the new russian nationalismOf all inter- ethnic stories, a significant portion is accounted for
by coverage of issues that relate to other countries (particularly
migration and violent conflict) and that alleviate any impres-
sion that Russia is unusually plagued by inter- ethnic tensions
(Figures 11.2 and 11.3).
In the context of the barrage of conflicting messages that
national television was compelled to disseminate in reaction to
unanticipated crises such as the Manezhnaia riots (Hutchings
and Tolz 2012), the paltry airtime domestic inter- ethnic relations
normally receives indicates the extent to which the Kremlin had
been struggling with its own nation- building policy. Within this
overall picture, however, the topic of separatist violence in the
North Caucasus demonstrated a relatively high degree of sali-
ence, at least on Vremia, which follows the Kremlin’s line more
closely than Vesti, and that aimed to reaffirm it in relation to a
particularly sensitive problem. As we see from Figure 11.4, more
than North- Caucasus- related stories featured among the first
three items within the running order of Vremia bulletins during
the recording period, with all other categories on both channels
attracting fewer than twenty- five items in the top three.
To explore the tensions further, on the one hand, the Kremlin
was consistent throughout most of our recording period in
Figure 11.1 Frequency and intensity of ethnicity- related news as a
percentage of the overall news content