Gender politics of the ‘war of narratives’: Russian TV-news in the times of conflict in Ukraine

This article focuses on the gender politics of the news broadcast on the Russian state-controlled TV channels – Channel One (Pervyj kanal), Russia-1 (Rossiya-1), Russia-24 (Rossiya-24), NTV and RT (formerly Russia Today) – from January to September 2015, a period when the TV news closely followed the conflict in Ukraine and the growing tensions between Russia and Europe. The study shows that the news on the state-controlled TV channels interpret the state politics in only one possible way – ascribing the most traditional and essentialist characteristics to the country, prioritizing male actors and military activities and suggesting no alternatives to ‘(re)masculinization’ of the image of Russia in the situation of the conflict on the territory of another state, despite the alleged disengagement of the country in it. The article concludes that the state-controlled TV channels use essentialist gendering as a part of nation-branding and nation-building strategies, with an aim to construct the gendered and intersectionalized ideology of the ‘Russian world’ that would target both internal and external audiences and go beyond the borders of the Russian Federation.