The Russian Orthodox Church has had an incredibly fascinating story during its long history in Russia, where its status, political as well as economic power has drastically changed over the course of its existence. The church has gone from being almost completely undistinguishable from the sovereign power during the Russian Empire to nearly being completely wiped out by the times of the communist regime in the soviet era, who saw it as a threat to the revolutionary ideas. But how is the Russian Orthodox Church viewed in today's Russia? The aim of this study is to analyse the ways in which the ruling government is trying to portray the Russian Orthodox Church and its role in society on the largest and oldest television channel in Russia, Channel One Russia. How is the Russian Orthodox Church legitimized by the power and what are the government's reasons for the strong cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church? This essay is based upon the theory of cultural production and its insight into that the fact that the dominant groups in a society have more power to influence the public discourse. In order to remain dominant these groups will try to create legitimacy for the social structures which have granted them the dominant position, one way to achieve this is by using the mass media as a tool. The television broadcasts that have served as the material for this essay have been analysed by using a combination of qualitative content analysis and a critical discourse analysis. The results of the study show that the Russian Orthodox Church is being depicted in an overwhelmingly positive light on the television channel. It is being portrayed as an integral part of the Russian identity, as an element that cannot be separated from the Russian people and their history. The Russian Orthodox Church is being viewed as a shield against the anomie of the outside world that prevents the country's degradation into a chaotic darkness. In this constructed view, where all the positive attributes are being assigned to one’s own group while condemning everything foreign the Russian Orthodox Church serves as a supporting force for the country's politics as well as a tool uniting the nation around the Russian leaders.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-402435 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Nikita, Malov |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Religionshistoria |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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