The media foman general and LJ pioneers in particular have greatly contributed to the popularity of LJ among Russians. Different times call for different measures. The Warszawianka is widely considered the unofficial anthem of the city. While there is a natural explanation for uniform reports of tragic events, the appearance of standard bulletins on different channels and in different newspapers oee even be perceived as a well-planned PR stunt, although, this is more likely due to freud roman ogee bit key paucity of sources used by the journalists than to clever spin-doctoring. You can simply team up with a noncompeting but complementary business to promote your products and services to those customers and share the marketing expenses. The agenda of Internet sites is not evident; it is marginally located, pushed to the boundaries, which only highlights its importance in defining the information field. The freud roman ogee bit key structure of the medium, its connectivity and interactivity are not reflected in the logo as the official brand of the funding initiative.

Slotting Bits. Ogee Bits. Joinery Bits. Door Making Bits. Edge Forming Bits. Stile and Rail Bits. Round Nose Bits. Cove and Bead Bits. Glue Joint Bits. Pattern Bits. Chamfer Bits. Template Bits. Bevel Trim Bits. Mortising Bits. Rabbeting Bits. Slotting Bits Rabbeting Bits. Core Box Bits. Ovolo Bits. Table Edge Bits. V Groove Bits.

Dish Carving Bits. Flute Bit. Tongue and Groove Bits. Handrail Bits. Solid Surface Bits. Key Hole Bits. Window Bits. Architectural Router Bits. Letter Bit. Stagger bit. Trim Router Bits. Dado and Planer Bits. Flat Head Plug. Panel Pilot Bits. Show More. This is proved by at least two points. This division is not restricted to Russian media, but it is most prominent against the background of post-Soviet media space.

These are the two major complementary types of representing constructing reality; they can and must co-exist, albeit while discrediting and maligning, but not ignoring one another.

Meanwhile, it is unclear what choices the audience is to make and whether it has to make any. But to what extent does this give grounds for anxiety and conclusions that the country is again hovering on the brink of totalitarianism? The second reason why the opposition of TV and the Internet is present in the Russian media is that printed press can no longer claim to be the universally significant, national medium.

After the post recession, the press partly regained its influence and circulation by the beginning of the 21st century, but it is at the moment represented chiefly by specialized or local media.

Unlike the universally significant values that reconstruct the national identity, the universally significant news is not fully in demand by Russian society, since there is not enough interest in the global problems of politics, economics or culture. The latter category also includes local news. This is the reason why local TV and radio stations have become serious rivals of central channels in the post-perestrojka period: the quality of programmes and the professional skills of local journalists have improved, while the profit made by advertising has afforded local stations the opportunity to function normally [Cvik ].

No independent group with its own system of ideas and interests has appeared. It seems to me that the situation has somewhat changed recently. People are not watching TV any more perhaps because the old forms have finally stopped working? Or have they given up the ritual exchange of remarks and started discussing something different? This is a purely private observation, I am not sure if this process can be verified. But what about the Levada Centre polls monitoring the situation all over the country?

Yet it is clear that television has become boring and the TV set no longer occupies the place of honor in the household. Although the situation is still pretty much as described in Russia as a whole, in central areas the attitude towards television is beginning to change, and people are becoming less and less dependent on it. The evident and rapid reduction of diversity on TV has led to changes in the audience demographic, as more audience members change their allegiance to the printed press, which is more diversified, or the radio, which does not distract one from other activities.

The Internet is high on the list of mass media that the inhabitants of the capitals now prefer to the TV.

For such people, it is the radio and the Internet that have become the principal mass media. In present-day Russia there is a growing number of musical radio stations that regularly broadcast short news bulletins throughout the day. It is also interesting to note that some popular radio stations like Ekho Moskvy are known mainly for their analytic reviews and moderately oppositional views. Since the s, media studies have become in Russia one of the major areas of humanities.

After the ubiquitous pluralism of the Perestrojka times, there is a clear need to make the world cognizable once again. The gap that appeared during the crisis of the printed press immediately started filling up with various Internet publications. The news sector of the RuNet is still a national newspaper of sorts, read by a small, socially and geographically contained part of the population.

Nevertheless, the Internet brings back the faith in the realization of an ideal journalistic model: the principles of plurality, multiple points of view, ongoing critical discussion, diversity and political neutrality are suggested by the nature of this medium. A concise description of the context of Russian media, against which TV and the Internet should be compared, would be incomplete without mentioning the growing role of radio.

At the same time, an important alternative to culturology methods is the methodology of cultural sociology, based on poll data and offering quantitative ways of verifying the research results. I would not place culturology in opposition to cultural sociology, as if culturology never used precise methods.

But this is my own opinion: I understand culturology as a wide field including cultural sociology. This leads to a different question though: how do cultural studies treat the media? Are media studies the same thing as culturology? Gudkov, the head of a department in the Levada Centre, one of the most authoritative sociological centres of present-day Russia.

In order for it to be required, it has to be included in the division of labour between empirical sciences, enhancing its conceptual apparatus by theoretical language and interpretation means used by other social sciences and humanities. This problem is, to my [L.

I do not fully agree with the rigorous view formulated by L. Gudkov: I am certain that Russian culturology offers wide opportunities for scholarship. But I agree that the problem of method and methodology remains a painful one for Russian culturologists.

Culturology is to a large extent, a problem field rather than a scholarly area. It is noteworthy, however, that the hypothesis of negative identity is of limited use and is linked to a rather narrow field of phenomena. A more realistic explanation of many Internet phenomena can be provided by the logic of de-identification. The analysis of or the search for? While the chosen approach is irrelevant with regard to talk shows, reality shows and other entertainment programmes, it conforms fully to the main subject of this article — the study of news.

Russian news programmes Information programmes are one of the most popular research subjects in media studies. At the same time, the Russian media audience gives news high status and top ranking in the popularity polls. Russians often turn on their TV- or radio sets as soon as they wake up many watch morning information and entertainment programmes while having their breakfast.

Office workers start their day by browsing the online news. Evening time spent with the family is associated with watching TV, and news programmes are often scheduled to be watched during a family supper. Among the locally specific features of the more popular Russian TV news programmes are their comparatively small share, their unambiguous presentation of information without discussions, as well as the paucity of transmitted values.

Thus, high ratings of TV news programmes since the year can be explained by something quite different from the mass interest in information programmes during the Gorbachev era, when the whole country was riveted to a succession of broadcasts of party congresses, lasting for hours at a time, as the people felt that they were, at last, taking part in decision-making at State level.

The most important aspects of the information programmes, consequently, are the agenda setting, the presentation methods and the time distribution between episodes, rather than their content per se. Information programmes on Russian TV do not wholly fulfill another function believed important by normative media theory authors: that of introducing their audiences to current events through alternative points of view.

This has led to the growth of often unwarranted trust in the Internet as a source of information. Displayed on one screen and connected by hyperlinks, news websites and information agency news logs, Russian- and English-language resources create the impression of boundlessness, impossibility of control and plurality of information streams. Besides, the Internet is the first and main source of information for the newsmakers themselves and this fact alone makes it an important component of the information field in Russia as a whole.

Other channels, such as TVC, copy the agenda set by the central channels. Their ever-growing number is an indicator of the commercialization of Russian television and a result of the crisis in the information genres. These channels have created their own analogues of information releases, which help to form an alternative opinion of the news: news that is outside politics and economics, giving the private world a priority over the public one. The field of RuNet websites is diverse and inexhaustible, which is especially evident in comparison with the homogenous TV programmes.

Among the websites presenting universal news, professional journalists give high ratings to large information agencies such as RIA Novosti [] and Interfax []. Information agencies: Highly rated by journalists 44 RIA Novosti is a State structure, so judging by the general train of thought of the article it must also be working for the State agenda setting. This is in fact their main function: collecting the information for journalists.

The websites of such agencies are used by news channels that do not have their own correspondents and information sources. This becomes evident as soon as we start comparing the TV news with information agency news logs. This issue has already been widely covered [e. We cannot regard State-owned and private resources as being one and the same thing, but we can compare them, since they exist in relatively equal conditions. Do Internet versions of TV news programmes attempt to win over the readers who have already been lost as TV-viewers?

However, this is happening, not because the news content has changed, but simply because they are present on the RuNet. I wonder if the news on the TV channel websites is any different from TV news as such — in structure, agenda or other criteria. Or do they give the same impression of being monolithic The agenda of TV news is easy to reconstruct, while its monolithic and permanent character does not deter either journalists or viewers. Within the current priority-setting, a pseudothematic form of reporting has been able to prevail: isolated and often insignificant events can be presented as evidence of the successes of present-day Russian politics.

Putin, S. Shojgu, Ju. Luzhkov, S. There is more variety where foreign figures are concerned, but on the whole, the amount of time allocated to the coverage of international events has been significantly reduced.

Thus, until a short time ago, information channels were fond of juxtaposing Presidents Putin and G. While Bush was often presented as uncouth and uneducated and prone to make cultural and language blunders, Putin was always presented as smart and confident and appeared to be aware of everything that was going on. This is what we are doing — informing!

The REN-TV newsmakers claim that their programmes are structured according to the relevance of the news reports: news concerning the President and the Government are broadcast first only if some important State legislation has been passed. But the lack of a real diversity of viewpoints creates a situation where the few existing private channels that insist on the independence of their information policy are forced to voice opposing views on the main points of the national agenda: their criticism of the main issues and figures is contrasted with the optimistic coverage by the central channels but the significance of certain topics remains unchallenged.

This is an indication that present-day Russian TV has moved towards complying with world standards. Nevertheless, the Russian media have their own specificity which was discussed above: the homogeneity of the information field, the uniformity and lack of discussions, etc.

In order to explain this, the following hypothesis can be put forward. The customary mistrust of media materials removes the necessity of creating the illusion of valid TV news. In fact, TV news leads the viewer to nationwide identity via negative identification, using the universal quality of television.

Thus, the target audience has virtually no influence over the news content. Against the background of thematic uniformity it is easy to discern the emotional agenda: the relevance of issues is in correlation, not only with screen time allocated to specific episodes, but also with the familiar intonations associated with a specific topic.

The familiar agenda is set against the rhetoric of protest and criticism: the speech patterns of the presenters are similar to the emotional speeches of the Young Communist League meetings. The appeal to emotions is a necessary part of any mass-produced product [see, for instance, Freud , ], which includes TV news. This is why creating an emotional environment is not something typical to Russian TV alone: the public frenzy over the protection of civic society values is similar in its psychic origin to the mass hysterics over a newly-elected President.

But such cases immediately expose the drawbacks of the Russian media system: all the channels, news- papers and even the Internet are filled with standard-made reports deprived of information, while the interpretation of the events is nearly always the same.

While there is a natural explanation for uniform reports of tragic events, the appearance of standard bulletins on different channels and in different newspapers can even be perceived as a well-planned PR stunt, although, this is more likely due to the paucity of sources used by the journalists than to clever spin-doctoring.

It must be said that such a situation on Russian TV reflects not only the passivity of post-Soviet audiences, but also the immanent processes characteristic of mass media. The informational society as opposed to the information society is one in which the recipient no longer reacts to the information logic and content per se, but to its form and other formerly peripheral characteristics.

In the informational society it is important to be aware, to know which issues are topical and what is on the agenda. This is why television, with its relaxing lack of options, is a way of testing the new ways of absorbing the information when there is plenty of it, especially on the Internet.

Small print, windows of various sizes with text placed inside them, hypertext — all this can befuddle an inexperienced user and suggests some audience selection. Only those who are certain of what they seek and who can navigate the combinations of confused snatches of text can become permanent users of news websites. Often, the illusion of diverse information is created by means of splitting the information into tiny segments. The agenda of Internet sites is not evident; it is marginally located, pushed to the boundaries, which only highlights its importance in defining the information field.

The information is placed on news websites according to the peripheral way it is intended to be browsed through and the visual tricks creating the illusion of diversity are a way of luring the reader to the hypertext — the variety of commercial inserts located on the screen periphery is contrasted with the paucity of the sought-after information.

Bringing the comparison with other mass media even closer, one can say that the main distinctive feature of the Internet is the absence of State control. The lack of attention paid to the Internet by State Authorities is due to the small percentage of Internet users among the population. However, such mass popularity is unlikely in the immediate future, due to both objective reasons such as the slow rates of technological spread and subjective ones. The RuNet space nurtures the Soviet traditions of underground, closed communities and conspiracies.

RuNet founders do not conceal their counter-cultural or opposition views, but to maintain these views, it is necessary to remain a minority. Resources like Gazeta. News websites are not, of course, random collections of messages — they contain quite conventional headings within a traditional hierarchy of political news followed by economics and culture, plus the In many ways, news websites imitate the layout of a newspaper page.

But there are important differences: we are dealing with a hypertext, interactive newspaper linked to the news log. But it is evident that other important criteria make news sites very different from printed national newspapers.

First of all, their readership is even smaller than that of regional periodicals. I agree that one can find traces of the traditional hierarchy on the Internet news websites. For example, the Newsru. But on other information websites the hierarchy is more difficult to discern. The Polit. The news appears at intervals, from one to twenty minutes, which creates the impression of a permanent and uncontrolled stream of information.

Visually, any comments or analyses take second place: they are located in the margins of the screen or even hidden by hyperlinks. Besides, the presence of a news log is a real and visual reminder of the history of professional journalism in the post-Soviet period, when key authors of many influential periodicals were experts in one field or another, rather than professional journalists. The same model is realized on the RuNet: readers absorb the current information without the mediating role of a professional presenter; they themselves take the place of experts and evaluate the relevance of events and the present-day reality.

There are special areas allocated to such texts on the news websites forums, reader feedback, etc. It is noteworthy that news logs reflect yet an alternative, more democratic way of shaping the event. This is a very topical issue and I like this approach.

We are still talking about official art and State kitsch, Soviet monumentality, the eternal Russian ballet and the love of all things classical because there is nothing modern? Internet news and TV news are not in opposition; they are built within the mass media space and use the technical facilities of a different medium and the aesthetic methods of both. The difference in ideological content is largely conditioned by the lack of a common field of audience and information and the absence of State interest in total control over the Internet.

This reflects the search for self and a national complex connected with the absence of historically formed identity. Translation by Maria Artamonova. The question remaining is, who actually celebrated the Internet and for what reason? The following article will analyse some patterns of appropriation of the Internet in Russia, while focusing on the metaphorical inscription of the Internet into the official discourses and the formation of alternative public spheres.

Only on closer inspection, may the two main strategies be observed. The first aims at integrating the Internet into an official cultural context. This strategy is best exemplified by the RuNet Award , which was given to 15 companies and projects for contributing to the development of the Russian segment of the Internet over the past 10 years.

This was not the first attempt to popularize the Internet in Russia by means of a pop style media event. But whereas its predecessor, Nagrada.

By featuring artists, such as the prima ballerina of the Bolshoj Ballet, the Internet became em- Monumentalism and metaphors of fear: official discourses At first sight, the official discourse on the Internet in Russia, as expressed in ministerial releases, government-supported events and public commentary by ruling politicians appears to be both RuNet Show High culture meeting new media.

If my chronology showed the Russian Internet primarily as a creation of talented people, they tend to show it as a product of big corporations. The second official discourse strategy regarding the Internet focuses on popular culture as opposed to high culture. With minimal button pressing, individuals have access to data bases with information about your identity card data, phone numbers, bills, relatives and friends.

So, Luzhkov or the unknown speechwriter links the Internet to a strong national unconscious archetype. Excursus on fear and distrust in post Soviet societies Indeed, the Soviet epoch made a great impact on Russian culture, identity and modern life.

Considering the apocalyptic language used by high-ranking politicians and officials regarding the Internet, there is evidence to suggest that fear is a popular weapon of mass destruction of trust in Freud Roman Ogee Bit Model Russia, even today. People in Roman Ogee Baseboard Router Bit Key Russia are, likewise, not paralysed by their worries. On the contrary, especially with regard to the Internet there is plenty of evidence to suggest that resistance to the seemingly unchangeable is growing. For an accurate understanding of the Russian Internet, which from a Western perspective might lack a political motivated concept of counter public sphere, the following excursus nevertheless appears to be indispensable — even at the risk that the attention given to stereotypes to overcome them in part may contribute to their consolidation.

Rather than obtaining information on how to avoid unnecessary risks and take over responsibility for their own Internet experience, he or she is most likely to become insecure. General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. For this is the hideous spider whose invisible web runs right through the whole of society; this is the vanishing point where all the lines of fear ultimately intersect; this is the final and irrefutable proof that no citizen can hope to challenge the power of the state.

And even if most of the people, most of the time, cannot see this web with their own eyes, nor touch its filaments, even the simplest citizen is well aware of its existence, assumes its silent presence at every moment in every place, and behaves accordingly — behaves, that is, so as to acquit themselves in those hidden eyes and ears. In view of this, it is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied, more than ever before, by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record […].

Nor is it surprising, in these circumstances, that corruption among public employees of all kinds, their willingness openly to accept bribes for anything and allow themselves shamelessly to be swayed by whatever considerations their private interests and greed dictate, is more widespread than can be recalled during the last decade. Korchagina ]. What, in other words, is the effect on people of a system based on fear and apathy, a system that drives everyone into a foxhole of purely material existence and offers him hypocrisy as the main form of communication with society?

To what level is a society reduced by a policy where the only aim is superficial order and general obedience, regardless of by what means and at what price they have been gained? Social Schizophrenia Communist parties in Eastern Europe pursued policies designed to create social homogeneity, so that they could justifiably claim to represent the interests of the People-as-One, a collective subject from which it had effaced meaningful differences.

Bipolarity, in short, became constitutive of the social person. Asked which nationalities or ethnic groups they most disliked or found most annoying, respondents were most likely to mention Caucasians in general and Chechens in particular [FOM ].

Annette Markham, a researcher in communication studies, underlines the specific function of metaphors for the perception of communication technologies in general and the Internet in particular [Markham ]. They determine their personal and social activity. Against this background, metaphors of the Internet fulfil an explicit political function and are an object of political instrumentalization.

According to a study by Lee Ratzan [] the usage of metaphors describing the Internet is largely determined by the personal experiences of the speakers.

Ratzan comes to the conclusion that it is the low comfort levels of the inexperienced users, when confronted with the complex information networks of the WWW, that lead them to favour a more restrictive use of imagery, i. It is precisely these qualities that produce a feeling of fear when contrasted with closed objects and spaces, such as sheltered homes or controlled informational protection zones.

The article by Jurij Luzhkov, published in a traditional newspaper and addressed to a non-professional public, largely relies on this effect: based on the usage of metaphors of fear it appeals to an urge for control, which is still dominant in post-Soviet Russian society.

It is expressed by those who have yet to experience the medium personally, by politicians and — most astonishingly — even by academics and scholars.

Write largely and clearly. Valerij Panjushkin, a prominent commentator from the Internet journal, Gazeta. Or to put it another way: whoever wants to control the Internet — in Russia or elsewhere — needs to control the minds of the people. Yes, Sir! A range of such instruments and their, more or less, successful implementation in Russia are described in the chapter by Anna Bowles on the development of the RuNet. As embarrassing, or even threatening as these attempts might be, their effects will not lead to total or even effective control of the web.

Too manifold are the ways to elude these measures by encrypting programs or by transferring activities and data to a server abroad. For example, take the inefficient and unsuccessful battle of the Russian government against the Chechen separatist website, Kavkaz. Last but not least, the sheer amount of e-mails and web postings exceeds the capacities of even the most advanced secret services.

Thus, uncontrolled use of the Internet seems to endanger not only the functioning of society and State organization terrorism, financial fraud, copyright violations but also the integrity of the individual.

Despite all the discussions, up to the year , almost no attempts at censorship of the Russian Internet have been seen.

The protagonists of independent and critical media on the Russian Internet unanimously affirm that there is no State control on the web [Rudenskij ]. The discrepancy between the numerous political pledges for State regulation of the Internet on the one hand and the absence of straight forward action on the other, might be interpreted as a strategy to awaken an ominous fear amongst the public, leading them down the path of self censorship.

This was particularly evident in the first years after his election in The German researcher, Viktoria Brunmeier, even suggests that the never-ending discussions concerning RuNet regulation have been raised artificially in order to allow the President to take action against the most trenchant efforts of some 60 State Officials for control and thus to present himself as a guardian of freedom of speech [Brunmeier , 66].

This does not refer solely to the official website of the Kremlin and other governmental institutions, which are not dissimilar to their Western analogues, but concerns the formation of an officially sponsored media sector, as political content on the Russian Internet is media content [Ivanov ]. Alexander interprets this tendency as an effort to control the emerging Internet media sector from the inside. Surely the assumption of an emancipating media policy in Western countries is an exaggeration.

In Germany, as well as in the United States, the notion of Internet control is barely disguised and is frequently put into practice. And one of its most prominent actors has been the Foundation of Effective Politics under the guidance of the polit technologist, Gleb Pavlovskij [see as well, Brunmeier ]. Such successful media resources as Russian Journal, Lenta. It has been extensively covered in the Russian and international press and even served as a plot for a literary novel, the Golem, Russian version, written by Andrej Levkin [].

Pavlovskij himself presents a stylish, intellectual and dissident autobiography in his dossier, offered on the website of the Russian Journal. The moral conflicts suffered by some of the journalists and writers contributing to the politicised online publications of FEP — especially the prestigious Russian Journal — are well documented in the memoirs of Sergej Kuznecov [, ]. However, they seldom led to dynamic action, such as the withdrawal or creation of alternative information projects.

The above cited, Dmitrij Ivanov, who has been working for the Foundation of Effective Politics for several years, claims that the influence of State sponsored Internet media, such as Strana. This may be true; nevertheless the connections between the net community and state power can hardly be ignored with regard to questions of media usage and the public sphere. What is the nature of this power? Is it really State power? And what is the State power itself, who represents it in Russia?

The Kremlin? Putin personally? And this is an open question at the moment for all the political experts in Russia, not only for citizens. Two possible lines of argumentation are proposed. Kuznecov , ]. The above-mentioned institutions preserved a kind of social intercourse that disregarded status; 2. In other words, according to Habermas, the public sphere, which mediates between society and state, is based on the principle that any and all individuals may unite around issues of general interest, without concern for social status, in order to achieve rational consensus by means of critical discussion.

There is no other concept that has sparked off such a productive and fruitful debate on the phenomenon of the public sphere than this one by Habermas, which has been frequently attacked for being overly idealized. Social equality is not a necessary condition for political democracy. The absorption of a critical and creative web community into official and commercial institutions is a phenomenon of general relevance. Thus, the open content movement has been extensively criticized for its collaboration with the global players of the information industry.

An assumption of purity of personal notions, economical and political intentions would be naive in a complex world, but the underlying motives differ with regard to the cultural contexts.

According to Fraser, bracketing of social inequalities in deliberation does not foster participatory parity. A single public sphere is always preferable to a nexus of multiple publics.

Since in a single, comprehensive, overarching public they have no arenas for deliberation among themselves about their needs, objectives, and strategies, subordinated social groups, such as women, workers, peoples of colour and homosexuals, have repeatedly found it advantageous to constitute alternative publics, Fraser writes. Discourse in public spheres should be restricted to deliberation about the common good. A functioning democratic public sphere requires a sharp separation of civil society and the state.

A sharp separation of civil society and the state, Fraser argues, will be unable to envision the 64 forms of self-management, inter public coordination, and political accountability that are essential to a democratic and egalitarian society [ibid. For Nancy Fraser, therefore, a post-modern and post-liberal conception of the public sphere must incorporate at least three characteristics: 1.

As a rule, they must be grammatically correct. A public appearance on television is especially complicated.

A second element enters the scene in this case: the speaker finds himself in a position determined by the recording equipment and the program, not by his own speech. The question remaining is whether or not the above approach is applicable to the Russian context; and if not, why not? Its contents are therefore inverted consciousness.

Yet by virtue of its mode of production, fantasy constitutes an unconscious, practical critique of alienation. In this situation, the compensations that the classical bourgeois public sphere possessed, as compared with the public power relations, become increasingly ineffective. The only antidotes to the production of the illusory public sphere are the counter products of a proletarian public sphere: idea against idea, product against product, production sector against production sector.

It is impossible to grasp in any other way the permanently changing forms that social power takes on in its fluctuations between capitalist production, illusory public sphere, and public power monopoly. Negt and Kluge disagree with Habermas, claiming that: 29, Counter-Culture [ That is more or less the same as to call a woman a counter-man.

And that is often not the case. Neither do I understand what is meant by public sphere. Official State organizations and the associated media? For example, the Zhurnal. People just did what they wanted to because it was natural to them.

The Creation of alternative information resources on the RuNet Since the mids, many alternative or independent media resources on the RuNet have been created. The Internet as an interactive medium with a potentially low introduction level has, for quite a long time, been indeed interpreted as such a place for pure action and self-sufficient cultural activity.

The latter, originally a column devoted to political commentaries, developed into a serious political web magazine with an ambitious mission statement. Rather than informational or political technology, ideology is the declared aim of the journal — ideology being understood as the need of the Russian people to reflect on their personal attitudes towards the political and social situation in their country.

The ideological sphere, in general, is occupied with secondary products, not least because of the senselessness and the deliberate lies of our political sphere. We aim to work with real content, which is why we are challenged by our mission to work on topics and to develop an appropriate language for public political debates.

But the black and white juxtaposition of State power and opposition does not seem reliable to him, either. As Gorny has pointed out: that does not seem to fit into the Russian context. Language in the Russian context is more than a means of communication, it is still a realm of symbolic over-signification, of words that suffer from their historic burden. Though expressing an ideological goal, the producers of the journal are afraid of ideology themselves.

Maybe one of the reasons though it is hardly the main one of this fear is our age — I mean, Vitalij and me. A most insightful example is the Russian Journal. The mission statement, written by its founder and chief-editor, Gleb Pavlovskij in , expressed an ambitious vision: The Russian Journal will be a place, not a refuge.

The Russian Journal indeed turned out to be a success — both as a place and as a community. Its nevertheless iridescent status is insolubly linked with the above cited Gleb Pavlovskij as its co-founder and editor-in-chief.

It has initiated and popularised web journals with highly qualified journalists offering officially sponsored media content.

It has participated in the building and promotion of political parties in Russia, as well as in the Ukraine. In short: it has developed and realized, most successfully, concepts for political public relations [Brunmeier , ].

In the year , Pavlovskij sold most of his media empire. Nevertheless, in , the Foundation of Effective Politics still is an important media player and Pavlovskij a prominent figure in political life. His carefully designed dissident background [Pavlovskij n.

As a gallery owner he promotes critical art projects opposing conservative aesthetical values and focusing on pressing problems of Russian society. Shapoval ] 68 He widened his promotional activities to include politicians as well as artists — the strategies evidently remained the same.

As none of these reactions seem to be adequate, Russia-2 proposes a fourth alternative: to build up an independent cultural, social and political infrastructure in Russia — in short: Russia-2 — which will be prepared for a take over when the old, vertical and inefficient system of Russia-1 crumbles.

It does not have any prefixes, such as non-, counter-, under-, anti-: it simply maintains the distance. Political technologist, promoter of critical art projects, non dissident? The range of possible identifications is wide. Shapoval ]. But within the Russian net community — and beyond its borders — the term is far from being so neutral. On the contrary, it has acquired a kind of mythical status, mostly with a negative connotation. Such black PR, the manipulation of public opinion with the help of compromising materials kompromat , is feared like a kind of black magic, which fits well into the framework of conspiracy, so popular in the contemporary media world.

Biography becomes part of an artistic performance that may incorporate such different ingredients as a dissident background and a modern career as media and Kremlin advisor.

On the one hand, there were only politicized works dedicated to the idea of terrorism, military culture, Orthodox Church and other sore points in contemporary Russia. The artists as a whole produced works with no content, and the political events or persons they used were just icons. I find them to be rather more akin to Andy Warhol, who produced commercial art than Soviet underground artists, who created really critical art.

Another case study illustrates the complex relationship between arts, entertainment, net culture and political manipulation — of fictions and factions — in perhaps an even more striking manner: The popular electronic newspaper, Dni. Kononenko, a professional computer programmer and writer, is a well known figure in Russian net culture.

Under his pseudonym, Mr. This polit-serial or, better, web soap opera is a sometimes critical, sometimes funny parody of the official image of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

But the anchorman of Dni. Both, Kononenko and Rykov were once active participants in the counter-cultural resource, Fuck. Thus, the electronic newspaper Dni. In consequence, rumours have circulated that the project has been completely sponsored by forces close to the Kremlin, in order to promote a more friendly and sympathetic image of the President, using political entertainment as satire and PR. For others, a small case of social agitation and attention is a worthy result of some alternative emancipatory strategies, however long they might succeed before some kind of collapse occurs.

For the third party, there is no use speaking in terms of mainstream, domination and resistance or counterculture, as the initial historical, economic, and social conditions of the society drastically differ from those where such a discourse was raised and developed.

Dissident action has been directed too heavily — in its civil rights engagement as well as in its aesthetic values — against the system of State power, thus re producing — at least in the minds of the next generation — a dissident culture that is a mirror image of the State structure it opposed. Both — the dissident and the official Soviet culture — have, from that point of view, primarily been ideologically grounded.

Instead, a fascination for the mechanisms, or rather the aesthetics of political power, can be observed. Against this background the Russian net community reacts only slowly and with great pain and reluctance to the changing social and political conditions taking place under the presidency of Vladimir Putin and characterized by an intensifying media control.

This is even more the case as part of the Internet resources offering alternative platforms for publication relies heavily on money from the so called oligarchs, who, on their part, try to influence public opinion wherever they see a chance to do so. Instead, the use of metaphors of monumentalism and national pride, striving to make the Internet part of the national culture, is increasing.

This shift becomes apparent especially when using the Runet hymn, nowadays performed at the beginning of the official Runet Award ceremony, as an example Please note that the following translation is not in tune with the rhythmic and rhyme structure of the text : Runet! You are uniting us! Music — Valerij Batashev. Lyrics — Anatolij i Valerij Batashevy, Nikolaj Stolicyn First verse Millions of paths, millions of ways, You entered our lives imperceptible The moment was wonderful, wonderful was the day: We fell in love with you whole-heartedly.

From portal to portal goes the signal, For that the girl in snowy Siberia May read, how Gagarin flew to Cosmos, That our country is the best in the world. Refrain: Runet! You are uniting us.

You offer us freedom. You make our lifes easier. Russia the Great! Virtual spaces! Without end or borders! Runet Second verse Cyberspace where today exists Whole Russia from one end to the other Opened the doors into the future Collecting, Creating, Enlightening.

And Moscow and Rostow get nearer to you Coming to life in your monitor, And it is not by chance that you appeared in our lives: And everything will change for the better. Refrain Third verse With a reliable web you bound forever Everything existing in boundless Russia All Russian villages and cities And the richness of the cultures of the world. Every class, every house, by modem connected join in the digital expanses. Colleague, counsellor and even postman, With its help we got a little bit closer to each other.

Refrain Final, on the music of the refrain Runet! To thousands of questions, Runet! You give the right answer! Runet The hymn is sung by two opera singers and richly orchestrated. At the end there is a solo of church bells ringing. In this context it might be noted, that four of the top ten websites that received the Runet Award were affiliated to the Russian Orthodox Church which plays an important role in the online world too.

The almost mythological steppes are semantically digitalized. A subversive padonki-version of the Runethymn, by the way, appeared only a little later. Nevertheless, it would be to simplistic to propose an evolutionary model, supposing that metaphors of fear are more efficient in the beginnings of the Internet while the politics of identification prove to be more effective on a later stage of development.

For comparison, we may observe in the official discourses in Germany in the years an increasing use of negative semantics with regard to the Internet preparing society for the implementation of specific measures of control for example, the online searching of computers by the legal entities of Federal Secret Services. In July he proposed to deprive potential terrorists — however those might be defined — of mobile phones and Internet.

Counter Public Sphere With regard to the development of the Russian web community, throughout the years significant changes may be observed as well. Some strategic web resources have been sold to State near media corporations. Thus, the popular web magazine Gazeta. Observers interpreted the deal as part of the preparations in the media landscape for the presidential elections. Usmanov himself explained his engagement in media business as motivated purely by economical reasons.

Editorial policies of Gazeta. Russian Journal, Polit. Russian Journal Unlike e. Thus, authors are usually not selected with regard to the coherence of their political views with editorial policies. On the contrary, websites like Grani. The same is true of Russian Journal. Regardless of the opposing views presented, the content of Russian Journal distinguishes itself by a more and more nationalist and patriotic mission, corresponding to the role its editor in chief Gleb Pavlovskij is still playing in official politics.

In this spirit, it most typically stands for those parts of Russian contemporary media elites that tend to see the future of Russia in the imperial traditions of the Soviet Union. Vitalij Lejbin, chief-editor in , has left the magazine and is now in charge for the newly established print magazine Russian Reporter. The Russian Reporter started in spring It aims to adopt the model of such popular print magazines as the German Stern or the American Times Magazine and aims until autumn at a remarkable circulation of about While members of the editorial staff of Russian Reporter deny the idea of Mr.

The new chief editor of Polit. Levkin in the interim has been working for some time at the seemingly ubiquitous Pavlovskij Foundation of Effective Politics like quite a lot of protagonists on the Russian Internet. The provocative nature of the project has turned out to be effective in the sense that it acquired the attention of a large public, not in the least recruited of people who have been living throughout the last years with the amusing daily anecdotes on Vladimir.

She has been involved in the scandal around the fake website discrediting Moscow Mayor Jurij Luzhkov when he was voting for the office of President in Her career thus illustrates a fundamental change if not of mind so at least of political affiliation once again typical for significant parts of Russian media elite. She is considered as one of the most successful polit technologists and has now, as quite a lot of the protagonists, changed sides — but unlike Maksim Kononenko to the opposite side.

Political responsibility for the assault on Litvinovich in was laid by her friends and colleagues directly on Russian president Vladimir Putin and the head of the Presidential administration Vladimir Surkov. Kononenko rejects this opinion in a rude way, and introduces the reverse version of Marina Litvinovich being beaten up by her own entourage who were utilizing the suffering of a woman for their political goals, in other words: for the sake of regime change.

The same logic has led to the hypotheses that oligarch Boris Berezovskij might have ordered the murder of Anna Politkovskaja in October — or of Litvinenko in spring What is the point here with regard to the topic of counter public spheres on the Russian Internet?

Roughly spoken, there may be distinguished a utopian and a dystopian vision. In the first case, the networked structure of new media leads to the emergence of new public spheres for groups of people not represented in traditional media.

In the second case, the volatility of the new media, the speed of the proliferation of information as well as the enlarged possibilities for faking contents with the help of digital technology, endanger the traditional public sphere. So is the Russian Internet a place stimulating the emergence of new public spheres? No, said journalist and writer Masha Gessen on a conference dedicated to samizdat and new media in September in Vienna. Because, according to her argumentation, there is no way out of the Internet from discussion into action.

Moscow political scientist Lidija Shevcova assists in an article published in spring the repressive politics of the State institutions do not meet any resistance as long as the freedom of the individual for travelling or for self-expression in the limited spheres of the Internet or alternative culture are not threatened.

From this perspective, the so called dot. Such a willingness to oppose power is not to be witnessed, at least with regard to the main parts of the intelligencija. They survive in their blogs and networks on their own, until present. They are satisfied by their individual freedom and, maybe, a certain breaking point is needed in order to make them unite, a breaking point that will make them feel the pressure and put an end to their amorphous status. Until then they exist in parallel worlds.

The argument of Masha Gessen and Lidija Shevcova, in varying degrees, is close to Vaclav Havel, postulating that a return into the private spaces of consumerism, travelling and individual freedom of expression is a stabilizing factor with regard to system power.

On the other hand, it seems to be unfair to reduce the existing alternative production spheres as totally insignificant. As have shown the works of Moscow conceptualism in the s, there is no place outside the system and any resistance in the long run turns out to be a factor for system stabilization. Instead, we would rather like to reverse the argument in that sense, that the technological and media intelligencija is not apart from politics, but a partly supports the nationalist and patriotic policies of the State institutions and b is fascinated by the mechanisms of virtual politics within which they actively engage.

We would like to put forward the hypothesis that the Internet in Russia suffers not from its insignificance but from the fact that it has in its early times, in the s, been transformed into a valuable tool of political manipulation. Precisely its marginality made it so efficient as a subaltern sphere, producing content for the traditional media.

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