Discussion

Numerous TV documentaries were produced and aired on the Russian state TV channels during 2012-2018. This paper is focusing on the production and societal perceptions of these films. The range of topics covered by these films is vast: about space, new weapons, the relics of saints brought to Russia,  criticising the international politics, and praising the Russian President and patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

I argue that despite of these films’ diversity of authorship style, and genres, the audience perceives them indiscriminately as a whole. The audience consumes documentaries on the grounds they are demonstrated by the state TV without questioning their validity and plausibility. Watching state TV channels is a part of the daily routine of the majority of the Russian population.

This banality is the  essence of mass media in Russia in 2012-2018. Production of the TV documentaries. The efficiency of the state propaganda in the case of the TV documentaries is not in its resourcefulness and professionalism, but in its banality.