JRL NEWSWATCH: “Do Russians Believe Putin’s Propaganda?” – Time
“… Even when government campaigns are successful, they struggle for momentum. … Russian propaganda has been pushing stories about how wonderful the Russian medical care is – despite problems …. Such propaganda campaigns work for a few weeks, but then the conversation around this topic on social media becomes negative, and the Kremlin tries to drive it up again. Likewise with mobilisation: the Kremlin pushes campaigns promoting recruiting soldiers, the sentiment online to the policy goes up for a few weeks, before going negative again. This pattern shows how important it is to the Kremlin to control behaviour and the tenor of discourse —and how it struggles to keep control. Perhaps this is the best way to approach ‘public opinion’ in Russia. Rather than about ‘belief’ it should be measured in the extent to which the Kremlin can get people to agree to parrot … official narratives. … This need for control goes deep for Kremlin elites … [who] worry about losing it … [as] the Soviet leadership did in the late 1980s. That was always the threat … Navalny posed …. There was little surprising about … Kremlin corruption …. What was powerful was the way he dared to say the unsayable. So powerful the Kremlin had to kill him. …”