ethnicity & nationhood on russian state- aligned tvthe start has striven to align the main television channels closely
to the Kremlin (Burrett 2011), the Russian media environment is
different from its Soviet predecessor. Although the television news
agenda is shaped actively by the Kremlin,^1 the media are never-
theless open to infiltration by ideas and forms formerly deemed
‘alien’ and there is a greater requirement to respond to grassroots
voices external to approved discourse; indeed, as we shall suggest,
the trajectory that culminated in the extreme univocalism charac-
terising federal television news broadcasts in 2014 has its roots
partially in the earlier perceived need to accommodate voices
‘from below’. Most importantly, the very speed with which the
trajectory was covered is but one indication of the fact that, in
the absence of the single ideological framework that prevailed
in the Soviet period, the current relationship between state and
broadcaster is, and will remain, uncertain.
Sources and methods
We focus on Russia’s two main television channels, Channel 1
and Rossiia, which are still viewed by the majority of its citizens
as the most ‘trustworthy’ information sources.^2 Technically only
part- owned by the state, Channel 1 follows the Kremlin’s line
closely.^3 Rossiia is the main fully state- owned channel. Curiously,
the financial constraints it operates under mean that it plays
second string to Channel 1 as regards its information manage-
ment function. It is therefore accorded less attention from its
political overseers, often leading to a wider range of voices than
may be expected. Rossiia has been assigned the task of integrat-
ing local interests with the national perspective. Therefore, it
is expected to play a particularly important role in promoting
national cohesion.
Television news is located at the intersection of the official
policy positions of the state and the beliefs and concerns of citi-
zens. With its unique mediatory capacity, the news bulletin is our
source material in this article. We base our analysis on two years
of recordings of the flagship news programmes: Vremia (Channel
- and Vesti (Rossiia) for the period from 1 September 2010 to
31 May 2012. The sheer volume of material to be processed ruled