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Thu24 Jul09:00am(20 mins)
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Where:
Room 2
Presenter:
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When Russia annexed four occupied regions of Ukraine on 30 September 2022, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech in which he said: "Do we really want, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of 'mum' and 'dad', to have 'parent No. 1', 'parent No. 2', 'No. 3'? Have they gone completely insane? Do we really want ... it drilled into children in our schools ... that there are supposedly genders besides women and men, and [children to be] offered the chance to undergo sex change operations? ... We have a different future, our own future" (Reuters 2022). The far-right anti-LGBTQ sentiment mirrored some of the disinformation and outrage which appeared in right-wing media in Western Europe and the US over the course of the 21st century (see for example EDMO 2023, Faktoje 2023, Fox News 2011).
The discursive and real-life political connections between Russia and American and European far-right groups have been well-documented before the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (see for example Michael 2019, Shekhovtsov 2018). This paper’s focus is on how the trajectories of this idea exchange transformed after the war, and specifically on the role of Russian mainstream media in normalising these ideas and tying them to existing political discussions in the country.
For example, following Putin’s annexation speech, the discussion of ‘gender ideology propaganda in the West’ spilled over into the Russian mainstream media, where it was discussed and transformed. This paper traces the journey and transformation of this and other ideas across state borders and institutional lines, from the right-wing and fringe media in Europe and the United States to the mainstream political actors and mainstream government-aligned media in Russia. It finds that, while there is often a significant delay of several years between the ideas’ initial discussions in Western fringe media and their adoption by the Russian political elites and the media, they are adopted without a filter, with the main message remaining intact until it reaches Russian media, which becomes the site of transformation and normalisation.
