ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how challenges have been manifested, on why such a development might occur and on what it tells about the relationship between the Kremlin and federal broadcasters, through the prism of television coverage of migration issues. The selection of officials and experts is such that only a minority of the speakers support the Kremlin-endorsed position, namely, that migration is essential for the country's economy and that inter-ethnic harmony can be achieved through state-sponsored integration schemes. A discussion of the political context of post-election Russia, and the chapter considers how television's overall treatment of the 'national question' has shifted following Putin's re-election. Analysing the campaign within the broader context of European media reporting on migration, the author considers what this campaign tells us about the increasingly contradictory public discourse on Russian identity. The rise of isolationist ethnic Russian nationalism that is criticized in Putin's article is justified as the local population's understandable reaction to migrant behaviour.
