This whole week we were splitting the many topics we would like to research on. There were so many of them that we decided, everyone choses a topic, works on it and then we all present the results to each other and exchange the new knowledge and ideas.

Monday

On Friday last week we decided which one of the main big russian propaganda figures each of us will research on Monday and Tuesday. I went for one of the biggest mouths on television – Vladimir Solvyov. He is famous for hosting political debates and being very rude and screamish in all of his tv programs. The topics of the debates are of course being discussed in prior to the live launch of the program and every person knows how they are supposed to comment on the chosen topic. The discussers are mostly “fake experts” who either don’t have much to do with that topic at all or are very famous and trusted by the public. One of them is for example Nikita Michalkov – one of the most famous film directors in Russia. He was studied by Ilya. Michalkov is not such a big propaganda figure, he is rather a very famous and trusted by public person. Unfortunately he uses that trust in him to serve the propaganda.

Tuesday

We were still researching on our chosen propagandists. Misha
was concentrated on watching the life videos and interviews of
Margarita Simonyan and her husband Tigran Keosayan. Both of
them being loyal servants of Putin, they spread a lot of hate in
masses. For that they use the program “International Sawmill”
where Keosayan is the host and Simonyan is the creative
director. Simonyan also loves to go on a lot of interviews and
programs especially to her propagandistic friend Solovyov on the
“Russia-1” and “NTV” channels.
Seva was researching on Olga Scabeeva – the host of the
program “60 minutes” on the “First Channel”. This program,
similar to Solovyov’s, is a talk-show on the world and russian
news with pre-discussed topics and opinions. We could notice a
lot of similarities between all the shows we were watching but we
found that out on Wednesday when we compared the individual
researches.
Olga Scabeeva is apparently not as big as other propagandists:
she doesn’t have a lot of houses and apartments, neither in
Russia nor in the world… or… she hides them really well. Seva
found out that while all the other propagandists had a lot of real
estate, international passports and children living in the US or EU,
Scabeeva’s live and property was pretty boring or at least not
known to the public.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we compared what we learned about propagandists. We had several topics we were orienting on: the biography, real estate, property, international passports, scandals and the probably most important topic for us – propaganda methods.
We were studying their body language, manner of speech, vocabulary and rhetorics they use to help them influence people’s minds.

Thursday

We found many similarities and decided to study them too. I took on the topic of rhetorics used by propaganda. Everyone else also decided to dive into the topics that interest them the most. Ilya started to research on the prison culture and the results of it: masculinity ideal picture and the fast spreading homophobia – two topics the propaganda loves to play on. Seva dived into one more big propaganda figure – Dmitry Kiselyov. This one is as big as Solovyov and is known not only for his aggressive style of hosting talk-shows but also for viciously brilliant use of rhetorics. For the bad cause unfortunately.

Misha decided to take a step into a different direction and to concentrate on the poetic side of our research. He was writing poems about the topics that concern him in modern day Russia. What happens to simple people and the feelings associated with that.

Friday

Today we came together again to talk about what we have found out and what are our plans for the making-off next week. We talked about what we would like to show and what we need to do or to find for it. After making plans, we tried to combine our newly researched topics together so that we can use them later. We suddenly realised how much information we had in our heads by now – it was already “coming out of our ears”. So we needed to process it and mix it with some poetic and artistic elements.

by Tatjana Ochsenohr