbilisi’s Dry Bridge, a famous flea market where the memory of the recent Soviet past is negotiated. The main argument is that this particular flea market and its artifacts might be regarded as a “vernacular memorial” and “lieu de memoire” where nostalgia for an officially demonized era can be expressed and materialized. This paper explores the items that are on sale, explaining their meaning for the post-Soviet people, and describes the intangible practices that can be observed there. In addition, this paper unpacks that these nostalgic practices should not be considered as “unhealthy” or “retrospective” as it helps people to adapt to modernity and develop by considering more than one hegemonic version of their past.

Specialties Face New Recertification Norms