Browsing by master's degree program "Venäjän tutkimuksen maisteriohjelma"

Music in the Metro, a city-run project wherein musicians audition for the right to play in Moscow’s metro system, opened in 2016 following a police crackdown on street musicians in the 2010s and consequent activism by street musicians. This M.A. thesis is based on semi-structured interviews conducted with street musicians in 2017 and 2018. It uses qualitative analysis of interviews to understand the impacts of the Music in the Metro project for the meaning of street music in Moscow—both for street musicians themselves, and in the wider context of cultural production in Russia. The focus of the study is threefold: First, I draw on Russian cultural studies to discuss the history of street music in Moscow and how Music in the Metro has commodified the practice. Second, I use theory based in popular music studies to outline the discursive practice of street music in Moscow and argue that Music in the Metro is incompatible with the standards by which street musicians value their own music. Finally, I apply a spatial perspective to street music to examine the specific implications of the space of the metro. I conclude that despite the city’s attempts to commodify both street music, the performance of street music in Moscow’s metro, even under the aegis of Music in the Metro, can have subversive and transformative meanings.

RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-owned international news broadcaster. It is considered to be one of the Russian government’s key means through which mis- or disinformation can be spread. Russia has been accused of spreading disinformation and causing political polarisation through ‘troll factories’ on social media and state-owned, internationally targeted media outlets such as RT. The presumption that can be found in the existing literature on RT is that it only functions as the Kremlin’s propaganda mouthpiece. Such a stance is problematic; hence, this research instead analyses RT’s coverage of the 2019 European Parliamentary elections as an independent actor separate from the Kremlin. Due to its transnational nature, the European Parliamentary elections in May 2019 were seen as a potential target of Russian interest and hence chosen as the context of this research. Instead of seeking for signs of Russian intervention, the focus is on how RT constructs the notion of a collapsing EU establishment. The materials included in this research consist of 94 articles derived from RT’s English language website. As the research deals with text and meaning-making, discourse theory forms its theoretical framework, while the method of analysis is discourse-theoretical analysis (DTA). DTA employs the key concepts of discourse theory to guide the analysis. In this context, the main concepts are hegemony and antagonism. Hegemony refers to a discourse that holds power and is able to influence social order. A hegemony always implies an antagonism, which is the hegemony’s ultimate ‘other’ that struggles to overturn the hegemonic discourse in order to shift power relations. The analysis shows that in this context, hegemony refers to the EU establishment and ‘mainstream’ media, while antagonism refers to the right-wing anti-establishment and alternative media. The EU establishment and mainstream media are framed as hostile in the articles, as they accuse the anti-establishment having connections to Russia, and RT in particular of being the Kremlin’s messenger. The articles provide counter-evidence of the allegations, thereby discrediting the establishment and mainstream media. The electoral success of the anti-establishment parties is framed as ending the centuries-long hegemony of the EU establishment. By framing the EU establishment and mainstream media in such a manner, the anti-establishment and alternative media are mirrored in a more positive light, representing the true will of the people and acting as the bearers of ‘truth’. These can be seen as increasing the credibility of the anti-establishment and RT in the eyes of the reader.

The past two decades has seen significant shifts (or a rebound) in Russian foreign policy, ranging from Putin’s pragmatic cooperation to a new line of assertiveness under a “rhetoric of resistance” against a perceived US-led Atlantic expansionism. The incommensurate views between Moscow and the Atlantic Community regarding the political layout of the post-Cold War order has seen the emergence of what some would describe as a New Cold War on the European continent. With it has come a renewed focus on Northern Europe and the Arctic. For smaller Nordic countries such as Norway, the collapse of the USSR brough a general optimism that Oslo’s geopolitical position between Moscow and Washington belonged to the past. However, the re-emergence of a Muscovite State capable and willing to assert its interests in opposition to Washington’s hegemonic interests has made it clear that these predictions had not come to pass. During the immediate post-Cold War period, Norwegian foreign and security policy underwent significant shifts in pursuit of its partnership interests vis-à-vis the United States. As such, Norway finds itself increasingly in a squeeze between its partnership interests and increased dependency vis-à-vis United States, and its position as a good neighbour towards Russia. As such, this thesis aims to understand on what grounds Russian perspectives may increasingly come to view Norway as a growing operational piece for US-led ‘post-Cold War expansive Cold War liberal order’?

This master’s thesis argues that the public discussion in Estonia on the necessity of a national Russian-language TV channel was heavily securitized. Following broad debate involving politicians, experts and journalists, the channel ETV+ went on air in 2015, as a part of Estonian Public Broadcasting. This thesis studies statements by Estonian public figures relating to the TV channel through the securitization framework. First, the thesis explores securitization theory, developed by the Copenhagen School. The theory broadens the notion of security to non-military domains. The Copenhagen School argued that an issue becomes a matter of security if placed above every-day politics, once an actor convinces the audience of the existential threat posed to the referent object. Despite extensive criticism, securitization is applicable to the issue of national minorities. The thesis scrutinizes the social and political background of Russian-speakers in Estonia, with special attention devoted to the group’s media landscape. The thesis then pivots to the discussion over ETV+ and the arguments employed. Following either predominantly domestic (the “Bronze Soldier” riots) or global crises (the annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine), numerous concerns were raised about Estonia’s Russian-speaking community, especially its susceptibility to follow the Russian government-controlled media and therefore the community’s challenged loyalty to Estonia. Thus, Russian-speakers were perceived by in Estonian public debate as the group most vulnerable to Russian information warfare. In order to ensure unbiased media coverage, attempts were made to establish a public Russian-language channel in 2007-8. However, these efforts ran short. The state did not opt for a full-scale public Russian-language channel, but limited its support to several commissioned TV shows instead. In 2014-5, the revived debate over the Russian-language channel coincided with European (2014) and domestic (2015) elections, becoming a topic widely discussed by politicians and candidates. Both proponents and opponents of a TV channel referred to the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s hybrid warfare as reasons for or against the channel. Securizing remarks were common within debate, regardless of speaker’s ethnicity/language, political or professional affiliation. The local Russian-speaking community was poorly involved in the early stage of the debate, and its public figures were skeptical over the way and timing the new channel’s creation. Several politicians and journalists tried to convince the audience that the new channel was not a means of counter-propaganda. The creation of a channel was above partisan politics, as both the coalition and the opposition mainly were in favor, albeit with different justifications. This thesis concludes that the securitized debate itself is insufficient to evaluate the channel’s perception by the target audience and its subsequent performance. It therefore proposes several other avenues for prospective research.