Dehumanization. On the Phenomenon of Russian Propaganda

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In the past year 2022, propaganda has finally taken over the minds of millions of Russian citizens who support the war, are ready to justify any war crimes and write a denunciation of relatives, colleagues, neighbors who allow themselves anti-war statements. Why and how did propaganda supplant reliable information and common sense in Russia, what is the mechanism of its action and what is the secret of its success, about this correspondent Sever. Realii talked to experts.

How it all began

Infection with propaganda does not happen suddenly, experts say. This is usually a process that can take years. In this sense, someone considers 1996 a milestone for Russia - the presidential campaign "Vote or lose" , when in many ways it was through the efforts of the then media and political technologists that Boris Yeltsin managed to win the election. Someone believes that the decisive events took place in Russia at the turn of the century.

“Having come to power, Putin quickly realized that he needed first of all to put television under control,” says St. Petersburg journalist Valery Nechay . - Operation "successor" ( transfer of power from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin in 1999-2000 - SR) was based on the power of television propaganda, with the help of which an unknown person in the country was promoted to the winner of the presidential campaign. That's when Putin realized the power of the media. Media on the Internet did not even originate in Russia at that time. The print media were not so influential, if only because newspapers, after all, have to be bought. And the television signal delivers propaganda free of charge to the farthest corners of the country. Therefore, Putin began the cleansing of the information space with the destruction of NTV Gusinsky , which was not under his control at that moment . Then other independent media were destroyed, including print ones. And by the time of the annexation of Crimea, non-controlled media on the Internet were almost completely cleared.

– This year we have finally seen how difficult it is to resist propaganda. Families are splitting up, relatives are losing each other, finding themselves on opposite sides of the information barricades. But how can an ordinary person recognize that he is dealing not with information and not even with ordinary PR, but with dangerous and aggressive propaganda?

- Political PR has at least some element of truthfulness, and the propaganda that exists on the part of the state during the Putin period is a total lie. This is an attempt to present the facts turned inside out. There is even such a concept in English, they call political technologists a spin-doctor - spin-doctor - as you turn, it will come out.

One of the hallmarks of propaganda is how the image of the leader is formed. This is noticeable even in the details. How TV propaganda shows Putin against the backdrop of leaders of other countries. He is always almost the same height as them, even the tallest of them. Which, as we know, is not true. And such a leader never makes mistakes, never asks for forgiveness, does not admit his mistakes, never appears against the backdrop of disasters.

It is also important to create a favorable historical background for it. Therefore, propaganda had to create an image of the "dashing 90s" and endlessly show Yeltsin drunk dancing in the 1996 elections. To make the Putin era look like "stability" and "getting up off your knees."

Well, then the image of a "besieged fortress" appears. There are enemies all around and it is necessary to rally around the leader.

- At the same time, the task of propaganda is much broader - not only to clean up the information field, cutting off access to unwanted sources, but also to form a certain type of consciousness - including complete credulity to any lies.

– In world history, there are many examples of how this type of consciousness was formed and how people lived in this state for decades: the USSR, Nazi Germany... There are many other, less well-known stories. One British propaganda scholar, Arthur Ponsonby, who participated in the First World War, collected examples of how the Germans, the Belgians, the French, and the British used propaganda methods to win over the local population to their side. In 1928, he published a whole book "Lies in Wartime" with cases, and the first case, by the way, was a "crucified Belgian soldier" in one of the villages. And there was also a story about how, in a Belgian village, German soldiers allegedly threw a child into a cesspool. These were all made up stories - when I put them together, I get the same "crucified boy"we are talking about a TV show shown on July 12, 2014 on the "First Channel" of Russian television. The report contained false evidence of alleged bullying by Ukrainian security forces against the inhabitants of the city of Slavyansk, including the crucifixion of a three-year-old boy in front of his mother. - SR ). Then it got to the point that people began to send money, checks, clothes for this child to the editorial office. That is, propaganda easily worked. True, the journalist's conscience spoke, and he admitted that he had made it all up.

– But our propagandists' conscience, it seems, will never speak again.

- And ours at the same time act only for a fall. That is why there is a bucket of shitin the hands of the presenter in the studio, it really sinks into the soul, because in many houses, excuse me, there is no toilet bowl, the toilet is outside, we understand what a bucket of shit is like, which is taken out into the studio. That is why they are engaged in assault there, it is understandable, it is close. Ideally, media should educate, inform and entertain, be slightly above the average audience so that it reaches out to them, but here, on the contrary, the bar is set too low. If you speak in a language incomprehensible to the audience, then everything passes by the ears, does not sink into the head, our propagandists are sure. The information should be very simple, understandable, causing strong emotions. At the same time, it can be argued that one plus one equals three, and everyone will believe it. It is not by chance that a woman tells about the supposedly “crucified child” on the air, she is not his mother, but simply a witness,

"We shouldn't feel sorry for them"

– This year, against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, outright lies flooded the entire information space in Russia. Do the propagandists follow the old patterns, or have you noticed new techniques in their work?

“They use the old tricks more intensively. With regard to any information that is inconvenient for the Russian authorities, a stream of disinformation is immediately thrown in. Tragedy in Bucha , where Russian soldiers killed and tortured civilians. For any fact about this, many other versions are immediately voiced. No, this person in the frame is not dead, his hand was moving somewhere, and someone allegedly got up and even reached for cigarettes. This is a lie. It wasn't. But this sinks into the mind of the consumer of propaganda, he begins to say to everyone: and there a man was moving, supposedly killed. It is already impossible for the average person to understand this informational noise, and he begins to think that everyone is lying and the truth cannot be found.

This is what is called "post-truth". So it was in 2014, when a Malaysian Boeing was shot down in the Donetsk region and all 298 people on board died. And immediately, many conflicting versions of what happened were thrown into the Russian information space. And the true version is simply blurred.

“ That's what propaganda is after.

- Now in Russia a lot of malicious propaganda videos and programs are being launched about the troubles of Ukraine, that as a result of Russian bombing there is no light, heat, water. And now, on a Russian TV channel, they show how a woman in Ukraine dries her hair over a gas stove instead of a hair dryer, and someone is forced to shave in the subway, and the presenter in the frame giggles, talks about it as something funny. There has never been such cynicism before.

- This is important, this is a good example. Propaganda is engaged in dehumanization: we should not feel sorry for them, because "they themselves are to blame." This is already such - "Radio of a Thousand Hills" ( the radio station "Free Radio and Television of a Thousand Hills" incited ethnic hatred and incited the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. - SR ). What needs to be said in order to dehumanize: here they are not people, they are cockroaches. So on this radio they called the Tutsis in Rwanda, thereby provoking their genocide . And we sound - "dill" - this is also dehumanization.

- Disdainful. "Dill" are not people, killing "dill" is not the same as killing people.

– That is why we must laugh at the Ukrainian language, we must show that it is some kind of non-Russian, and so on. We are highly spiritual, our language is great and powerful, but they have neither language, nor literature, nothing... This is also an example of dehumanization.

- And here's another important question - why are some people subject to such propaganda, while others are not? What does it depend on?

- In many ways, it depends on the level of education, enlightenment, on the ability to distinguish truth from untruth, the ability to doubt. But there is another thing - morality. By the way, you won’t believe it, we even corresponded with Volodya Kara-Murza on this matter ( a Russian opposition politician, has been in a pre-trial detention center since April 2022 on charges of committing crimes under three criminal articles. He does not admit guilt under any of the sane articles. - SR ) after he was imprisoned. He believes that many people in our country are not able to distinguish not only truth from untruth, but also good from evil, do not distinguish complicity or non-complicity in evil. And yes, you can be a very well-read and educated person, but at the same time call for people to be burned - I'm talking about many of today's Russian propagandists and ideologists.

- And sometimes it turns out that completely ordinary people took it and did not succumb to propaganda.

– There is also such a thing as everyday wisdom. And who, for example, was in the war, he will probably support it less often.

– Is it possible to oppose something equally effective to propaganda, will it be possible to cure people infected with propaganda?

– It will be a very long process. In the early 1950s, in Germany, already liberated from the Nazis, denazified, polls were conducted, according to which more than 20% still believed that Hitler was right, no matter what happened. This shows that in fact, when everything is over, there will be a very long process of recovery in Russia. And it is still unclear whether it will happen in our country. The only thing we can do now is think about how we will educate the next generation. Because among the current people infected with propaganda, the majority is likely to remain in their position, unfortunately. Someone may be able to win over to the side of good, but very many will not succeed.

The only thing that remains is, firstly, to try to understand how we will educate the new generation, how it will grow, in what environment, including information. The second is how we will all continue to live together, those who are for and those who are against the war. Because sooner or later we will end up in the same room with each other, I mean in the country. How we will live, I do not know.

The stakes have been raised

Moscow sociologist Stepan Goncharov says that it is possible to understand the flow of information and not be infected by propaganda even in today's Russia. But this requires certain skills, will, appropriate social circle, moral attitudes. In general, a fairly wide range of conditions.

“ People have told us sociologists before that it is difficult for them to perceive heterogeneous information, so they tend to simplify the task, it is easier for them to choose one side that they want to support and choose information accordingly. In principle, this always happens, but in moments of aggravation and an information wave, this strategy becomes more urgent for the majority.

- That is, a person tells himself that he has figured everything out and no longer wants to listen to those whom he considers bad and wrong or who contradict the point of view that is convenient for him.

- Yes, he does not want to listen to what does not coincide with his attitudes, with his way of thinking, he does not want to perceive what is capable of frustrating him, making his life unpleasant.

“ But why do some fall for this deception, while others do not?” What does it depend on?

- It depends on the actual practices of behavior. When a person says “I am comparing information from different sources”, it is important, of course, to understand how different they are, whether they really form the whole range of possible opinions, including those that a person does not like, but which he needs to study in order to understand what thinks the other side. Of course, this is not enough. Because, in principle, for an ordinary person who is not immersed in information, for whom it is not a zone of professional interests, for a person who is not familiar with information verification techniques, with more sophisticated fact-checking, especially during an exacerbation, when there is a lot of information - for such a person The task of distinguishing truth from lies becomes almost impossible.

But still possible ?

- The circle of contacts is also important here, when your friends, acquaintances, relatives set a model of behavior for searching for information, a responsible attitude towards it. If there is such a circle, then it forms a greater resistance to propaganda in a person.

– Maybe there is also an ethical moment, moral attitudes?

- Of course. But now the conversation about guilt, about responsibility concerns a very small circle of people, for everyone else, what is happening is not a matter of morality, but a matter, as they believe, of physical survival. They do not raise the question of whether it is moral or not moral to fight in another country, they have a completely different argumentation, a different formulation of the problem. For them, it is a matter of survival of the world in which they live. Because propaganda inspires them - now we are all in mortal danger, now there is no time to think about good and bad, otherwise we will all be destroyed. And this puts the question of victims, losses, costs out of the brackets. This sets a rather primitive, but working scheme for perceiving what is happening.

“ At the same time, many admit that Russian propaganda is very well done.

- Propaganda can only actualize those ideas and those grievances that are already roaming in society. We have heard for a long time that Russia needs to rise from its knees. The state successfully turned this discontent, which had been brewing for a long time and warmed up in society, into a national idea, into the idea that Russia was desecrated, and now we are reborn.

– It was necessary to simply use the same resentment?

- Oh sure. Just use all these ideas that the West did not consider us, it seeks to rob us in every sense, take our resources, take our lands, take Ukraine, which is also perceived as a resource. As Putin said, Russia has no borders.

- Why do terrible losses, killed, wounded do not sober up the people? Why doesn't it work? This information does not reach people?

– Now we live in such a time that this information cannot be completely removed, it can be limited, statistics can be sub-margined, but, of course, it is completely impossible to prohibit it. But all these losses are perceived by people infected with propaganda as the result of an attack on us. And the more the society is involved in the conflict, the more the price of any action grows. For example, any peace negotiations will now have to take these losses into account. Now everyone has raised the stakes. And for people who have personally lost their loved ones, victory becomes an even more significant, sacred goal for them, so that all this would not be in vain. And what now can be a way out of this situation - it is not clear.

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