ethnicity & nationhood on russian state- aligned tvproblems. Both channels linked the difficulties to Europe’s crisis
of multi- culturalism. The broadcasters also claimed that the inevi-
table consequence of Europe’s migration policies was a rise in
radical right- wing popular support and electoral success. The
message was that Russia should not mimic Western diversity
management policies.^32
After the 2012 presidential election, several factors combined
to create a context in which broadcasters drastically changed
their treatment of migration. These included the legitimation of
Putin’s regime through the intensified identification of ‘foreign’
and ‘internal enemies’ supposedly keen to exploit the country’s
problems; increased concern in the Kremlin about Russian eth-
nonationalism; and the effect on reporting practices of journalists’
prejudices unchecked by codified reporting guidelines. Soon after
Putin’s inauguration the two channels began an anti- immigration
campaign that lasted until the autumn of the following year when
a series of ethnically motivated riots across Russia prompted a
return to more restrained reporting. Rather than being depicted as
‘compatriots’ (sootechestvenniki), Central Asian migrants began
to be represented as a major threat to Russian identity, and direct
parallels were drawn between migrants in Russia and in the
West.^33 North Caucasian citizens of the Russian Federation resid-
ing in Moscow were systematically described as migrants and
‘parasites’ (glisty). Unlike in earlier coverage, the reported inabil-
ity of migrants in Western Europe to integrate was linked to what
was now depicted as the incompatibility of Muslim and Christian
values.^34 Previously, migration reports rarely, if ever, evoked Islam
(Tolz and Harding 2015). Dominated by anti- Western (and anti-
Ukrainian) sentiment, the late 2013–early 2014 saw a significant
lull in the anti- migrant campaign, but, as Paul Goble suggests, an
article claiming extensive Central Asian migrant involvement in
extremist activities posted on the Svobodnaia pressa portal in July
2014 indicated that its dormancy may be but temporary (Goble
2014).