Yablokov, I. orcid.org/0000-0001-7766-8867 and Gatov, V. (2025) Broadcasting through the (new) Iron Curtain: practices, challenges, and legacies of Russia's independent media in exile. Journalism Studies. ISSN 1461-670X
Abstract
The Russo-Ukrainian war and the Kremlin's military censorship have made independent reporting from within Russia impossible. After a few weeks of the conflict, all institutional journalism was forced into exile. Funding sources, access to informants, and the ability to provide objective conflict coverage quickly vanished. Now in exile, Russian journalists have become entirely reliant on donor funding to sustain operations and on new technologies to reach audiences inside Russia. Over 18 months in exile, we conducted more than 50 interviews with editors-in-chief, senior correspondents, and individual journalists adapting to these new circumstances. We asked about audience access, funding opportunities, reliance on new technologies, and organisational challenges within newsrooms. This paper argues that these new conditions have underscored pre-existing issues within Russian media while introducing challenges brought about by the war and exile. However, in a global context, these issues closely mirror those faced by exiled journalists worldwide.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
Keywords: | Russia-Ukraine war; Russian media; exile; self-censorship; journalism; Big Tech |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Journalism Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 14 Mar 2025 13:03 |
Last Modified: | 14 Mar 2025 13:03 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Informa UK Limited |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/1461670x.2025.2462550 |
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Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:224455 |