A Russian TV Insider Describes a Modern Propaganda Machine
Mr. Pomerantsev’s area of study is propaganda, and he believes he saw many classic techniques at work in Moscow. He says one favorite trick was to put a credible expert next to a neo-Nazi, juxtaposing fact with fiction so as to encourage so much cynicism that viewers believed very little. Another was to give credence to conspiracy theories — by definition difficult to rebut because their proponents are immune to reasoned debate.
“What they are basically trying to undermine is the idea of a reality-based conversation,” Mr. Pomerantsev said, “and to use the idea of a plurality of truths to feed disinformation, which in the end looks to trash the information space.”
.. “What matters in a dictatorship is control of the security services and control of propaganda,” Mr. Pomerantsev said, predicting that there would be more arrests to compensate for the lack of economic progress.
“There is nothing good about the ruble crashing,” he said. “It’s just making stuff worse in Russia.”