Natalia Rulyova

Domesticating the Western format on Russian TV: Subversive glocalisation in the game show Pole Chudes (The field of Miracles)

Abstract Combining semiotic strategies and audience research, this contribution focuses on Pole chudes (Field of Miracles), the Russian adaptation of the popular television format Wheel of Fortune, to analyse the specific case of subversive glocalisation. A comparison of Pole chudes with other adaptations reveals the tensions characteristic uniquely of post-Soviet space, such as those between the national and the local under the influence of the global, between the centre and the periphery; between commercial/capitalist and traditional/folk practices, and between the collective and the individual. Focus group research shows that Pole chudes splits viewers by class, location and age, with the metropolitan intelligentsia at one end of the spectrum and the narod in the provinces at the other. In addition, it is argued that Pole chudes represents a case of post-Soviet identity construction in which top-to-bottom tendencies, in particular nation building, merge with bottom-to-top ones, such as local and folk practices.

Blogging the Other: Construction of National Identities in the Blogosphere

Abstract This essay examines the construction of Russian and Chinese national identities through the representation of the other in the blogosphere. Strategies that bloggers use to represent the other are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative examination is strengthened by a comparative perspective: the representations of Russian people by Chinese bloggers are contrasted with those of Chinese people by Russian-language bloggers. The qualitative examination of blogging posts is underpinned by a genre approach which leads the authors to the conclusion that the bloggers choice of genre, such as personal journal, futuristic fiction or ‘letter into the blogosphere’, is an important strategy in online identity construction and the representation of the other.

Introduction: New Media in New Europe-Asia

THIS COLLECTION OFFERS AN IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION of the role of new media in the political, social and cultural life in the region of Europe-Asia, which is defined loosely as Eastern and Central Europe, Russia and Central Asia. This region shares a common cultural and ideological past which has been shaped by histories of imperial expansion, the rise of national identities and rapid entry into the global community in the 1980s and 1990s. By focusing on new media, which is understood primarily as internet-enabled networked social practice, the collection puts forward a political redefinition of the region which is determined by the recognition of the diversity of new media uses in the countries included in the study. At the same time it is apparent that media use in all countries in the region is characterised by ‘dissent’, whereby protests are directed against political regimes, local governments, cultural traditions or forces of globalisation. In this regard, new media in Europe-Asia displays the same potential for social intervention and political reform that has been manifested in other regions, particularly in the Arab world. While cognisant of the 2011–2012 protest movements in Arab countries, China, Russia and other places, the contributions to this collection focus on the period prior to the advent of ‘internet revolutions’. This is because the research presented here aims to capture new media use in the region at its pivotal moment—at the time of its entry into the post-broadcast era—and thus the collection documents this transitional moment and relates it to the history of change in post-communist states. By focusing on the countries’ transition from the broadcast to the post-broadcast era, this collection builds on concerns put forward in a 2007 special issue of EuropeAsia Studies which explored the impact of the mass media on society, politics and culture. That collection, ‘Symposium on the Post-Soviet Media’, focused predominantly on print and televised media, whereas ‘New Media in New Europe-Asia’ considers internet-enabled media. In spite of the change of focus, the two collections have a lot in common. First, both of them are concerned with the involvement of (new) media in political processes; in fact, the collections consider political activity in

Changing News Genres as a Result of Global Technological Developments: New news genres

Based on research carried out over two years amongst groups of students from the United Kingdom, France, United States and Russia, this article explores how churnalism is not only having an impact on what people read but also on how they read it, with far-reaching consequences for what has traditionally been perceived as the news genre. Drawing on genre as a social action, we explore the ways in which churnalism is changing news consumption. New news genres are appearing in response to new social interactions that users repeatedly act out predominantly online. As users, we produce and consume texts which we refer to as “news” in multiple situations which can be sorted into patterns. Our comparative analysis offers surprising insights into how these patterns form new news genres, characteristic of social media (many-to-many) instead of mass media (one-to-many). Genres should be studied not only through textual analysis but also through the prism of social reality and recurrent social actions, particularly now that users, rather than journalists, are taking a dominant role in identifying what constitutes news genres. Our perception of what defines news is determined by the changing ways in which we consume news.

Television News and Its Satirical Interpretation in Medvedev’s Russia: Is Glasnost Back?

The article focuses on television in Dmitrii Medvedev’s Russia through the prism of glasnost. It analyses daily television news stories, as they are posted on the official Channel One website, and weekly satirical interpretations of news programmes presented to the Russian nation on Channel One. These two aspects of television programming are indicative of the development of glasnost and transparency in Medvedev’s Russia. News stories are examined in terms of newsworthiness, and satirical shows — in terms of the targets of political satire. First, a brief historical account of the term “glasnost” is given to lay out the framework for analysis. Then frame analysis is applied to examine representational modes, discourse and myths used to package Channel One news stories that were broadcast in the period of October 2009 to January 2010. Then, the article focuses on the representation of the satirical in Thespotlightofparishilton (Prozhektorperishilton) and The Animated Personality (Mul’t lichnosti), two Channel One satirical shows that appeared since Medvedev’s inauguration. Television programmes are compared with similar material available on the Russian-language internet, which remains mainly free of state control, and thus provides a point of reference for identifying the boundaries of glasnost on television.

Symposium Editors' Introduction

THIS SECTION IS LARGELY BASED ON PAPERS PRESENTED AT ‘The Mass Media in Post-Soviet Russia’ conference held at the University of Surrey on 6 – 8 April 2006. The conference was organised as part of the AHRC-funded project ‘Post-Soviet Russian Television Culture’ headed by Professor Stephen Hutchings. The conference attracted not only a wide range of Russian and Western academics researching postSoviet mass media from different angles, but also journalists and media consultants. After the conference, the BBC Russian Service broadcast some interviews with keynote speaker, Ellen Mickiewicz, and several other paper-givers. To further broaden the debate about the post-Soviet media, three public debates on related topics were sponsored by the AHRC and organised by Professor Stephen Hutchings (University of Manchester), in co-operation with Dr Natalia Rulyova (University of Birmingham) in 2007. Currently, we are starting a new project funded by the Centre for East European Languages Based Area Studies (CEELBAS), which aims to consolidate the efforts of academics, media specialists, and journalists by running an electronic forum on the mass media in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The experience we have gained from these initiatives demonstrates that to understand the complicated media situation in post-Soviet countries is impossible without collaboration between political scientists, sociologists, cultural analysts, media studies researchers and media practitioners. This special symposium is one of the first attempts to bridge the gaps between political and cultural studies approaches, between textual analysis and audience research, as well as between practitioner-led and scholarly approaches to the post-Soviet media. The present collection of articles opens with a piece by Nadezhda Azhgikhina, a prominent journalist and Secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists. As an insider who worked for Nezavisimaya gazeta, Ogonek and other post-Soviet publications, she gives a unique view of post-Soviet journalism. Her analysis of the recent past and near future differs from the views often favoured by Western journalists in that she does not see Putin’s regime as solely responsible for the current situation in the media, searching for the roots of current problems in wider social and historical circumstances. As a Western media consultant, Daphne Skillen brings a contrasting perspective on the role EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES Vol. 59, No. 8, December 2007, 1243 – 1244

Russian New Media Users’ Reaction to a Meteor Explosion in Chelyabinsk: Twitter Versus YouTube

The author analyzes how Russian-language social media users reacted to the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor shower. Drawing on Kress’s social semiotic approach, the author presents a multimodal analysis of media uploaded to the Internet by users showing their reactions to the event, and demonstrates how new media users employ familiar primary and secondary speech genres to shape their reactions. This comparative analysis of videos and tweets helps conceptualize differences between primary and secondary speech genres by distinguishing the genres which are employed to communicate the event directly (primary) and the genres that are employed to engage with the discourse about the event (secondary). The author also explores how technological devices become associated with particular genres and how global genres become domesticated to culturally specific contexts.