Media News - Friday, November 04, 2011
Russia satirists use YouTube to challenge Kremlin
Media control has been one of the key factors that have allowed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to dominate Russia's political landscape since he was first elected president in 2000. As the country prepares for parliamentary and presidential elections, though, there are signs that the Kremlin is facing a fresh media challenge in the form of an increasingly politicised audience on YouTube. Over the past few weeks, a number of Russian politics-themed clips on YouTube have achieved over one million views. The videos are in a variety of genres - political polemic, satire and song - but they have one thing in common: a critical or irreverent attitude to the country's leadership - Mr Putin, President Dmitry Medvedev and their party, United Russia. Earlier this year, anti-corruption campaigner and blogger Aleksey Navalnyy launched a web campaign against United Russia under the banner "Party of Crooks and Thieves". YouTube is not only giving a powerful voice to the opposition, it is also helping to revive subversive art forms. TV political satire has been virtually extinct in Russia since the puppet show Kukly (along the lines of the now-defunct UK satirical programme Spitting Image) disappeared from the screens shortly after Mr Putin came to power. Now, though, this kind of satire is making a comeback on the internet. Not all the satire is anti-government, but it is generally irreverent towards authority. YouTube has also helped revive Russian protest music, which, like satire, has been virtually banned from popular mainstream media outlets. (BBC News)
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