Several hours in the Motherland: Vladimir Putin’s "Direct Line" broadcasts in historical perspective

Professor Christine Evans (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) will give a presentation on ‘Several hours in the Motherland: Vladimir Putin’s "Direct Line" broadcasts in historical perspective’ at this seminar organised by the UCL SSEES Russian Studies Seminar Series.

One high-profile but surprisingly understudied feature of Vladimir Putin’s media strategy since 2001 is his annual live broadcast, “Direct Line with Vladimir Putin,” [Priamaia Liniia s Vladimirom Putinym], in which President Putin takes questions from Russian television viewers live on air, via a vast media network assembled for these occasions and prominently displayed throughout the broadcast. This talk will examine the Direct Line broadcasts conducted between 2001 and 2017 as live media spectaculars and place them in their historical and global context. With their emphasis on the performance of accessibility, transparency, and responsiveness by both Putin and the state-controlled mass media, these broadcasts offer new insights into Putin’s evolving media strategy, as well as the reworking of Soviet media traditions in post-Soviet Russia. More broadly, they offer one revealing example of how hybrid democratic-authoritarian regimes around the world—not only in Russia, but in Latin America and, increasingly, the United States—use media institutions and infrastructures to appear responsive to citizens without, in fact, being so.

All Welcome! No registration required.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and www.kremlin.ru.