Vladimir Putin, comedy mastermind? | Is the Kremlin using laughs as a propaganda tool? © Maria Joner/CC BY-SA 4.0

Vladimir Putin, comedy mastermind?

Is the Kremlin using laughs as a propaganda tool?

Forget interfering in American elections, Russia has found a new way of manipulating people: comedy.


According to Nato experts, the Kremlin has turned some of the country’s most popular comedy TV shows into a propaganda tool.


A 157-page report from Nato’s Strategic Communications Center found that ‘humour has been used as a potent tool in the construction of messages designed for strategic communication’.


Researchers found that comedy was used to legitimise the Putin regime, delegitimise foreign leaders and ‘frame American values’, for example by reinforcing the stereotype that Americans are stupid, but patriotic.


Special focus was given to long-running comedy talent show Club Of The Merry And Witty, with researchers claiming the Kremlin uses it to gain access to ‘strategically important’ youngsters. The authors point out that the show’s creator Alexander Maslyakov, has been honoured with a ‘For Merit to the Fatherland’ order.
The report also says that evening comedy shows entitled Projector Paris Hilton, Evening Urgant, Yesterday Live and Maxim Maxim - depict Western leaders, especially Americans, in a negative light in order to discredit them.


But in a blow to  Britain’s relevance, the UK barely got a look-in with jokes most often made about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi, George Bush and Angela Merkel. (The report was compiled from pre-Trump broadcasts).


The head of Parapaparam, a comedy group that appears on KVN, has described the conclusions as ‘gibberish’.
And the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its own sense of humour about the research, with spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova telling Estonia’s Sputnik News: ‘Humour has become a new challenge to peace. It's the new secret weapon in the arsenal of those insidious and diabolical Russians.’


The paper also found a happier use for comedy ‘for solidarity, denigration and stress-relief’ in the Ukraine during the recent Russian aggression.


Academics undertook the research for Nato’s StratCom at the request of the Latvian Defence Ministry, and you can download the report here.

Published: 5 Apr 2017

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