Making Sense of the News in an Authoritarian Regime: Russian Television Viewers’ Reception of the Russia–Ukraine Conflict

Abstract

Scholars report contradictory findings regarding whether citizens trust media in autocracies. Relying on focus group methodology, this study uses Russian television viewers’ reception of the Russia–Ukraine conflict to investigate media perception in an autocracy. It argues that citizens in non-democracies lack the opportunities, motivation and tools to substantively process news. When perceiving news, they express both critical and supportive reactions towards the regime without integrating them into coherent views and thus support authoritarian equilibrium by being unable to articulate consistent opinions. This argument helps to explain the paradoxes of media (dis)trust and clarifies the process of media perception in authoritarian political systems.

Since the outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2013, the Russian regime’s attempts to manipulate the public agenda have been particularly intense. Although even prior to the conflict, Russian television was considered to lack objectivity and be highly biased in favour of the regime of President Vladimir Putin (Lipman 2009), the Russia–Ukraine conflict has elevated these concerns to a new level. In 2015, mainstream Russian television news programmes were found to allocate a third of their time to the conflict and to be biased in favour of the Kremlin’s version of the conflict.¹ Although Russian broadcasting is profit-driven and mostly based on private ownership, it is controlled by the state or state-business elite (Vartanova 2011). State control over broadcasting is exercised through managers (Koltsova 2006), but journalists themselves have also developed sophisticated mechanisms of self-censorship (Schimpfossl & Yablokov 2014). Although there is an ‘internet generation’ in Russia who have completely disconnected from broadcast television (Oates 2013), the majority of Russians still rely on television for news (Volkov & Goncharov 2019). There is little doubt among scholars that Russian television news greatly affects domestic audiences. Scholars argue that television channels ‘can effectively shape public opinion’ in Russia (Lipman 2009, p. 10), and federal television channels are considered ‘critical elements of the political system in Putin’s Russia’ (Schimpfossl & Yablokov 2014, p. 296).

However, research on media reception at a deeper level, both in Russia and other authoritarian regimes, has yielded ambiguous findings. Some scholars show that Russian television viewers are skilled at identifying political bias in media (Mickiewicz 2005, 2008). Others argue that Russian television viewers accept political bias in media in exchange for political stability (Oates 2006), or that television taps into sentimental Soviet nostalgia (Hutchings & Rulyova 2009; Sharafutdinova 2020). This ambivalent picture is mirrored in the literature on media reception in authoritarian regimes. Some scholars show that, in non-democracies, citizens are critical of news media for a variety of reasons, including a number of post-totalitarian legacies (Pjesivac et al. 2016). Others argue, to the contrary, that news media in authoritarian countries are trusted (Müller 2013). This trust can result from a variety of factors, such as non-democratic political culture, which make citizens support authoritarian regimes and consider state-owned media credible (Moehler & Singh 2011), and governments’ intricate strategies, such as allowing the criticism of local authorities to let citizens voice their anger publicly (Chen 2014). These ambiguous findings allow us to pose some important questions. How do Russian television viewers make sense of television news about the Russia–Ukraine conflict? How does media reception work in an authoritarian regime? To address these questions, this article draws on focus group interviews I conducted regarding Russian television and its coverage of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

This article uses Russia’s authoritarian regime as a case study to achieve two goals. First, it engages critically with the literature on media reception in non-democratic settings. Unlike the bulk of this research, I rely on cognitive and political psychology to argue that the paradoxes of trust and distrust in news media can be explained by paying attention to the particular psychological mechanisms underlying news reception. When looked at through the lens of psychology, this peculiar mixture of criticism and approval can be seen a result of television viewers’ inability to integrate various considerations. While authoritarian regimes can vary widely, they are all characterised by a set of common features: they constrain elections (Gel’man 2015), limit media freedom (Leeson 2008) and manipulate media organisations (Schedler 2002). As a result, citizens under authoritarian regimes are politically disengaged. Without interest in politics, they cannot meaningfully engage with political information and hastily draw upon ‘top of the head ideas’ in interpreting the news. As a result, instead of coherent attitudes, citizens’ reactions towards the regime can shift from critical to supportive ones and vice versa depending on the situation. Second, this article places these mechanisms in the wider context of political regimes. I argue that this associative processing results from the absence of a political environment that could allow meaningful engagement with politics and the absence of motivation to be informed. Although the Putin regime has been relying on the ‘rally around the flag effect’ since 2014 (Sirotkina & Zavadskaya 2020), in general, authoritarian regimes rely on political demobilisation (Linz 2000). In such regimes, citizens have limited opportunities to learn diverse political information from the media and do not trust parties and politicians who could help them to interpret this information; there is also little perception that political involvement has any tangible effect on elite decisions. Under these conditions, many citizens, while not supporting the regime itself, simply do not challenge authoritarian equilibrium since they are unable to articulate consistent opinions.

The article is organised as follows. I first review the results of research on media reception and political institutions in democracies and autocracies in order to explain how media reception can vary depending on institutional settings. Then, a methodological section outlines the research design, the formulation of research questions and the collection of data. This is followed by an empirical analysis of Russian television viewers’ perception of the Russia–Ukraine conflict and underlying psychological mechanisms. The article concludes by drawing out the implications for media and politics in Russia as well as for media reception in authoritarian regimes.

Media effects and political regimes

Media reception and political institutions

In order to address the research question, I use insights from research on media reception and political institutions to explain contradictions in the research on media reception in autocracies and to better understand how people make sense of news under authoritarian regimes.

The cognitive effects originating from the interaction of individuals with media can be divided into two categories: the accessibility effect and the applicability effect. The accessibility effect happens when particular ideas are repeatedly emphasised in media, thus making them more easily retrievable from memory and more likely to be used (Scheufele & Tewksbury 2007, p. 15). The accessibility effect is derived from associative models of memory (Cacciatore et al. 2016, pp. 11–2), which posit that memory consists of concepts connected by associative links (Quillian 1967; Collins & Quillian 1969). When a particular concept is triggered, nearby concepts are subsequently triggered via associative pathways. This ‘spreading activation’ ‘tags’ specific concepts in the memory and makes them more likely to be activated in the future (Collins & Loftus 1975). Accessibility as a psychological mechanism is used in two classical theories of media effects: agenda-setting theory, which hypothesises that news media determine the importance people assign to issues on the public agenda by repeatedly emphasising these issues (McCombs & Shaw 1972), and priming theory, which hypothesises that news media influence the standards used by people to evaluate governments, policies and political issues (Iyengar & Kinder 1987).

While accessibility implies that more accessible ideas are more likely to be used in making judgments, the applicability effect refers to the match between the perceived message and existing knowledge (Higgins 1996, p. 134). When the overlap between a media message and existing knowledge is sufficient, an individual is likely to activate this stored knowledge to process a stimulus. The applicability effect is derived from schematic models of memory (Cacciatore et al. 2016, p. 12). Schemas are coherent cognitive structures used to process, store and retrieve information (Bartlett 1932; Minsky 1974; Schank & Abelson 1977; Anderson & Pichert 1978). In addition, accessibility is a psychological mechanism that underlines the third classical theory of media effects: framing (Entman 1991; Iyengar 1994). While media present news in ‘easy-to-understand interpretative packages or frames’ (Kim et al. 2002, p. 8), these frames may or may not overlap with respective cognitive schemas in the audience (Scheufele 2000, p. 309). The degree of fit between a news frame and the audience’s cognitive schema will determine whether this news frame affects the audience. As Cacciatore and his colleagues argue, ‘the presence of a cognitive schema that matches the [news] frame should produce a framing effect, whereas a mismatch between [news] frame and schema should fail to produce such an effect’ (Cacciatore et al. 2016, p. 13).

The degree of sophistication of knowledge related to a respective area determines whether interaction with media results in accessibility or applicability effects. For instance, Zaller (1992) argues that citizens process political information by sampling the most accessible ideas in their memory and using them to formulate opinions. When citizens do not have rich political knowledge, their memory typically contains pools of internally conflicting ideas about the political environment. When a certain issue, such as a protest or a reform, is emphasised repeatedly in the news, citizens are reminded of it and can rate this issue as more important or use the government’s handling of the issue as a criterion to evaluate the president’s performance. Since citizen memories contain ideas with different political orientations, the accessibility effect can also change the ideological valence of their opinions: when liberal ideas are emphasised in the news, they become more accessible, making citizens’ opinions more liberal (Zaller 1992). In addition, the accessibility effect is closely related to emotions, which, in turn attach affective ‘tags’ to particular ideas that seem important to individuals. For less politically knowledgeable citizens, these ‘tags’ can make some ideas more easily accessible in memory (McGraw et al. 1990). In sum, people with insufficient political knowledge draw on their most accessible, remembered ideas, particularly those discussed frequently in the media, to formulate an opinion. This reliance on accessibility as a mechanism results in incoherent opinions.

In contrast to accessibility, the applicability-based model better accounts for the information processing of politically knowledgeable citizens. According to this view, they form abstract political schemas based on political experience (Hamill et al. 1985). In addition to knowledge about particular events or policies, they also form abstract representations of typical events or policies. Politically knowledgeable citizens can apply these schemas to the news and thereby make inferences about events or policies. Political schemas allow citizens to process political information more efficiently (Fiske et al. 1990), but they are also associated with bias: individuals remember more information consistent with their schemas and reject or misinterpret information that is inconsistent (Lodge & Hamill 1986). In addition, politically knowledgeable citizens who rely on applicability to make sense of the news may draw on emotions attached to particular ideas to form affective summary judgments on issues and politicians quickly and efficiently (McGraw et al. 1990). However, this process inevitably biases the processing of information because the citizens tend to make judgments congruent with their emotional reactions (Lodge & Taber 2000). In sum, the applicability effect is when a citizen has enough knowledge of an event or topic covered in the news to formulate a relevant schema, which is then used, along with associated emotions, as a framework to interpret such events. This application of schemas can result in accepting a news frame as correct (if the news frame corresponds to the perceiver’s schema) or rejecting it as incorrect or misinterpreting it in a biased way (if the news frame contradicts the perceiver’s schema).

While the degree of political sophistication determines whether interaction with media results in accessibility or applicability effects, political institutions have tangible effects on the degree of political sophistication: the way citizens acquire political information depends on whether they have enough opportunities, motivation and cognitive tools to process information about public affairs. Only a small minority of citizens in any society naturally lean towards politics and are prepared to invest energy in analysing information (Prior 2007). Most citizens rely on accessible information from mainstream outlets. As a result, the level of political knowledge varies widely between countries depending on the variety of information available in mainstream media (Kobayashi 2016) and constraints imposed on media freedom (Leeson 2008). Similarly, the structure of political institutions influences motivation to learn about politics. For instance, motivation can vary between a multiparty and a two-party system because individual voters can find a party more aligned to their political preferences easily in a multiparty system and have, as a consequence, more incentives to participate in politics and acquire political information (Downs 1957). Finally, the structure of a party system can provide tools to navigate political information. Although scholars generally lament the public’s political ignorance in democratic countries (Delli Carpini & Keeter 1997), a competitive party system compensates for lack of knowledge. Citizens can develop political identifications and use preferred parties and politicians to make inferences regarding candidates’ positions and the content of policies (Popkin 1994, p. 14).

Media reception and political institutions in authoritarian regimes

As discussed above, media reception depends on institutional contexts. In order to understand the process of media and political information processing in autocracies, one has to take into account the structure of authoritarian political regimes. Below I review the literature on media reception in non-democratic settings and use insights from research on media reception and political institutions to better understand how people make sense of news in authoritarian settings.

While authoritarian systems can vary widely, they share a common denominator: they avoid or constrain elections (Gel’man 2015, p. 6). These attempts to constrain elections are a result of a deeper dilemma. While autocrats cannot afford to loosen their grip on power because there are no institutions that can give them a chance to legitimately win in a free election in the future (Przeworski 1991), they are also unlikely to move towards totalitarianism because of an absence of cohesion within members of the elite and a lack of repressive capacity (Linz 2000). As a result, autocrats are more fearful of violating a fragile, low-level equilibrium than of being in a coalition with potentially hostile competitors (Gel’man 2015). Autocrats deploy different strategies to counteract this instability. First, authoritarian regimes manipulate elections by turning them into tools for legitimisation, monitoring the attitudes of elites and citizens (Gel’man 2015, p. 7), and creating a democratic facade for the international community (Levitsky & Way 2010). Second, authoritarian regimes constrain media freedom (Schedler 2002) and tend to rely on demobilisation rather than mobilisation. While there can be mobilisation phases in the development of authoritarianism, the toleration of mobilisation is an exception rather than a norm in autocracies because it can undermine the fragile equilibrium (Linz 2000).

Restrictions on political competition, media freedom and citizens’ political participation have tangible effects on media reception and political psychology. Research on media reception and political engagement in authoritarian regimes has yielded results in line with these regimes’ tendency to rely on demobilisation. A number of comparative and single-case studies conclude that, by restricting media freedom and decreasing incentives for political learning, authoritarian regimes produce citizens who are less politically knowledgeable and more politically apathetic (Meyen & Schwer 2007; Leeson 2008; Zhang 2012). In addition, the traditional left–right cleavages found in democratic regimes are not meaningful shortcuts for citizens in non-democracies because they rarely correspond to political cleavages that actually matter. Instead, distinctions unique to particular societies, such as the struggle for or against a particular regime or religious identities, often take the place of traditional left–right political identification (Greene & Robertson 2019; Wojcieszak et al. 2019).

However, research on media reception, trust and attitudes towards regimes in autocracies produced contradictory findings. In democracies, scholars generally agree both on the general level of trust in the news media and the set of factors that cause distrust. Trust in the news media has been steadily declining since the 1970s (Gronke & Cook 2007). Political identification is one of the strongest predictors of trust: individuals perceive news from the other side of the political spectrum as intrinsically biased (Vallone et al. 1985). Conservatives thus tend to trust mainstream news outlets less as they perceive them as dominated by liberals and therefore biased (Jones 2004). This declining trust in news media is believed to result from exposure to alternative sources of information (Tsfati 2010), the dominance of negative advertising during electoral campaigns (Iyengar & Ansolabehere 1995) and increased political polarisation (Iyengar & Hahn 2009).

The findings regarding trust in news media in authoritarian regimes are more ambiguous. On the one hand, a number of both comparative and single-case studies show that news media in non-democracies enjoy more trust (Müller 2013). A variety of factors contribute to high trust in news media in autocracies, such as weak democratic attitudes and identification with parties in power (Moehler & Singh 2011), citizens’ use of state-aligned media (White & Oates 2003; Enikolopov et al. 2011; Szostek 2017; Sirotkina & Zavadskaya 2020), and regime strategies to counteract criticism of the central government by allowing criticism of local authorities (Zhu et al. 2013; Chen 2014). However, other comparative studies show that news media in non-democracies enjoy less trust, for a variety of factors: low quality of government (Ursin 2017);² lingering distrust towards news media as a legacy of oppressive institutions in post-totalitarian countries (Pjesivac et al. 2016); crude forms of propaganda that produce a backfiring effect (Huang 2018); citizens’ ability to analyse the news critically based on their political knowledge (Toepfl 2013, 2014) or to infer a more realistic picture based on past experiences of engaging with biased news (Mickiewicz 2005, 2008). Finally, some scholars hypothesise that these contradicting reactions towards media can coexist and propose explanations for this ambivalence. Citizens can be aware of manipulation but, weary of economic and political turbulence, accept it as part of a state-building enterprise (Oates 2006); propaganda may tap into citizens’ patriotic feelings and yet simultaneously be countered by specific cultural legacies that make citizens critical of the media; citizens can prefer, rather than trust, official outlets because it is easier to identify bias in a familiar source (Truex 2016). Lastly, this ambivalence may result from the reach of the state’s narratives: while expressing distrust toward the state-aligned media, citizens may actually reproduce these narratives because of their ubiquity in widely consumed non-news media (Szostek 2017, 2018).

In essence, the findings of research on media trust in authoritarian regimes can be divided into three categories: citizens trust news media; citizens distrust news media; citizens have ambivalent attitudes to news media. These findings pose several important questions. What is the reason for these divergent findings across authoritarian settings? How does media reception work in non-democracies? I use the perception of the Russia–Ukraine conflict by Russian television viewers as a case study to investigate these paradoxes. Russian television represents a good opportunity for the analysis of news reception. Television viewing in Russia is unevenly stratified by region, gender and age: women watch significantly more television than men;³ people in central regions watch slightly less television;⁴ and daily viewing time varies widely between younger and older citizens.⁵ While younger citizens watch significantly less television, it still remains the most popular medium of choice: 91% of the population watches television news at least once a week (Volkov & Goncharov 2019).

I argue that this divergence in scholarly estimations of citizens’ critical attitudes can be explained by paying attention to the interplay between news reception, embedded psychological mechanisms and the structure of political regimes. When viewed through the lenses of cognitive psychology, political communication and political science, this mixture of criticism and approval can be seen as a result of television viewers’ inability to integrate associatively activated ideas about politics and the media into coherent views or, in other words, the accessibility effect. Under authoritarian regimes, citizens lack interest in politics, opportunities to acquire credible political information, and cognitive tools with which to process it. At the same time, citizens in modern media environments are bombarded with information (Feng et al. 2015). As a result, citizens rely on accessibility as a mechanism of information processing and draw upon scattered and incoherent ideas in their memory: they activate different layers of memory that contain both critical and supportive opinions of the regime.

Research design, data and methods

In order to explain the nature of news reception in an autocracy, I centre my attention on Russia. I use focus group interviews as a method. While focus groups have advantages and limitations (see Lunt & Livingstone 1996), they are particularly useful for analysing situational and ongoing processes of opinion formation. Instead of coherent attitudes, people often hold multiple opposing considerations in their memory and construct opinions ‘on the fly’ (Zaller 1992, p. 1). Unlike other methods, focus groups can provide ‘glimpses of usually latent aspects of this process’ (Delli Carpini & Williams 1994).

This study relies on eight focus groups structured around the viewing of three news episodes from Channel 1, the most popular television channel in Russia, watched by 47% of Russians (Levada Centre 2019a). Based on previous research, I selected news episodes concerning three important events that were intensively covered by Russian television news: the Maidan protests in Kyiv in November 2013–February 2014; the referendum in Donbas to declare independence from Ukraine in May 2014; and the military conflict in Donbas that erupted in March 2014. All three were main issues on the agenda of Russian television channels in 2014 (Lankina & Watanabe 2017). After watching all stories about these three events on Channel 1 prime time news in November–December 2013, May 2014 and June 2014, I selected three news broadcasts representative of the Kremlin’s framing of the Russia–Ukraine conflict. In general, Russia’s state-controlled media framed the protests as provoked and orchestrated by the West and described the conflict as a war between a ‘fascist threat’ spreading in Ukraine, led by the Ukrainian government, and underdog rebels (Cottiero et al. 2015; Nygren et al. 2018). All news reports were accessed via the Channel 1 website (see Table 1).

TABLE 1 News Episodes Used in Focus Group Interviews

Topic	Date of broadcast	Length	Content
The Maidan protests in Kyiv	30 November 2013	4 min 38 s	Violent clashes between protesters and police on Maidan Square. The event is framed as unrest orchestrated by the West.*
The referendum on the status of Donetsk Oblast’	5 May 2014	1 min 10 s	The peaceful referendum in Donetsk. People are shown expressing discontent with the Kyiv administration for ruining the region’s economy.
The military confrontation in Donetsk Oblast’	1 June 2014	12 min 57 s	The attack by the Ukrainian National Guard on Donetsk. The Ukrainian military is shown to use indiscriminate fire, resulting in civilian deaths. Russia is depicted as helping the refugees.

Note: *The news story is presented as an example in Appendix 1.

After each video, participants were asked about their first impressions, their emotions and their opinions on the credibility of the report, and then addressed general questions about their television viewing and internet usage. The moderator followed the format loosely, encouraging participants to deviate (the format can be found in Appendix 2). The duration of each focus group was approximately two hours. The focus group discussions were video-recorded and transcribed, and the transcripts coded via Atlas.TI. Several employees of the Russian pollster Public Opinion Foundation recruited participants based on the sample used in representative surveys.⁶ Recruiters and participants were paid. The author himself moderated the focus groups. Four focus groups were conducted in St Petersburg in 2016, and four in Moscow in 2017. The focus groups were diverse in terms of participants’ economic status, education and internet use. Fifty-six people participated in the study (demographic data can be found in Appendix 3). Participants were pre-screened to ensure that they followed television news. In addition, a short political knowledge survey was administered to obtain additional information about the participants’ attention to politics (see Appendix 4). Participants were informed about the nature and procedures of the study and all provided informed consent. They were told that the focus groups would be recorded and that quotations from the focus groups would be used in academic publications. To protect anonymity, all names in this study have been changed.

Data from focus group participants

The data are organised as follows. The opinions of politically disengaged participants without consistent political views are coded using seven different thematic categories. These opinions represent their reactions to Russian politics and in particular the Kremlin’s policies. I first describe how the participants react to the Kremlin’s official narrative. When politically loaded terms, such as ‘the West’, ‘protest’, ‘sovereignty’, were mentioned in the broadcast or by other participants, they made the Kremlin’s official narrative more accessible in memory, and participants essentially reproduced it. However, when the discussion was framed through participants’ personal experience, other—more critical—ideas became accessible. As a result, the participants brought up six diverse and critical sets of opinions. I indicate the number of participants who expressed each opinion. However, these groups were not exclusive and overlapped. I analyse each opinion and identify the cues and contexts that directed discussion in a particular way and were likely to trigger particular opinions. I compare opinions held by one person to demonstrate that an individual can hold poorly integrated considerations governed by accessibility. In order to demonstrate that the opinions of participants with consistent political views did not change across contexts, the analysis of the majority’s shifting opinions is followed by an analysis of the opinions of the politically engaged minority. In contrast to the results for accessibility, a minority of participants with consistent political views relied on applicability and consistently reinterpreted information to fit their political schemas.

Politically disengaged: accessibility effects

The majority of focus group participants had little motivation to learn about politics, despite discussing public matters with interest. Participants in this group did not make much effort to find information and, at best, could only name a few sources of political information. At the same time, they expressed negative attitudes towards politics. Many considered it ‘the dirtiest business in the world’ (Yurii). The theme of powerlessness often surfaced in the rhetoric of these participants. As one participant, Irina, argued, ‘it does not make sense to try to figure out [the details of the Russia–Ukraine conflict] … what we see is the tip of the iceberg … . To talk about it is to waste time’. Participants doubted their ability to understand post-Soviet politics and did not believe they could influence political life. In addition, participants in this group scored poorly on the political knowledge test. While this test was fairly basic, it was sufficient to show that the majority of participants had a low level of awareness of the current government and paid little attention to recent major events covered by both state-aligned and oppositional media.

The Kremlin’s official narrative of the Russia–Ukraine conflict and viewers’ reactions

In the context of a superficial engagement with politics, it is reasonable to expect that the majority of participants relied on the most accessible ideas to interpret news and consequently had contradictory opinions. My data indicate that the same people can make contradictory statements in different moments of a focus group, depending on the cues used in the discussion. The first set of opinions reproduced the Russian state’s official narrative about the conflict in Ukraine. These opinions usually surfaced as a reaction to the news broadcasts themselves or through cues related to the official narrative that were introduced by the moderator or other participants. The broadcasts themselves and general questions about politics during the focus group made the Kremlin’s official narrative more accessible in memory. The statements below are reactions to general questions about the Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Russian and Ukrainian governments, the actions of the West, or loaded political terms, such as ‘sovereignty’ or ‘the West’, mentioned in the broadcast or by other participants. The official narrative of the conflict in Ukraine is a ‘strategic narrative’, ‘a sequence of events and identities … through which political elites attempt to give determined meaning to past, present and future in order to achieve political objectives’ (Miskimmon et al. 2013). There are three main rhetorical cornerstones of the Kremlin’s official narrative: US policies towards weaker countries generate instability; these policies are illegitimate because other countries are not included in the decision-making process; the European Union follows the course defined by the United States (Hutchings & Szostek 2015, p. 188).

Thirty-four participants expressed opinions in line with this narrative. When cues from the official narrative were introduced to the discussion, participants considered Russia to be a peaceful and non-aggressive power: ‘I think that Russia has a very peaceful character’ (Tatiana). Russia was seen as constantly threatened by Western policies conducted through indirect channels, such as ‘colour revolutions’. Sofia suggested, ‘These technologies led to [regime change in] the Middle East [and] Ukraine’. These revolutions were seen to threaten Russia’s integrity and control over the post-Soviet region. To prevent a loss of integrity, they had to be countered: ‘If we show weakness now, we will be beaten … . Everybody [other countries] is waiting [for this]’ (Fedor). On the one hand, considering that the ‘real’ problems of Russia are concentrated within the country, some participants thought that the media had no reason to lie about international developments and only falsified information about domestic developments: ‘We do not need to falsify information about what is going on abroad. Here [in Russia] they [journalists] can falsify. But Russia is not doing bad things in international relations’ (Mikhail). However, other participants thought that manipulation was ‘appropriate’ in a hostile environment: the media was right to provoke ‘a rejection [of the Ukrainian regime] … . We are right; they are villains—they kill our people’ (Fedor). These actions were deemed ‘justified’ because it was important to foster patriotism in a hostile environment: ‘News has raised the spirit of patriotism’ (Tatiana). These reactions generally mirrored the Kremlin’s interpretation of the Russia–Ukraine conflict, as widely disseminated on television and other channels, such as state-controlled online media.

Emotional burnout

When not relying on cues from the official narrative to help them to makes sense of news, 24 participants referred to emotional burnout. This theme was triggered by personal questions, such as those regarding their emotional reactions to television news about Ukraine and changes in their news-viewing practices since the beginning of the conflict. These questions made other, more critical, opinions accessible in memory, acting as a cue that helped them to interpret the television news as an attempt to manipulate them.

Most participants indicated that during the conflict they had significantly decreased their news-viewing. Coverage of Ukraine typically included a lot of violent scenes and human suffering. The most emphatic reactions to the extreme character of the coverage often involved bodily metaphors, such as ‘Our eyes are bleeding’ (Alexander) or ‘I can’t physically bear it’ (Galina). Viewers responded to such coverage by watching less news about the Russia–Ukraine conflict. As Diana said, ‘I just turn it off. Can’t watch it’. These emotional reactions triggered a more general criticism of the way the media operates: ‘Why is the coverage so negative? You turn it on, and you get sick. Why? Deliberate propaganda’ (Nina). Participants said that they felt openly manipulated, which led to discussion of the one-sided character of the coverage or, as Leonid put it, ‘There is no analysis of the other side’. Boris said, ‘[You] trust it [the news] less [so as] not to fool yourself’, because the news was ‘not objective’.

‘TV vs the fridge’

‘TV vs the fridge’ is a popular Russian saying that reflects ironically on the discrepancy between television reality and the harsh conditions of everyday life: while television news portrays economic prosperity, the real indicator of it is the amount of food in one’s fridge. The saying condenses the core idea of this theme: that news about events in Russia is ‘window-dressing’, as implied by 16 participants during focus group discussions. This idea often came up when the moderator asked participants about their discussions with friends and family, which provoked memories of complaints about harsh living conditions. This emotionally charged theme encapsulated participants’ dissatisfaction with the television news. Vladimir’s response, ‘healthcare is getting better, education is getting better, and the roads in front of your window are being repaired’, provoked a humorous reaction. When asked by Yekaterina whether the road in front of his own window had been repaired, Vladimir sarcastically replied, ‘Sure, how else does it happen? Sobyanin [mayor of Moscow] repairs the road in front my window every year’. This dialogue points to the inadequacy of the administration in dealing with the city’s problems and mocks the difference between what participants see on television and experiences from real life. Criticising this discrepancy, viewers often referred to the Soviet experience: ‘Channel 1 reminds me of Soviet times—everything is so good here … but when you see it in life … it is not like this’ (Galina). This positive television image of life in Russia clashed with viewers’ experiences of economic deprivation: ‘They talk about unemployment. They say that we have two to three percent unemployment in Russia. What? Twenty-five, even thirty percent is more likely’ (Victor). Participants believed that the government censored people who had ‘another [different from the government’s] opinion in politics’ (Larisa) in order to shift viewers’ attention from domestic problems. As Victor put it, ‘[The government is] just shifting focus so as not to show the problems that exist in Russia’.

The business of war

Many participants hypothesised that the Russia–Ukraine conflict was the result of the private business interests of particular elite groups. Eleven participants used this thematic lens throughout focus group discussions. Discussing the war, viewers frequently raised the topic of private interests: the war made the memories of the experience of living under the permanent economic crisis of the 1990s more accessible. This theme was also emotionally charged and encapsulated participants’ dissatisfaction with Russia’s involvement in the conflict. For instance, discussing the future of Ukraine, one participant sympathised with the Ukrainian people, both in government-controlled and rebel-controlled territories. He compared the current conditions in Eastern Ukraine with the 1990s in Russia: ‘We survived this once in the 1990s. However, they survived it in the 1990s, and now it is even worse. The same situation, but there is also war [on top of it]’ (Ivan). This period was also associated with oligarchic rule, triggering a chain of associations linking private business interests to war in which the Russian–Ukraine conflict was seen as a continuation of the intra-elite struggle of the 1990s. Ivan summarised this approach using a Russian proverb: ‘For some people war is war, for others it is a dear mother’. In his opinion, behind the war lay the property interests of particular groups: ‘It is just a redistribution of property. They earn money’. In contrast to the official narrative, in which all actors held responsible for the conflict were either Western or Ukrainian, participants holding this view blamed both Russian and Ukrainian elites: ‘This instability in Ukraine is beneficial for certain circles [of people]. On their side, as on our side’ (Roman). Even humanitarian aid, an important act of compassion in the official narrative, was seen as part of this hypocritical policy: ‘A little bit here, a little bit there, and then boom! We provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine. We are good … . This instability is exploited’ (Roman).

This criticism, first directed at elite interests behind the war, extended to the hypocritical policies of the Russian state. The war was perceived to be sustained by a nexus of vested interests; accordingly, the war could only be ended by regime change, not only in Ukraine but also in Russia. As Ksenia put it, ‘Soon it [the war] will end’. Galina adds: ‘And the government [in Russia] will change’.

The obsession with Ukraine

The next set of opinions about television news concerned the saturation of information about Ukraine. Ten participants used this thematic lens. Some participants used the term ‘obsession’ [pomeshatel’stvo]. Similar to emotional burnout, the use of this word was triggered when the moderator referred to television viewing habits, which provoked memories that in turn triggered the negative emotions that had accumulated during the years of conflict. When the moderator asked participants if they had become more interested in politics when the conflict began, participants were reminded of the traumatic experience of watching the conflict unfold on television. This triggered dissatisfaction with the fact that Ukraine had dominated the content of Russian media for so many years: ‘Every day … [they discuss] Ukraine. … I feel that I do not understand where I am living—in Russia or Ukraine’ (Victor). Participants felt that too much attention was paid to the conflict: ‘It is a completely independent state—it is their business, their problems … . I do not care who is in Ukraine, nor do I care who is in Mozambique’ (Roman). This perceived obsession with Ukrainian politics made participants critical of both Russian television and the government. They reiterated that the Ukraine-dominated media agenda was an attempt to distract the population from domestic problems: ‘We too have many problems … . We need to pay attention to them’ (Galina). The predominance of Ukraine-related news was considered a way of manipulating public opinion: ‘It [television] brainwashes us all the time … Ukraine, Ukraine’ (Larisa).

Concern for others

Another response, expressed by nine participants, was concern for vulnerable groups exposed to explicit news reports of violence. In the opinion of respondents, current Russian news coverage was too violent: ‘They broadcast killings live’ (Galina). There was particular concern about the exposure of children and young people to traumatic images: ‘We cannot show such things to children’ (Fedor). Such coverage, participants suggested, could provoke mental health crises in certain viewers: Fedor suggested that certain viewers could be driven to extreme actions by such reporting, to the point of ‘jumping off balconies’. This concern contained references to the Soviet experience: ‘Russia can be united, [just as] in the Soviet Union, through showing more peaceful things. Let’s show movies like before—how people visit each other … . Violence does not unite; it creates fear’ (Sofia).

Lies and the law

Finally, seven participants approached television news through the framework of legality. In one of the clips, the journalist referred to two controversial pieces of information. One was the correspondence between the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior and the head of a Ukrainian voluntary regiment, allegedly retrieved from a hacked Facebook account. The other was an allegedly intercepted communication between two Ukrainian pilots during the attack on Donetsk.

The moderator asked the focus groups if the evidence seemed reliable or not. One participant, Svetlana, doubted the information, arguing ‘I just think that they are military people, they will not communicate there [via online platform]’. The pilots’ communication was also deemed doubtful: ‘Can they really put the flight recorder’s recording on the news? This is bullshit’ (Maria). Participants framed these anomalous elements of news reports using a legal framework: ‘They show a hacked account … . This is a fraudulent, criminal action’ (Alexander). In other words, viewers classified the information shown in the news report as a crime. The controversial pieces of information functioned as cues that made another layer of knowledge and the framework of legality more accessible. In these cases, the participants challenged the official narrative.

The findings show that, when provided with cues embedded in the official narrative, participants essentially reproduced the Kremlin’s official position. However, when the discussion was framed through their personal experience, a variety of other memories and ideas became accessible. Based on these alternative ideas, participants brought up six diverse sets of opinions. Surprisingly, even a single participant could express contradictory opinions. For instance, when the discussion was framed in terms of the official narrative, Fedor thought that violent reports were used to elicit ‘a rejection [of the Ukrainian regime] … . We are right; they are villains’. He deemed such reports appropriate because they united people to defend the country in the face of an external threat. However, when television was discussed in terms of his personal experience, Fedor reverted to another set of opinions, identified here as ‘concern for others’ criticising the violent nature of reporting, as described in the previous section. This response was based on another cue: his experience of living in the Soviet Union: ‘There was less such dreadful news [in the USSR …]. People were calm’. In the context of Fedor’s Soviet-era memories, explicit reporting of violent events was seen as socially harmful. Apparently activating another layer of knowledge that had become more accessible, he used another lens that led to an opposing, critical interpretation.

All opinions and triggering cues are summarised in Table 2.

TABLE 2 Participants’ Opinions

Opinion	Source
Official narrative	News episodes themselves, or media/political discourse in general
Emotional burnout	The daily experience of watching traumatic television news reports
TV vs the fridge	Television viewers’ discussions about politics with friends and family
The business of war	Memories of the 1990s
The obsession with Ukraine	The daily experience of watching traumatic television news reports
Concern for others	Direct viewing of traumatic news coverage featuring the war during focus groups
Lies and the law	The moderator bringing up the topic of credibility in specific news episodes

Politically engaged: applicability effects

A minority of focus group participants had a better understanding of politics and expressed more interest. These participants were eager to actively seek information. Unlike the politically disengaged participants who expressed situational and contradictory opinions discussed above, this minority referred to particular news media: independent sources such as Meduza, RBK, Vedomosti and Ekho Moskvy as well as directly or indirectly state-controlled sources such as LifeNews, Ria Novosti and Lenta.ru. In addition, they scored better on the political knowledge test. Unlike politically disengaged participants who expressed different opinions when new cues were introduced, politically engaged participants had consistent political views. In other words, they relied on coherent political schemas, which they applied to the news, rather than the most accessible ideas. They also had stable positive or negative emotional attitudes towards the Putin regime. Only a few participants had consistent political views.

Anton and Alexander were illustrative examples, representing pro-government and anti-government views respectively. Anton was supportive of the Russian government. His central ideas resembled the official narrative: he blamed the Ukrainian government for the war in Eastern Ukraine and supported the annexation of Crimea. He thought that Russia deserved better treatment from the West and that Western actions towards Russia were hypocritical. During the focus group, he tried to apply this schema and interpret any questions and statements through this lens. For instance, when Irina questioned the credibility of a television report, Anton responded: ‘[Russian news] is more credible than the news in Ukraine and the United States’. When Irina criticised Russian television’s coverage of the Ukrainian Church for calling it ‘schismatic’, Anton defended this label: ‘It is really a schismatic church; it goes against the grain of our opinion, the government’s opinion’. When Nina, discussing Russia’s problems, said ‘Our state is corrupt’, Anton’s response was consistent: ‘Bribes are everywhere … the United States, any other brands and companies, they all take bribes, they all promote their interests’. In other words, Anton applied his geopolitical schema to reinterpret what Nina had said.

Alexander had different views. He was very sceptical of the Russian and Ukrainian governments alike and thought that politics was about getting money. Media sources, according to Alexander, expressed the private interests of their owners and could not be trusted. The only way to obtain credible information was to ask personal acquaintances who had witnessed the events themselves. When Larisa said that Russian camera operators had ‘incredible professionalism’, Alexander applied his anti-regime schema and replied, ‘They do not lie less [because of their professionalism]’. When Sonya expressed sympathies towards the opposition radio station Ekho Moskvy, Alexander objected: ‘It is owned by Gazprom-Media, in-cre-di-ble!’. Even an opposition radio station could not be trusted because it was owned by a government-affiliated business.

The analysis of the participants’ perception of television news presented above allows the identification of some of the principles that guided their media and political information-processing. Most focus group participants scored poorly on the political knowledge test and—judging by focus group discussions—had a quite superficial understanding of politics as well as little motivation to acquire political knowledge. As a result, they fluctuated between partially contradicting considerations that both supported and criticised the Russian government and media. When asked general questions about politics, memories of the Kremlin’s official narrative became more accessible and participants tended to repeat it. When asked particular questions about different aspects of everyday life, other memories became more accessible. Relying on these memories, participants produced six different opinions accusing the government of manipulating media. A minority of focus group participants scored better on the political knowledge test and—again, judging by focus group discussions—had a better understanding of politics as well as more motivation to acquire political knowledge. As a result, they did not change their opinions but, rather, maintained a more coherent political schema that they applied to process political information in a uniform way. Predictably, they also tended to reject or reinterpret information that did not fit these schemas.

Conclusion

Given the qualitative nature of the research showcased here, the implications of this article’s findings can only be formulated as provisional suggestions. However, while not strictly representative and lacking causal validity, these findings still generate some interesting insights into the principles that guide media and political information processing in an authoritarian regime.

The majority of focus group participants were politically disengaged. In order to minimise the efforts they need to invest in the analysis of news and political information, they rely on the most accessible ideas in memory to make sense of news. Since these ideas are located in various disconnected layers of memory, individuals come up with different, partly incoherent and contradictory opinions. As a result, they did not have consistent opinions and relied on accessibility as a mechanism. These opinions fluctuated between criticism and approval of the Russian government and media. A minority of focus group participants were politically engaged. They relied on applicability as a mechanism and filtered and reinterpreted incoming information through their already established views. As a result, their judgments were characterised by consistency bias: subjects try to interpret all information in a uniform manner in order to make it congruent with their schemas and emotional attitudes. Information inconsistent with their schemas and emotional attitudes, including the opinions of others and information from the news with which they do not agree, was reinterpreted or rejected.

This argument allows for a better understanding of media, politics and authoritarian survival in Russia. My findings show that Russian television clearly affects television viewers’ opinions about politics. By borrowing the most accessible ideas to form opinions about politics, they rely on interpretations of events provided by television news. However, this effect is short-lived: as they are not engaged in public affairs on a routine basis, they do not have coherent schemas and cannot apply them to political information. As a result, they cannot assimilate ideas provided by state-owned television. If this model applies equally to other Russian television viewers, the power of television, considered to be an important pillar of Putin’s regime, is not as formidable as it seems. The enormously high presidential approval ratings in Russia may also result from the accessibility effect rather than genuine regime support. Russian mass surveys consistently report high popular approval of Putin’s policies. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin’s popularity has been consistently between 70% and 85% (Levada Centre 2019b). However, pollsters often ask general political questions—for example, about the country’s leaders and international politics—which, my research suggests, are likely to trigger the accessibility effect. Since Russian media have been paying disproportionate attention to international politics for years, what pollsters receive in response to questions about President Putin or Crimea might reflect the content of recent news rather than citizens’ opinions.

Are these findings applicable to democracies also and is it possible to generalise them beyond Russia in other authoritarian contexts? These mechanisms are not specific to autocracies. Citizens in democracies also rely on accessibility as a mechanism to process political information and demonstrate fluctuating political opinions (Zaller 1992). However, those opinions do not fluctuate as widely as those held by my focus group participants. For instance, Lauderdale et al. (2018) find that only 3/7 of variation in citizens’ responses towards US political issues is not stable in repeated measurement, and political knowledge decreases this instability. To the contrary, authoritarian regimes are characterised by a lower level of political engagement compared to democracies (Reuter 2021). In addition to the attempts to demobilise citizens intentionally (Linz 2000; Robertson 2011), electoral corruption, non-competitive elections and constrained media environments decrease political knowledge and engagement of citizens in autocracies (Leeson 2008; Simpser 2012; Croke et al. 2016). In this context, accessibility-based processing and incoherent opinions should be much more pronounced in authoritarian regimes than democracies making my findings relevant for other authoritarian regimes characterised by political disengagement.

Provided that Russia’s authoritarian regime is similar to other autocracies in terms of its demobilisational nature, these findings can also contribute to the understanding of media reception and regime stability in other authoritarian regimes. Political disengagement might be the reason for scholars’ divergent estimations of how much inclination citizens have to process news critically in other authoritarian regimes. Some scholars find that citizens are critical of media and the regime (Mickiewicz 2008; Ursin 2017; Huang 2018), while other scholars find that the media enjoy trust and successfully resonate with citizens’ attitudes (Szostek 2017; Sirotkina & Zavadskaya 2020; Greene & Robertson 2020), and yet other scholars hypothesise that these opposite reactions towards media can coexist and propose a number of explanations for this ambivalence, such as political and cultural legacies or adaptation to authoritarian environments (Hutchings & Rulyova 2009; Truex 2016). What is the reason for these divergent estimations? While these studies are different in terms of research questions, methods and participants, I argue that the reason behind this divergence can be the instability of attitudes of the audience itself. Much like these latter theories, I show that critical and supportive reactions can coexist in television viewers’ heads. However, I argue that the reason behind this paradox is political disengagement.

Finally, the article’s findings allowed me to emphasise the connection between political engagement, news processing and authoritarian survival. While political science provides a well-grounded analysis of the demobilisational nature of authoritarian regimes at the level of political actors, it is not yet clear how it affects media reception and the individual psychology of citizens. Scholars of political communication in authoritarian regimes often focus on sophisticated strategies of persuasion (Stockmann & Gallagher 2011), and my findings suggest that the power of regime-controlled media in authoritarian contexts might not be located in their persuasive potential. Rather, persuasion might work because citizens are not interested enough in politics to form consistent opinions to challenge (or support) the authoritarian rule. Regime-controlled media can persuade not because their messages are persuasive, but because they benefit from the political apathy produced by broader authoritarian environments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maxim Alyukov

Maxim Alyukov, Research Fellow, King's Russia Institute, King’s College London, Bush House (North East Wing), London WC2B 4BG, United Kingdom; University of Tyumen, 8 Marta St., 2/1, Tyumen 625000, Russian Federation. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 ‘Messages of Russian TV. Monitoring Report 2015’, EaP Civil Society Forum, European Endowment for Democracy, Krajowa Rada Radiofonii i Telewizji, available at: http://archive.eap-csf.eu/assets/files/Monitoring%20report_Russian%20TV.pdf, accessed 30 November 2021.

2 Low quality of government is defined by Ursin (2017) as a lack of citizen access to state power and the corruption and inefficiency of the main state institutions, such as the police and courts.

3 ‘Ezhegodnyi otchet o provedennykh issledovaniyakh upolnomochennoi organizatsii po issledovaniyu ob”ema zritel’skoi auditorii telekanalov (teleprogramm, teleperedach) za 2019 god’, Mediascope, 2019, available at: https://mediascope.net/otc-rkn/, accessed 24 November 2021.

4 ‘Televidenie: indikatory i trendy v sezone 18/19’, Mediascope, 2019, available at: https://mediascope.net/upload/iblock/8c5/WCM_29%20мая.pdf, accessed 24 November 2021.

5 ‘Televidenie: izmereniya i trendy na starte telesezona 19/20’, Mediascope, 2019, available at: https://mediascope.net/upload/iblock/5c8/WCM_Mediascope_22112019.pdf, accessed 24 November 2021.

6 The website of the organisation is available at: https://fom.ru, accessed 24 November 2021.

Appendices

Appendix 1. An example of a news story

Maidan Protests in Kyiv (4 min 38 s, aired 30 November 2013)

News anchor: Now news from Kyiv. The supporters of Euro-integration who were pushed out of the Maidan square early this morning are gathering at another square—Mikhailovskaya—close to the territory of the monastery where 100–200 participants of the dispersed demonstration are sheltered. Officials are making claims related to the use of force by police. According to the official data, 35 people were injured and 35 people were detained. Our correspondent Vitalii Kadchenko will provide more details.

Correspondent: The riots on Euromaidan started at 4pm. When the truck that was supposed to install the New Year Tree entered the square, police demanded the protesters leave. All protest actions in the city centre were officially banned two weeks ago, but the ban has not worked. People in masks started to spread an unknown gas; there were several noises sounding like gunshots. People started to throw rocks, bottles and burning logs at riot police. Nobody was distinguishing between friends and foes. People climbing the roof of the trade centre were literally pulled from it. People used batons, even leg kicks. About 40 people were injured, including two Polish citizens who were also participating in the protest against the postponement of Euro-integration by the Ukrainian government. Seven people with various injuries were taken to hospital. Police officials say that 12 officers were injured as well. Criminal investigations were initiated on the grounds of ‘resistance to police officers’ and ‘hooliganism’. Detained suspects were released by the police. About 200 participants were sheltered by the Mikhailovkii monastery of Kyiv Patriarchate, the so-called ‘heretic church’, from detention. People started to gather a demonstration in front of the monastery, where they were given hot tea and warm clothes. They were asked not to use swear words and not to smoke inside the monastery.

Polish citizens: What makes us Europeans are not agreements and associations signed by one person. My heart, not my hand and head, hurts when I look at what is happening.

Correspondent: Although it was the weekend, the ambassadors of the Netherlands and Finland and the chair of the representative office of the European Union visited protesters. They refused to speak from the stage, after the incident with the agitation of the chief of the Lithuanian Seim for Euro-integration before the summit in Vilnius. That is how they explained their reasons for being at the square.

Arja Makkonen, Ambassador of Finland: We have come here because we want to know what has happened, to see the situation with our own eyes.

Kess Klompenhouwer, Ambassador of the Netherlands: We decisively condemn violence against protesters.

Correspondent: The prime minister of Ukraine, Nikolai Azarov, demanded that those responsible for the violent dispersal of the demonstration be found. He even posted it on his Facebook page. The chair of the Cabinet of Ministers assured citizens that the ruling party was not interested in the current development of the situation [the violent clashes between protesters and police] and asked Ukrainians not to succumb to provocations.

Nikolai Azarov's Facebook page: I am infuriated and concerned by the events that happened on the Maidan square last night. The data I have do not allow one to make definite conclusions about who is responsible for this provocation. That is why an investigative group has been created, including officials from the Prosecutor’s Office. It will give a qualified legal assessment of all parties involved in the conflict … . This group has a clear task: to carry out an investigation in a very limited time and give society a clear answer: who should be punished, how and for what.

Correspondent: The Minister of the Interior promised to find and punish the culprits. The leaders of the opposition parties claimed that they are starting to prepare nationwide strikes to demand the resignation of the government and the early election of the [Verkovnaya] Rada [Ukrainian parliament]. Arseniy Yatsenyuk called Euromaidan assault by police ‘a special operation of the ruling party’.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk: We—three opposition parties—have made a decision about the formation of a headquarters of national resistance. We are starting to prepare a nationwide strike. We expect a reaction from our Western partners. Not only words but actions.

Correspondent: Tomorrow the rally will move to a new place. The announced ‘Narodnoe veche’ will take place in Shevchenko Park, which is also in the city centre. The opposition announced the mobilisation of supporters across the country. The deputies of three factions—Bat’kivshchyna, Udar and Svoboda—will try to enforce compliance with their demands in the Verkhovnaya Rada next week. We all know how it happens. In the meantime, a huge rally in support of President [Viktor] Yanukovych’s decision not to sign the agreement with the EU took place in Kharkiv on the biggest Square of Freedom in Europe. The directors of big businesses gave speeches and reiterated that the main market for Ukraine is Russia and CIS countries. Deteriorating relationships with neighbours can lead to economic collapse. Vitalii Kadchenko, Evgenii Krivonosov, Sergey Titenko and Grigorii Yemel’yanov, Channel 1, Kyiv.

Visuals: Map of Ukraine; clashes between police and protesters; the throwing of rocks and bottles; the building of barricades; the rally in front of the monastery; interview with injured Polish citizens; interview with the ambassadors of Finland and the Netherlands; Facebook page of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaking at the press conference of the opposition; peaceful pro-Russian meeting in Kharkiv supporting President Yanukovych’s decision not to sign the EU–Ukraine agreement.

Appendix 2. Focus group format

• First impressions. Please describe your first impressions about the news report. What associations come to your mind? Which elements in the video attracted your attention?

• Emotions. What emotions does this news report provoke? Have you had situations when emotions or mood made you avoid watching TV or watch TV more?

• Credibility. Do you think that this news report is credible? Or is it questionable? Why? (If no particular reasons are given, the moderator gives a set of possible opinions, such as the professionalism of journalists, references to experts, state ownership of the channel, compelling images.)

• Negative effects. Do you watch news about Ukraine? Can you say that you started watching news more after the beginning of the conflict? Less? Why?

• Viewing practices. Do you watch news alone or with friends/family? Do you discuss the news with them? Do you have arguments or disagreements? Do you tend to agree with them, or do you stick to your own opinion? Do you try to convince others? Whose opinions are important for you in the evaluation of news and politics?

• Internet usage. Do you read or watch news online? What kind of sources online do you use: blogs, news websites, news aggregators, social networks, YouTube? Is there any difference between the same news on TV and online? How do you determine what is more credible, if and when stories on TV and online contradict each other?

Appendix 3. Socio-demographic data and news consumption

N: 56 participants

Sex: women, 53%; men, 47%

Age: 18–24, 20%; 25–34, 27%; 35–50, 37%; 51–64, 16%

Education: higher education, 66%; secondary education, 16%; students in higher education, 16%

Income: participants were asked about income, but reliable insights cannot be extracted from the data. Many Russian citizens have multiple jobs and sources of income. As this income is often not subject to taxation, many Russians would not wish it to be recorded.

Television news consumption: daily, 53%; several times a week, 27%; several times a month, 13%; less often than several times a month, 7%

Internet usage: daily, 91%; several times a week, 6%; not at all, 4%

Appendix 4. Political knowledge

Domestic politics: well-aware, 7%; aware, 20%; poor awareness, 58%; not aware, 15%

International politics: well-aware, 43%; aware, 38%; poor awareness, 13%; not aware, 6%

Current political events: aware, 20%; not aware, 80%

The discrepancy between the knowledge of domestic politics and international politics is most probably the result of Russian television’s excessive focus on international politics. Since this is not a quantitative study, the questions were designed to obtain additional contextual information about political engagement rather than measuring political knowledge. Hence, only a few were asked, and focused on several topics: domestic politics, international politics and current events.

• Domestic politics: Who is the current speaker of the Russian State Duma? What kind of elections took place in Russia in 2016?

• International politics: Which countries are members of NATO? Is the UK a member of the European Union? Which country has accepted the highest number of Syrian refugees?

• Current political events (2016 focus groups): Where was the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier group going in 2016? How many aircraft carriers does Russia have?

• Current political events (2017 focus groups): Where was the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier group going in 2016? How many aircraft carriers does Russia have? What was the issue behind the mass protest that took place this weekend?