Телевизионные ток-шоу и результаты выборов: брендинг политических партий в России

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Introduction

Political marketing in Russia is a relatively new and little-studied phenomenon that has surfaced in the country’s political landscape since the first national elections in 1991, just on the eve of the collapse of the USSR. Before this, the president of the state was elected only once – in 1990 at the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR; even earlier, the head of state was elected within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Party representatives in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (analogous to parliament) were also appointed within the CPSU at the Congress of People’s Deputies, not elected outside of it. The society was separated from the electoral process, and therefore political marketing technologies were not used.

By the beginning of the presidential elections in 1991, political branding technologies were still little used, and political campaigns were distinguished by ‘tracing’ foreign experience and unprofessionalism (Grinberg, 2012, p. 10; Pich, Newman, 2019). The politicians themselves did not know how to engage in their promotion (Kuznetsov, 2004, pp. 163–193; Segela, 1999). However, this marked the beginning of the process of democratizing the country and developing the political market.

During the 1993 campaign for the election of the State Duma of the first convocation, the Central Election Committee allowed candidates to pay for political advertising and permitted TV channels to sell airtime. A researcher of public relations in politics, Grinberg, argued that precisely since the 1993 campaign, “it might be noted a change like coverage of the election campaign by the media and an increase in the importance of media content for forming the political choice of Russians”. At the same time, an analysis of the money spent on political advertising showed insignificant effectiveness in political advertising and debates in Russia. In many ways, this is why in subsequent election campaigns, starting in 1996, the emphasis was on the use of socio-political TV shows as a soft power.

One of the promising ways to promote politicians is through their appearances on socio-political talk shows. This type of program on the main Russian TV channels (Channel One, Russia 1, and NTV) is one of the most popular in Russia at the moment. Socio-political talk shows occupy about 30% of the air; they are put on the program grid in different time slots, including prime time (Dolgova et al., 2019). In addition, thanks to selective work with information in the process of writing a script, the choice of guests, and the peculiarities of the host’s behavior, socio-political talk shows can be used as a soft power (Gulenko, 2021). That is why this type of content seems to be the most interesting for analysis.

Thus, this study involves an analysis of existing methods for the formation and implementation of a party brand on Russian television and an assessment of the effectiveness of these methods for Russian political parties represented in the State Duma. In this paper, we will try to look at how politicians and political parties themselves work with this resource, appear in broadcasts, and try to brand their speeches. This article aims to answer the question: do Russian parties that are pro-government or part of the systemic opposition strive to form their brand, and how do they do it with the help of television?

Analysis Framework

TV is an assistant to the government in Russia (Gulenko, Dolgova, 2020) as well as in other post-Soviet countries (Skvortsova et al., 2023). From this follows the hypothesis that the Political Party United Russia, which got the majority of seats in the State Duma of the 7th and 8th convocations (54.2% and 71.55%, respecti­vely), will be the most represented on TV.

H1. Political talk shows will mainly feature the United Russia party, which holds the majority of seats in the State Duma of the 7th and 8th convocations.

The second hypothesis is related to the degree of development of political marketing technologies in Russia.

H2. Since branding methods have been used in the political market of this country for only 30 years, it can be assumed that these mechanisms are little mastered and rarely used.

To confirm or refute this hypothesis, a qualitative analysis of the mechanisms for implementing the brands of political parties on television was carried out.

Three periods and three TV channels were selected to study the branding of politicians in socio-political talk shows.

Channel One, Russia 1, and NTV are the most popular federal channels in Russia, traditionally called the Big Three TV channels. According to Mediascope data for 2023, these TV channels have the largest audience coverage and average daily share of TV viewing^[1].

Materials and Methods

A two-stage model was used for the analysis.

On the first stage, we analyzed the political talk shows aired on Channel One from April 6th to April 12th, 2019 (for the non-electoral period) and April 6th to April 12th, 2021 (for the electoral campaign period) and then compared the presence of politicians in a socio-political talk show with the election results.

Since the results of the study did not reveal a correlation between the vote statistics on the election and the representation of politicians in talk shows, on the second stage of the analysis, from March 20th to March 26th, 2023, we analyzed methods of branding of politicians in talk shows on Big Three TV channels: Channel One, Russia 1, and NTV. The sample included political talk shows that aired regularly, with an average runtime of one episode of 1.5 hours: Vremya Pokazhet (Time will show – Channel One), 60 minut (60 Minutes), Vecher s Vladimirom Solov’evym (Evening with Vladimir Solovyov – Russia 1), Mesto vstrechi (Meeting Place – NTV). At all stages of the study, dates were taken in the middle of the television cycle, when the broadcast network is most stable and is not affected by public holidays or other significant events.

In the course of the analysis, we reviewed the programs that aired during the specified period and compiled lists of participants by name. We outlined the speeches of representatives of political parties using a special analysis matrix developed on the basis of theoretical approaches, which allows one to analyze in detail the elements of the image of a particular political actor.

The moral and ethical qualities of a politician play a crucial role in shaping the public’s perception of their image. In his study, Rogach, a prominent political scientist, identified the qualities that citizens believe correspond to the image of an ideal president. According to his findings, honesty, decency, selflessness, and altruism are the fundamental qualities that an ideal president should possess (Rogach, 2021, p. 411). Additionally, the study revealed that an ideal president should be strict with subordinates and remain calm and composed in the most challenging situations. A significant portion of respondents also believe that a State Duma deputy should be a role model of a decent and ambitious citizen, guided by altruistic motives and with an unblemished reputation (Rogach, 2021, p. 412).

When analysing the behaviour of politicians, we paid attention to the presence or absence of the following traits: confident, leader; insecure, follower; ‘man of the people’; compromise; honest, decent; selfless, altruistic, just; deceitful, hypocritical, self-centered, aggressive; intelligent; with a strong character and emotional stability.

By ‘confident leader’ we understood authoritative people who showed leadership qualities, were able to make independent responsible decisions in significant and crisis situations, plaid an important role in the organization and regulation of political life in the country and were able to unite people to achieve certain goals (Meshcheryakov, Zinchenko, 2004, p. 49; Fedorov, 2006, p. 50).

By followers, we meant individuals who exhibited characteristics that were antithetical to those of leaders. Such individuals may lack the ability to make independent decisions, fail to act decisively in times of crisis, or play a limited role in the organization and regulation of political affairs, among other things.

To the category of ‘man of the people’ we included politicians who emphasized their origin and position themselves as equals with citizens who were not directly related to them. Their focus lied in protecting the rights of these groups.

In the analysis of rhetoric and speech, we examined the use of hate speech or verbal aggression by political actors. Hate speech, in this context, referred to statements that aim to instill hatred towards a particular group based on racial, national, gender, or other discriminatory grounds. According to Gladilin’s definition, hate speech is “communication that has no other meaning than expressing hatred towards a certain group, especially in conditions where communication can provoke violence. This is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of people defined by race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc.” (Gladilin, 2013, pp. 144–153).

When evaluating the style of clothing, politics were taken into account as a general conformity to one or another fashion direction (for example, official style, casual, smart casual) and the presence of distinctive signs on clothes (brands, patches, shoulder straps, badges, etc.).

Results and Discussion

It has been thirty years since the beginning of the use of political marketing methods in Russia, but political technologies are still not used by all political actors in our country and are very little studied by the researchers. This is due to the relatively small practice of application, and the specifics of the Russian political field. According to Pokrishchuk, in Russia the use of political marketing often occurs amid insufficient free participation of political actors in the electoral contest, when the attractiveness of a political output of an actor for voters does not guarantee victory in a political campaign (Pokrishchuk, 2008, p. 289).

Studies of political marketing methods in Russia keep going on (Gugnin, 2016; Ilyasov, 2000; Nedyak, 2010), but they are not mass studies and are usually focused on methods of promoting politicians at the theoretical level but little on practice. The topic of party promotion turns out to be even less studied and is also considered from a theoretical point of view (Aksenov, 2013) or in the context of comparing the brands of the two parties (Myakotina, 2008; Rudenko, 2013).

The topic of using the representation of party leaders on Russian TV is seen only in the context of political advertisements or debates; the representation of politicians in socio-political talk shows on television as a method of political marketing in Russia has not been studied, which determines the scientific novelty of the presented paper.

Political parties’ representation in socio-political talk shows in 2019

From April 6 to April 12, 2019, the Time Will Show talk show broadcast on Channel One on Monday-Friday twice a day: in the late morning and pre-primetime, which made it possible to attract the attention of various genders and age groups.

Each episode was unique, with a host and set of guests. Most often, the guests didn’t reappear within one episode. The total number of issues aired during this period was 15.

Only 23 of the 60 guests were members of any political party, which is 38.3%. At the same time, only 17 (28.3% of the total number) of them attended the show more than once. Members of seven parties were found out in the studied talk shows. United Russia is a conservative political party, the largest one, and the ruling party in Russia. A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) is another big political party, conservative in social issues and left-leaning in economic policies. It has been rebranded several times since 2006 but is now permanently elected to Parliament. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is the oldest Russian party, a descendant of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP), founded in 1898. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is a right-wing and ultranationalist party, one of the oldest in post-Soviet Russia (founded in 1991). We also saw three democratic parties in the show, usually representing the non-systemic opposition (Pimenov, 2016). PARNAS is a liberal-democratic party, strongly oppositional. Russia of the Future is another oppositional liberal party. Democratic Choice is a right-wing conservative-liberal political party. To calculate the representation of specific parties, the author added up the number of appearances of all deputies of each individual party, and then compiled a rating list (Table 1). According to the representation rating, the United Russia party is in the lead; this corresponds to the fact that, at the time of 2019, this party had the majority of seats in parliament: 343 out of 447 (54.2% of the vote) (Table 1). Interestingly, the representation rating of the CPRF is significantly lower than that of the SRZP, although the CPRF outperforms А Just Russia in parliament: 42 seats (13.3%) against 23 (6.2%). It seems unexpected that the four leaders of the rating do not correspond to the parliamentary four; for example, the LDPR in the list was lower than PARNAS and Democratic Choice, which did not get seats in the State Duma. Members of strong opposition parties regularly appeared in the broadcasts of Channel One, but much less often than members of the pro-government United Russia.

Political parties’ representation in socio-political talk shows during electoral campaign of 2021

In total, 13 issues of Time Will Show issues were aired during the named period, only 5 of them were original. This fact would allow us to say that the number of political actors’ appearances can be increased by 3, as well as the party representation rating, but the authors of the study believe that it is incorrect to compare the representation on daytime and nighttime broadcasts due to the smaller number of viewers. Therefore, we didn’t take into account the rebroadcasted daytime programs.

During this period, we met members of two parties that had not yet been mentioned. The PARUS was created in 2018 as a political movement of Russophiles. Party of Growth is a liberal-conservative political party.

According to the representation rating, as of 2019, the United Russia party is in the lead. It is noteworthy that the rating of 18 points has been preserved for two years. But this cannot be considered a general trend since the rating of SRZP fell from 14 to 10, and the rating of the Communist Party fell from 6 to 2, while A Just Russia is still in the rating above the Communist Party. The four leaders still do not correspond to the parliamentary four. A sharp increase in the representation rating of the Party of Growth, which was not included in the results of the study for 2019, also seems unusual. This party was in the top four, although it was not represented in the State Duma either.

Table 1
Political parties’ representation in socio-political talk shows

The Political Party	Representation ranking		Percentage of parliamentary election votes
	2019	2021	2016	2021
United Russia	18	18	54.2	49.8
SRZP	14	10	13.3	18.9
CPRF	6	2	6.2	7.46
LDPR	2	5	13.1	7.55

Source: compiled by Yulia I. Dolgova, Violetta V. Sazhina, Leila O. Algavi.

Thus, the rating of representation in political talk shows can affect the rating of the party and the voting results in elections, but we cannot talk about a direct correlation. We also found that the administrative resource has little effect on the media representation of political parties in Russia, which explains, for example, why the media representation ratings of United Russia and A Just Russia – for Truth were approximately equal, although representation in the State Duma differed strikingly.

The first step of the study showed that for the success of the party in the elections, a high level of media representation is not enough (as we see it in the SRZP example). In the second part, we will look at how Russian parties use political marketing technologies appearing on television.

During the analyzed period, United Russia representatives appeared in political talk shows 10 times, of which only 2 times were repeated. At the same time, 7 out of 10 appearances were in the 60 minut (Russia 1), 2 in Time Will Show (Channel One), and 1 in Evening with Vladimir Solovyov (Russia 1). It is noteworthy that in 80% of cases the party was not indicated in the title. All United Russia representatives on television adhere to the formal style of dress and, in most cases (60%), wear a deputy badge even outside meetings to visually emphasize their status (Table 2).

Table 2
Political parties’ representation in socio-political talk shows. March 2023

Politician	Number of appearances	Moral and ethical qualities	Rhetoric	Style
Vladislav Shurygin (SRZP)	6	Uncertain follower	Common phrases, passes speculation as facts, translates the topic	Casual/Business + Z badge
Nikita Danyuk (SRZP)	5	Confident leader, emotional. ‘For’ the common people, against cruelty	Expressive speech with weak argumentation, manipulation of facts, hate speech	Official
Alexander Kazakov (SRZP)	4	Confident leader, strong character	Good line of argument and monologue logic	Formal + badge
Kira Sazonova (SRZP)	3	Uncertain follower, imitates a firm character	Florid style, a lot of water, common phrases, little expertise	Casual + bright elements
Andrey Isaev (United Russia)	2	Confident leader	Expressive speech. Good reasoning, clear analogies	Formal + deputy badge
Andrey Kartapolov (United Russia)	2	Uncertain follower	Replaces arguments with emotions and speculation, uses hostile language	Formal + deputy badge
Konstantin Dolgov (United Russia)	1	Leader with a strong character Fair	Strong argumentation, gives emotional assessments	Formal + deputy badge
Andrey Gurulev (United Russia)	1	The image of the military	Expert analysis, consistent speech hate speech	Formal + deputy badge
Petr Tolstoy (United Russia)	1	Confident leader, fair. Man of the People	Strong argumentation and monologue logic	Formal + deputy badge
Konstantin Zatulin (United Russia)	1	Confident leader, fair. Man of the People	Strong argumentation and monologue logic	Formal + deputy badge
Adalbi Shkhagoshev	1	Follower	Common words, broken logic	Formal
Oleg Morozov (United Russia)	1	Soft follower	Lots of water, broken logic. Unnecessary pathos, hate speech	Formal
Alexander Babakov (SRZP)	1	Confident leader	Strong argumentation and monologue logic	Official
Mikhail Delyagin (SRZP)	1	Aggressive, egocentric	Gives out speculation for facts, the logic of the monologue is broken	Formal + deputy badge
Dmitry Gusev (SRZP)	1	Leader	Speaks little, clearly and to the point, does not enter into disputes	Official
Dmitry Novikov (CPRF)	1	Uncertain follower	Common phrases, logical errors, no arguments and no own judgments	Formal + red flag badge
Leonid Kalashnikov (CPRF)	1	Confident, Politician ‘from the common people	Good argumentation, bright speech	Formal
Nina Ostanina (CPRF)	1	Aggressive	Does not give arguments, no constructive, divides the world into black and white	Casual + bright elements
Andrei Lugovoy (LDPR)	1	Uncertain follower	A lot of water, no own judgments and arguments	Formal

Source: compiled by Yulia I. Dolgova, Violetta V. Sazhina, Leila O. Algavi.

Half of the United Russia representatives on television maintain the image of a confident leader; their speech is always expressive, with good arguments, and without logical fallacies. As a rule, they do not use hate speech, except for Andrey Gurulev.

The other half of the party representatives adhere to the image of a ‘follower’. They are inoffensive and manageable, do not engage in controversy, and may look stiff and confused. These actors often replace arguments with emotions and assumptions; they sometimes make logical errors in monologue of the desire to keep their speeches going as long as possible.

It can be concluded that United Russia seeks to create its brand as a party of businesslike, confident people who are ready to compromise. The leader of United Russia is a good speaker; he demonstrates his authority, expressively defends his position, and gives arguments, but sometimes he can replace arguments with emotions and assumptions. Party members do not have a single image; the degree and success of brand manifestation depend on the individual qualities of each person.

Among all the leaders of the parties who appeared in the political programs of the Big Three in the period under study (35 appearances), the actors from SRZP took the majority – 21 appearances (60%). Out of 21 appearances, the game was listed in the credits only four times (19%). At the same time, 70% of them took place in the program Time Will Show (Channel One), 20 % in Meeting Place (NTV), and 10% in Evening with Vladimir Solovyov (Russia 1).

Summarizing what was said above, we can see that the SRZP representatives are divided into those who are regular guests of political TV shows and those who visit them periodically. This is where any patterns of the SRZP brand ends.

Each of those representatives has a different style, which can vary from episode to episode, from formal to casual. Some actors use badges, necklaces, and other bright elements of clothing to attract attention, but this is not a general trend (Table 2).

The image of each representative is also unique and cannot be grouped: a confident leader, a man of the people, a tough leader, etc. There are no links between the image of a politician and his rhetoric. In 4 cases out of 7, the party representatives used the manipulation of facts and guesswork instead of arguments in their speeches; they also evaded the answer and did not follow the logic of the monologue, but this does not correlate with the image of the actor.

From the above data analysis, we can conclude that the A Just Russia – For Truth party does not seek to form a single brand of the party, which is why the speeches of its representatives look fragmented and do not increase the recognition of the party and its rating. The party seeks to promote each member separately and relies on the quantity rather than the quality of party members’ appearances in political programs (Table 2).

Of the 35 appearances of political actors in the analyzed programs, only 3 (9%) are for the CPRF and 1 (3%) for the LDPR. It is worth noting that only in 1 out of 3 cases, the CPRF party was captioned, while LDPR was not at all.

The CPRF representatives appeared twice on the air of Meeting Place (NTV) and once on Time Will Show (Channel One). The LDPR deputy performed in Evening with Vladimir Solovyov (Russia 1).

For a full-fledged analysis of the effectiveness of the implementation of the parties’ brand, CPRF, and LDPR, we do not have enough material. From what we see, we can only say that none of the factions has a single image of a party politician; the actors have a different style, manner of behavior, and method of rhetoric. At the same time, it cannot be said that the image of politicians corresponds to the basic models of behavior (a confident leader, a follower, or a person from the people). It would be more accurate to say that the representatives of the parties that fell into this group have no image at all.

Conclusion

The successful image of a political party in the media has no direct relationship with its administrative resources. The leadership in the rating of appearances in talk shows did not always correspond to the number of seats that a party got in parliament; even those parties that did not get seats in the State Duma could become leaders of media representation (e.g., Party of Growth, PARNAS). In addition, in the last studied period, the ruling United Russia was not the party that most often participated in talk shows. According to the rating of media representation, it was bypassed by the SRZP, whose percentage of seats in the State Duma did not change. Nevertheless, the first hypothesis was partially confirmed; we saw the predominance of systemic parties on TV, whereas in the last studied period, under conditions of the foreign policy crisis, non-systemic parties (e.g., Party of Growth, PARNAS) disappeared from broadcasts.

We believe that when choosing the guests of broadcasts, the journalistic opinion also matters. Journalists invite guests based on the topics of the programs and their compositions, not on the guests’ party affiliation. This is also confirmed by the fact that the party affiliation is not always captioned. However, this issue requires additional research. Despite the journalistic factor, this does not mean that political leaders should not try to take part in broadcasts and brand their participation.

We also revealed that the rating of representation in political talk shows has some indirect correlation with party electoral outcomes. At the same time, it is important to take into account the specifics of Russian television, whose main audience is people over the age of 55. In this case, the party representation in a talk show will positively affect the election results only if its electoral base is people over 55.

With the advent of mass media, parties tend to fall by the wayside when it comes to voting in parliament elections. People more often vote for media politicians who have competently built an image and identity and developed a good reputation. Politics is also becoming very personalized; voters perceive parties through their leaders. However, despite the unequivocal effectiveness of political marketing methods, not every Russian political party uses them.

The parties analyzed in this study were divided into 3 groups: those who seek to promote the brand of the party; those who seek to promote certain party members; and those who are not actively promoting on television.

Group 1 includes United Russia, which has a well-established brand. The members of this party are businesslike, confident, and ready to compromise. They are good speakers; they put a lot of effort into demonstrating their authority, expressively defending their position, and giving arguments, but sometimes they can replace arguments with emotions and speculation. Together with its high media representation, its brand achieves results in elections.

Group 2 includes the party A Just Russia – for the Truth. This party does not have a well-established brand, but it is actively engaged in TV promotion. In some periods, the media representation of SRZP was close to United Russia’s or even exceeded it, but due to the lack of a strong party brand, the promotion strategy of SRZP turned out to be unsuccessful.

Group 3 includes the parties CPRF and LDPR, whose media representation figures are unstable and unrepresentative.

The analysis showed that the appearance of political leaders on TV talk shows is an effective way to form not only the personal image of a politician but also the party brand. Thus, hypothesis 2 was confirmed. Russian political parties have not fully adopted political marketing. Only the ruling United Russia had been actively promoting itself on television during the analyzed period. We do not claim that, only thanks to high-quality political marketing, United Russia is the ruling party in Russia, but research has shown that it is the only Russian political party that actively uses promotional technologies in the media. Other parties could use its experience.

Limitations

In this study, we used the method of expert analysis of TV program content to analyze the Russian politicians’ branding; therefore, there was a certain degree of subjectivity during the data processing. Focus groups could expand the results obtained and demonstrate the specifics of politicians’ perceptions to a general audience.

In Russia, political TV talk shows are the most popular form of political discussion, but some parties’ deputies are represented unbalanced and do not always aim to show themselves as representatives of any political group. In the future, we consider it reasonable to use pre-election debates as material for analysis; such a study would allow us to expand our understanding of the specifics of political branding through television.

 

^{1 Mediascope. (2023). Ratings. https://mediascope.net/data/}

Об авторах

Юлия Игоревна Долгова

Московский государственный университет имени М.В. Ломоносова

Email: YIDolgova@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8861-0521
SPIN-код: 1595-6606

кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры телевидения и радиовещания, факультет журналистики

Российская Федерация, 125009, Москва, ул. Моховая, д. 9, стр. 1

Виолетта Владимировна Сажина

Государственный университет связи

Email: violetsvz@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0009-0000-4613-6585

магистрант Школы драмы, телевидения и кино

Китайская Народная Республика, 100024, Пекин, Чаоян Дистрикт, офис C103, здание 21

Лейла Омаровна Алгави

Российский университет дружбы народов

Автор, ответственный за переписку.
Email: algawy_lo@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5335-8506
SPIN-код: 1165-8610

кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры теории и истории журналистики, филологический факультет

Российская Федерация, 117198, Москва, ул. Микл ухо-Маклая, д. 10, корп. 2

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