ABSTRACT
This chapter deepens the analysis of mediatization’s impact on Russian nation projection in the context of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, arguing that its actions were pre-inscribed with the meanings attributed to them by the various platforms on which they were subsequently reported. Specifically, it examines the structure of the barefaced lie that the Kremlin told regarding the identity of the ‘Polite Green Men’ who occupied Crimea, arguing that it involved a form of knowingly contradictory double-voicedness, in which Russian denials were both true and untrue. This phenomenon is linked to mediatization’s reliance on assemblages of hybrid media sources located at the centre, periphery, and extra-periphery of the Kremlin discourse. Thus, the emergent ‘Polite People’ meme was appropriated by official Kremlin sources and, through a mythologization process, superimposed on the annexation’s history, such that the initial contradiction (it was both ‘real’ and ‘not real’) is resolved via the concluding ‘Crimea is [and was always] ours’ slogan. Through its grassroots grounding, the phenomenon facilitated a mode of recursive nation-building based around the construction of an ‘in-group’ (including sympathetic and unsympathetic Russian-speaking Ukrainians) able to ‘appreciate’ the double- and triple-voiced humour. The conclusion extends the analysis critically to ‘post-Truth’ readings of Putin’s behaviour.
