Putin’s macho personality cult

Sperling, Valerie

doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2015.12.001

Cited by 61 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In authoritarian regimes, leaders often lack a viable opponent, making the need to care what the public thinks or adhere to notions of a quality public sphere that deliberates about issues less necessary than it is in a democratic regime. Indeed, instead of detailing policy positions and their vision for the country, authoritarians may focus on presenting themselves as strong leaders to help create a cult of personality and justify any consolidations of power (Sperling, 2016). To achieve this goal, they may ‘obfuscate’ messages by focusing on less relevant or substantial topics (Dewan and Myatt, 2008), choosing instead to focus on ‘cheerleading’ for themselves or their country when they communicate (King et al., forthcoming).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authoritarian communication on social media: The relationship between democracy and leaders’ digital communicative practices

Bulovsky

2018

International Communication Gazette

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This research considers authoritarian leaders’ communicative practices on Twitter relative to their democratic counterparts. After a quantitative analysis of 144 world leaders’ Twitter accounts, this study identifies a positive and statistically significant relationship between a country’s level of democracy and its leader’s (1) average number of tweets per day and (2) proportion of tweets that are replies to other users. Additionally, qualitative case studies of Russia, Turkey, and Estonia reveal that authoritarian leaders’ accounts are of a relatively lower quality. Namely, they follow a less diverse set of accounts, have a higher proportion of inactive followers, and tend to tweet projections of power over policy statements. Ultimately, these results reveal an authoritarian preference for uni-directional communication and a democratic preference for multi-directional communication—a stylistic difference partially attributable to stronger incentives from political power structures in general and competitive elections in particular in democratic regimes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authoritarian communication on social media: The relationship between democracy and leaders’ digital communicative practices

Bulovsky

2018

International Communication Gazette

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“…Although the president undoubtedly admires Catherine's imperial contributions to Russian greatness and devotion to the Orthodox faith, the empress would probably be offended by his self-aggrandizing cultivation of a "macho personality cult." 89 As Stephen White and Ian McAllister observed:…”

Section: Becoming a Reluctant Hegemonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In July 2011, another set ("Putin's Army") advertised a contest called "I'll Rip [It] for Putin": the video ended with a cleavage-heavy young woman "ripping her tank top down the middle, while asking, 'What are you prepared to do for your president'?" 91 Putin's "mobilization of machismo," centering on his own personality, is part of a larger, nationalistic legitimation strategy, intended to shore up support at home despite deteriorating economic conditions.…”

Section: Becoming a Reluctant Hegemonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming Madam Chancellor

Mushaben

2017

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In February 2005, nine months before she became Germany's first female chancellor, Angela Merkel delivered the laudatio for then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who had traveled to Baden-Baden to receive the prestigious German Media Prize. At the end of her speech, the CDU opposition leader cited one of my favorite lines from Eleanor Roosevelt, which she erroneously attributed to Hillary: "A woman is like a tea-bag: you only know how strong she is when she's in hot water." 1 Rarely inclined to discuss the gender challenges she has encountered while climbing the political ladder, Merkel does pay homage to two women she claims as personal role models. The first is a two-time Nobel Prize recipient, physicist Marie Curie; the second is Russia's longest reigning empress, Catherine the Great. Indeed, journalists familiar with Merkel's seventh floor sanctum in the Federal Chancellor's Office report that she keeps a small portrait of Catherine on her desk. The only other painting on prominent display there is that of Germany's first postwar chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. The two women Merkel admires most were both born in Poland but later adopted new homelands, where each managed to shatter the glass ceiling of her day. Each was unusually well educated for her time, preferring reason and evidence over passion and rhetoric; both women, in turn, successfully established themselves in domains historically reserved for men. Despite her Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, respectively, Marie Curie was denied admission to the French Academy of Sciences in 1911 but later served on the Committee for Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations. 2 In 1995, her remains were transferred to the Pantheon Mausoleum in Paris, the first woman to be nationally honored "in perpetuity" based on her own accomplishments.

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“…In March 2015, Putin disappeared from the view of the media for more than a week, which is a long time considering that since his ascent to authoritarian power Putin has been a star figure in the media, "reigning on the screen unchallenged" (Sperling 2016;Abdullaev 2010). Immediately, numerous speculations and rumours arose concerning the reasons of his disappearance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rumour and Humour in #WhereIsPutin and #PutinUmer: Global Media and the Cult of Putin

Laineste¹,

Kalmre²

2017

FEJF

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Abstract:The article analyses rumours about Putin's disappearance from the public eye during the ten-day period in March 2015. Parallels with earlier rumours about Russian leaders before Putin are thus revealed and differences between English and Russian sources of information are pointed at.The data presented here comes from both traditional and social media: the global official news coverage of Putin's disappearance, and the unofficial information spread in social media via Twitter hashtags #WhereIsPutin and #PutinUmer. Using this data, the authors describe the differences between English-and Russian-language social media sources and indicate the recurring and more influential belief motifs in the stories told about the political leaders in Russia in the junction of various genres (above all rumour, humour, and news). The analysis sheds light on the inner workings of rumour and humour in social media. The comparison shows that even if the world is a 'global village' and news, travelling fast, quickly become known around the world, there is a fissure between the content and the ways particular events or cases get represented in the official media outlets and social media. The differences arise from the cultural and historical context of the producers and consumers of the news: collective memory, folklore, vernacular belief, etc.

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Putin’s macho personality cult

Cited by 61 publications

References 9 publications

Authoritarian communication on social media: The relationship between democracy and leaders’ digital communicative practices

Authoritarian communication on social media: The relationship between democracy and leaders’ digital communicative practices

Becoming Madam Chancellor

Rumour and Humour in #WhereIsPutin and #PutinUmer: Global Media and the Cult of Putin

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