ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an analysis of relations between the Russian television media and the state through the prism of elite theory. It is postulated that, since Vladimir Putin came to office in 2000, power relations between the television media and the presidential administration in Russia are more accurately conceptualised in terms of elite conflict than through the traditional lens of democratic transition. Drawing on the work of elite theorists such as John Higley, Michael Burton, Anton Sheen and Vladimir Gel’man, it is argued that clashes between the media and the Kremlin stem largely from differing elite interpretations of the role of the media in Russian society, and the incompatibility of opposing elites’ views on the future direction of political and economic development.1 It is further argued that the autonomy of the non-state-owned television media in Russia has been undermined by four significant factors: a lack of public condemnation of the state’s encroachment on media autonomy; divisions within the Russian journalistic community over accommodation with President Putin; the failure of Russia’s major opposition parties to oppose Putin’s policy towards the media; and the dependence of Russia’s business elites on good relations with the state, and in particular with the presidential administration.
