Transformation of Anti-Digital Rhetoric in the Media of Russian Orthodox Nationalists: from Religious to Political
Research Article
How to Cite
Korpusov D.I. (2023) Transformation of Anti-Digital Rhetoric in the Media of Russian Orthodox Nationalists: from Religious to Political. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii (The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology), 26(3): 100-114 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2023.26.3.4 EDN: YXMSVJ
Abstract
The current “conservative turn”, which has been a trend of Russia's policy since 2011, due to its scale, inevitably influences the transformations of the rhetoric used by any political movement in Russia. The extant of this influence is predictably higher in the case of conservative and religious movements, which are generally pro-government. By virtue of their loyalist character, they had to reorganize their rhetoric according to the mainstream of the state's public discourse. This article is an attempt to analyse the results of this process. In the article we will analyse the basic concepts of modern digital phobic rhetoric used by Orthodox nationalist organisations in Russia, trace the transformations of their public digital phobic rhetoric, and highlight the most popular ideas constituting and corroborating the digital phobic discourse within the politically active Orthodox fundamentalist community. The changes will be highlighted through the comparative analysis of digital phobic rhetoric of Russian Orthodox nationalists of the 1990s and the modern representatives of this movement. The analysis will be performed through defining the relative importance of various groups of political and conspirological theories legitimating the digital phobic discourse within the community of politically active Orthodox fundamentalists at the present time and back in the 1990s. The method of the research is based on content analysis, concerning the frequency of word-markers characteristic of a ideological theory or conception. This analysis lets to define the prevailing at the present time narrative of Russian Orthodox nationalism, identify the value-based guidelines of digital phobic movement within the realm of Russian Orthodox nationalism. In turn, it will provide the understanding of the influence of the "conservative turn" in Russia's policy on the public rhetoric of Russian Orthodox nationalism, exemplified by the digital phobic rhetoric. Its ideological basis will be also identified, along with the essential features of modern Russian Orthodox COVID dissidence, which is closely linked with the resentment provoked in some Russian Orthodox circles by the digitalisation.
Keywords:
digital phobia, digitalisation, anti-globalism, Russian Orthodox nationalism, fundamentalism
References
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Hovorun C. (2005) Interpretiruya "Russkij mir" [Interpretation of the "Russian World"]. Russkiy zhurnal [Russian Journal] (in Russian).
Knorre B., Murashova A. (2021) V nachale bylo Slovo…», a v konce budet chislo? Pravoslavie i anticifrovoj protest v Rossii: s 1990-h do koronavirusa [In the Beginning Was the Word; Will a Number Be in the End? Orthodoxy and Anti-digital Protest in Russia: From the 1990s to the Coronavirus].Mir Rossii, 30(2): 146–166 (in Russian).
Knorre B., Zasyadko A. (2021)Pravoslavnyj antiekumenizm 2.0: mobilizacionnaya model', sek'yuretizaciya i revanshizm [Orthodox anti-ecumenism 2.0: Mobilization model, securitization and revanchism]. State, religion, church in Russia and abroad, 39(2): 277–317 (in Russian).
Mitrofanova A.V. (2004) Politizaciya «pravoslavnogo mira» [Politicization of the “Orthodox world”]. Moscow: Nauka (in Russian).
Mitrokhin N.A. (2007) Infrastruktura podderzhki pravoslavnoj eskhatologii v sovremennoj RPC. Istoriya i sovremennost [Support infrastructure for Orthodox eschatology in the modern Russian Orthodox Church. History and modernity]. Moscow: Franco-Russian Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences (in Russian).
Shnirelman V.A. (2017) Koleno Danovo. Eskhatologiya i antisemitizm v sovremennoj Rossii [Tribe of Dan. Eschatology and Antisemitism in modern Russia]. Moscow: BBI (in Russian).
Smith A. (2004) Nacionalizm i modernizm. Kriticheskij obzor sovremennyh teorij nacij i nacionalizma [Nationalism and Modernism: a critical survey of recent theories of nations and nationalism]. Moscow: Praxis (in Russian).
Teslya A.A. (2019) Istinno russkie lyudi. Istoriya russkogo nacionalizma [Truly Russian people. History of Russian nationalism]. Moscow: Ripol-Klassik (in Russian).
Ukhvatova M.V. (2018) Naputstviya ohranitelej (religioznaya ritorika na inauguraciyah rossijskih gubernatorov) [Sermons of the conservatives (Religious rhetoric at the inaugurations of Russian governors]. Politia, 2: 84–101 (in Russian).
Umland A. (2007) Tri raznovidnosti postsovetskogo fashizma: konceptual'nye i kontekstual'nye problemy interpretacii sovremennogo russkogo ul'tranacionalizma [Three Variants of Post-Soviet Fascism: Conceptual and Contextual Issues Combine with Contemporary Russian Ultranationalism]. In: Laruelle M. (ed.) Sovremennye interpretacii russkogo nacionalizma [Modern interpretations of Russian nationalism]. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag: 129–170 (in Russian).
Uzlaner D. (2020) Postsekulyarnyj povorot. Kak myslit o religii v XXI veke [Post-secular turn. How to think about religion in the XXI]. Moscow: Publishing House of the Gaidar Institute (in Russian).
Verkhovsky A.M. (2003) Politicheskoe pravoslavie. Russkie pravoslavnye fundamentalisty i nacionalisty, 1995–2001 gg. [Political Orthodoxy. Russian Orthodox fundamentalists and nationalists, 1995–2001]. Moscow: "Sova" center (in Russian).
Verkhovsky A.M. (2005) Radikalnyj pravoslavnyj antiglobalizm [Radical Orthodox anti-globalism]. Moscow: Publishing House of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (in Russian).
Verkhovsky A.M. (2007) Verhi i nizy russkogo nacionalizma [The upper and lower classes of Russian nationalism]. Moscow: "Sova" center (in Russian).
Yablokov I. (2021) Russkaya kul'tura zagovora. Konspirologicheskij teorii na postsovetskom prostranstve [Russian culture of conspiracy. Conspiracy theory in the post-Soviet space]. Moscow: Alpina Nonfiction (in Russian).
Zygmont A.I. (2012) O fenomene «carebozhiya» v sovremennoj religioznoj kul'ture Rossii [On the phenomenon of “Tsar-Worshiping” in the modern religious culture of Russia]. Vestnik RGGU. Seriya «Kul'turologiya. Iskusstvovedenie. Muzeologiya» [RSUH/RGGU Bulletin. The series “Philosophy. Sociology. Art criticism”], 11: 138–145 (in Russian).
Article
Received: 10.10.2022
Accepted: 21.09.2023
Citation Formats
Other cite formats:
ACM
[1]
Korpusov, D.I. 2023. Transformation of Anti-Digital Rhetoric in the Media of Russian Orthodox Nationalists: from Religious to Political. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii (The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology). 26, 3 (Sep. 2023), 100-114. DOI:https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2023.26.3.4.
Section
Political Sociology
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