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

Abstract

This article studies the impact of conspiracy theories on post-Soviet Russian nationbuilding 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.

MH17 Tragedy: A Comparative Analysis of Cold War and Post-Cold War Media Framing of Aviation Disasters

“…Increasing popularity of conspiracy theories in Russia is one of the key reasons behind these adverse sentiments among Russians towards other nations. For example, the post-election unrest in 2011 and the famous Pussy Riot Protest in 2012 by the Russian punk rock band were framed as western conspiracies (Yablokov, 2014). Media play a significant role in spreading these sentiments among ordinary Russians.…”

A Very Ambiguous Empire: Russia’s Hybrid Exceptionalism

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“…Most scholarly attention has been paid to prominent post-Soviet conspiracy theorists, such as the public intellectual Aleksandr Dugin who claimed that those that were hostile to Pussy Riot were in fact resisting the imperialist aspirations of the USA and wanted to prevent the establishment of a pro-American regime in Russia 29 . At the end of 2000, Patriarch Aleksei II blamed the West for the moral degradation of young people, with its powerful ‘corruption industry’ bringing pornography, sexual liberation and social decay.…”