ABSTRACT
Despite intense academic and media interest in the nature of the Russian television system during Putin’s presidency, few analysts have chosen to examine the content of television news. The majority of scholarly works on the Russian media centre exclusively on ownership to explain the function of television in the political sphere. Analysts assume that whoever finances a channel – be it the state or a corporation – sets the agenda for coverage. Rather than undertaking empirical research, analysts of the Russian media have mainly adopted a normative approach, comparing the Russian television system to an idealised liberal model, thought to exist in Western Europe and the United States (Hallin and Mancini 2004: 10). In judging the Russian media system in terms of its distance from the liberal ideal of the neutral ‘watchdog’ press, analysts reflect more on what journalism should be than analysing what it is and why (Pasti 2005: 94). Notable exceptions include studies by Andrei Raskin (2001) and Sarah Oates (2006), and the media monitoring reports produced by the European Institute for the Media (EIM 1999; 2000) and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR 2004a; 2004b), all of which examine the content of Russian news programmes broadcast on national television during federal election campaigns. Yet, analysed in isolation, election coverage provides an obscured understanding of the political function of Russian television news. Television coverage in the month leading up to Russian elections is subject to special laws that hamper the normal functioning of the media. To address the broader political function of Russian television, this chapter examines news content outside the special circumstances of an election campaign. It seeks to assess the role of television in Russian politics towards the end of Putin’s first terms in office with a content analysis of television news programmes Vremya , broadcast on state-controlled Channel One and Segodnya , broadcast on commercial NTV. To assess the level of presidential influence over Russian television, it is necessary to understand what messages are presented by the news and how they are constructed. The study presented here, therefore, focuses on the way in which television content is manufactured and the interests that it serves. It attempts to answer two questions: first, who sets the agenda for Russian television news and second, is the news agenda the same across different channels?
