Artificial engagement in Russian popular media Between the Center and the rural

Ali Suleiman
5 min readJul 6, 2021

There is a trend in popular Russian TV series in the past 3 years depicting a character, the protagonist, from Moscow accidently ending up in a remote insignificant part of Russia. As the protagonist is stuck in this small town, he cannot help it but to get involved in the livelihood of locals, helping people to improve their life standards, and falling in love with a local lady. All of this goes through a comedy soup-opera structure, in which every episode is yet another failed attempt to leave the town back to Moscow. At the end of this existential soup-opera journey, the protagonist decides to stay in the small town and engage further in the local simple life trying to help people improve their livelihood and fight corruption. This article is exploring the theme in the literature on popular media and making the first step in analyzing this media trend in popular Russian TV shows.

There is a theoretical framework in the literature on popular media that explains the success behind this simple repetitive structure in Russian TV series. It can be understood through a modern approach in analyzing popular media and it is based on self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), which suggests that individuals are constantly seeking to satisfy their fundamental needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their everyday lives. Some authors take a step further in arguing that entertainment media is “just one tool that can and often is used to partially satisfy these needs (Vorderer 2011).” This is quite common in most of the Russian entertainment production. The interesting part about this phenomenon is that almost the entirety of Russian popular shows take place in Moscow, but these TV shows are targeting specific remote regions in Russia and are filmed in such locations.

In observing this pattern, three modern Soup-opera Russian TV series will be considered, they are “Полярный (polyarni), Жуки (Joki), Дылды (Dildi)”.

It is worth exploring whether these Russian Series are merely popular culture aiming for high viewing rates and commercial success or they can be read as one among political and ideological tools of the ruling class. The purpose of such tool in Russian context would be to implement an artificial sense of connectedness and participation between the Center, Moscow, and the far parts from Russia in the East and South.

Anti-elite sentiment is common and very popular in other countries. The three series mentioned above recognize anti-elite sentiment and attempt to incorporate these unheard voices into the stories. For example, in “Polyarni”, there is a lot of side stories related to fighting corruption, shedding light on underdeveloped infrastructure and the tough life of the pensioners.

A similar question was raised by researchers working on analyzing popular media in Thailand after the death of the last king discusses this issue thoroughly. They noted a frequent presence of anti-elite sentiment and emphasis on the voices of the marginalized people, who were the target audience of these TV Shows. The producer of these anti-elite shows in Thailand were very well connected to the political elite in Thailand, which raises many questions here. For example, why would elite in a country sponsor anti-elite sentiment in popular media?

In the Russian context, the first two of these shows “Полярный (polyarni), Жуки (Joki), are 100% owned and produced by TNT Channel, one of the most popular entertainment channels in modern Russia. The channel is owned by Gazprom media, related to the Gazprom oil and gas company that has very close and controversial ties to the Kremlin.

Polyarni, 2019 filmed in the remote East, Joki, 2020 filmed in the remote south.

Rebecca Joubin, an associate professor, and Chair of Arab studies at Davidson College, attempts to answer a similar question in Arabic media as political elite also sponsor anti-elite sentiment in popular media. Joubin discusses a method used by the political elite in Arabic countries, especially in Syria before 2010. The method is knowns as “Tanfis”, literally meaning releasing pressure in Arabic. In her work the researcher describes a period in which Syrian popular TV shows, especially comedy ones, were depicting and showing many sketches of corruption in the regime and criticizing the policies of the government. These sketches were produced and aired under the approval of the state media department and security agencies controlling and mentoring all media activities in the country. The researcher believes that the political elite in Syria understood the importance of allowing people to release pressure in a minor scale while still living under strict control of the regime. In short, the political elite wanted to control and limit the type of criticism they receive in popular media, by producing a lighter and smoother version of it. One way to achieve that, the researcher points out, is through depicting anti-elite and anti-corruption themes in popular media.

The political context and environment in both Syria and Thailand are very different and almost incomparable to the one in Russia. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be drawn from the research done on popular media in these countries.

The last series on our list, “Dildi” although from a different production company, CTC, it follows similar structure of plot and other elements. All of the three series follow the structure of 24 minutes per episode, with 15 or more episodes per season. Every episode presents a problem or an obstacle that prevents the protagonist from going back to Moscow. Every single solved obstacle leads to another one, making the protagonist highly involved in the daily life of the local people.

Dildi depicted in a tiny insignificant town thousands of miles from Moscow.

The political environment in Russia is changing and people in the remote areas are becoming more aware of the world around them and more contempt with Moscow and its policies, which are often resulting in further marginalization of the remote areas in Russia.

The events of last January 2021, demonstrates this notion when thousands from all around Russia went out to protest because of the arrest of opposition journalist Alexy Navalni. Even in the coldest and most remote city in Russia Yakutsk, where the show Polyarni is depicting its location, had a considerable number of protesters (BBC, 2021).

This article does not claim a coordination between political elite intention to reach out to and engage with the remote parts of Russia with some trends in popular media, rather the article raises a question that is worth considering and further exploration.

In conclusion, the political environment in Syria and Thailand are very different from the one in Russian, nevertheless some lessons from the research done on their popular media can be applied in Russian media to understand some of the new media trends in modern Russian and pave the road to investigate a relationship between Elite goals and their influence on popular media in Russia. This theme is worth exploring further and in more details.

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Ali Suleiman
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Global communication researcher and media analysis