Progressive Artists, Political Martyrs, or Blasphemous Hussies? A Content Analysis of the Russian Media Coverage of the Pussy Riot Affair

Abstract

From the first seconds of Pussy Riot’s most famous February 2012 performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior to the questionable trial that made headlines around the world to their widely publicized release in December 2013, media coverage has been an integral part of Pussy Riot’s activism. This study examines the media coverage of the affair by analyzing the content of 244 articles published in Russian media outlets representing the official (Rossiiskaya Gazeta), mainstream (Izvestia), and liberal-oppositional (Gazeta.ru) press. As the results reveal, the press coverage offered a fragmented, context-lacking view of the “prayer” that emphasized its superficial details while ignoring the complex interplay between civic activism and art that produced Pussy Riot’s performance. The “prayer” raised a wide range of issues ranging from the growing ties between church and state to pressure on the opposition to the progression of anti-LGBT legislation to gender discrimination. However, these concerns were left out of the coverage, a finding consistent across the three media outlets. Although the liberal-oppositional media did treat the band in a more positive light and repeatedly referred to the case as politically motivated, it failed to provide a significantly more comprehensive interpretation of the performance per se. The absence of a deep reading of the “prayer” downplayed the significance of Pussy Riot’s activism and suggested that the affair was made political not by the message they intended to convey but by the harshness of the government’s response. The visual provocativeness of Pussy Riot’s performance, intended to broaden the space for music in civic protest, made them vulnerable to deprecatory media framing, which resulted in marginalization, oversimplification, and trivialization of their message.

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