Kremlin Media Wars: Censorship and Control Since the Invasion of Ukraine

This unique volume brings together academics of Russian journalism and media with journalists and editors who reported or continue to report on the country, to explore and reflect on the changing landscape for journalists in Russia or covering Russia, and the increasing control exerted by the government on independent journalists.

Combining rigorous academic research with reflective practitioner essays, the volume investigates the future of reporting in Russia and the implications for the future of the country. It offers an understanding of the experience of independent journalists and media outlets in Russia, as well as other individuals who experience censorship (academics, activists), and examines how the current situation in Russia and people’s experiences of censorship can inform both our theoretical understandings of censorship and information control, in the context of the twenty-first-century digital technologies and the policymaking both inside and outside of Russia.

Offering important insight into what is happening within Russia’s borders, this volume will appeal to researchers and students of journalism, political science, international relations, propaganda and censorship, mass media, as well as journalists and policymakers.

Wendy Sloane is an Associate Professor, Principal Lecturer, and journalism course leader at London Metropolitan University and is currently working on a PhD about censorship and press restrictions in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. She received a BA in Political Science and Russian from Mount Holyoke College and an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union. She has previously worked for Time Magazine, Moscow Magazine, Associated Press, Daily Telegraph and the Christian Science Monitor.

Aleksandra Raspopina is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism and Digital Media at London Metropolitan University and a researcher interested in Russian post-Soviet journalism, media and politics, misinformation and disinformation and post-truth. She has previously worked as a journalist for a number of publications, including The Calvert Journal, The Guardian, The Economist, Vice and CBS News, and worked as a lecturer in journalism and media research at City, University of London and Middlesex University.