User:Davide Denti (OBC)/sandbox/Russia
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The media of Russia refers to mass media outlets based in the Russian Federation. The media of Russia is diverse, with a wide range of broadcast and print outlets available to the consumer.[1] Television, magazines, and newspapers are all operated by both state-owned and for-profit corporations which depend on advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues. The Constitution of Russia guarantees freedom of speech. As a country in transition, Russia's media system is under transformation.
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In total, there are 93,000 media outlets in Russia, including 27,000 newspapers and magazines and 330 television channels.[2] Television is the most popular source of information. There are three television channels with a nationwide outreach, and a multitude of regional channels. Local and national newspapers are the second most popular choice, while the Internet comes third. In all media spheres there is a mixture of private and state-ownership. The three nationwide television channels have been criticised for their alleged lack of neutrality.
Having marginalised print media, Putin turned his attention to Russian television. Broadcasters that once carried lively debates were turned into stultifying Kremlin instruments. As state-controlled TV stations began to spout increasingly convoluted theories to demonstrate their loyalty to Putin, Russian propaganda entered the realm of the absurd – so much so that Soviet propagandists would hide behind their Putinist counterparts.[3]
The organisation Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of their press freedom records. In 2013 Russia was ranked 148th out of 179 countries, six places below the previous year, mainly due to the return of Vladimir Putin.[4] Freedom House compiles a similar ranking and placed Russia at number 176 out of 197 countries for press freedom for 2013, putting it level with Sudan and Ethiopia.[5] The Committee to Protect Journalists states that Russia was the country with the 10th largest number of journalists killed since 1992, 26 of them since the beginning of 2000, including four from Novaya Gazeta.[6] It also placed Russia at number 9 in the world for numbers of journalists killed with complete impunity.[7]
Although modern Russian journalism has transformed from being a state job (Soviet era) to a market freelance position (post-Soviet era), it is mostly unchanged in its political subordination. This paradox of market freedom and political non-freedom is a consequence of "guided democracy" or "simulation democracy" in which, as Dmitry Furman (2010) explains, "democratic institutions and rules of law play a role of (fake) veneer, camouflage to hide the authoritarian system."[8]
In December 2014, a Russian investigative site published e-mails, leaked by the hackers' group Shaltai Boltai, which indicated close links between Timur Prokopenko, a member of Vladimir Putin's administration, and Russian journalists, some of whom published Kremlin-prepared articles under their own names.[9]