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Pussy Riot as agent provocateur: conspiracy theories and the media construction of nation in Putin's Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Ilya Yablokov
Ilya Yablokov*
Affiliation:
Russian and East European Studies, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
*
∗Email: ilya.yablokov@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article studies the impact of conspiracy theories on post-Soviet Russian nation-building through the analysis of how the Pussy Riot trial was constructed by the Russian media. Conspiracy theory as a phenomenon is defined as a populist tool for relocation of power among different political actors, which creates identities and boosts social cohesion. This interpretation of conspiracy theories helps investigate how the media constructed the image of Pussy Riot and their supporters as a conspiring subversive minority, which threatened the Russian nation. The ability of conspiracy theory for swift social mobilization helped the authorities to strengthen the public support of its policies and model the Russian nation as ethnically and religiously homogeneous.

Keywords

conspiracy theoryPussy RiotRussian politicsnation-buildingRussian media
Type
Special Section: Pussy Riot
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 622 - 636
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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