kremlin pushes war propaganda with music

well the war in Ukraine is being fought

out in the mass media as well as on the

battlefield in our next report we

profile a pop singer who's become one of

Russia's highest paid entertainers he's

also an enthusiastic propagandist for

President Vladimir Putin

this young singer star is on the rise in

Russia thanks in large part to a

powerful fan base the Kremlin before the

war in Ukraine Shaman's song sounded

very different

now he counts Vladimir Putin among his

biggest fans thanks to a drastic change

in looks and lyrics

has morphed from a talent show

participant to Russian Superstar gone

are the dreadlocks his trademarks now

include a wooden cross necklace and a

Russian flag on his arm

and patriotic song lyrics like I'm a

Russian in spite of the world Shaman's

transformation has made him at Kremlin

darling foreign

tradition exists of sponsoring and

spreading State propaganda through pop

music

but some artists have chosen to leave

Russia rather than be part of the

kremlin's propaganda campaign either

because of political pressure or to

Signal their disagreement with the

Kremlin

Morgenstern is one of them the

millionaire rapper now lives in Dubai

in this video he listens to music in a

car next to a young Ukrainian who plays

a voice message from his mother

describing their house being bombed

whether out of true conviction or

pragmatism Shaman and other artists have

chosen a different route

subscribe

the hype around Shaman is artificial his

real popularity is not as big as Russian

State media proclaims it to be and that

they exploit him for

everyone has listened to his songs but

simply because you can't hide from them

just like you can't hide from put in

Space

the shift to a more patriotic look and

sound has been very lucrative for Shaman

he's often invited to perform at

state-sponsored shows the question is

whether that popularity will last once

he is no longer needed to amplify

moscow's wartime communication strategy

is an assistant professor of critical

media analysis at the Simon Fraser

University in Burnaby Canada and is

currently joining us from the German

city of Lunenburg welcome to DW so first

and foremost I'd like to know what type

of propaganda is used in Russia

uh hi thank you for having me uh I've

been observing a lot of types of Russian

propaganda you used during this year and

other years and of course you can say

that it's very kind of you know the

variety is quite impressive but also

they converge right so here we speak

about popular culture and popular

culture one of the major uh sources and

realms for propaganda but also they

converge uh with news uh with other

types of propaganda and they all Channel

emotion Channel certain affect in a

similar way so in this sense I can say

that someone like a singer Shaman can be

really compared to Margarita semanyan as

the head of Russia today and they are

similar in how they do it there is a lot

of affect there is a lot of kind of you

know

um

a particular wording and they all

function as this joint choir of uh the

channels the message from the Russian

government well let's break it down a

little bit so we're looking here at uh

the singer Shaman for example um and

tell us about the kremlin's attempts to

win over young people are there many

more examples like Shaman and how do

they go about it say for a specific age

group

um like those who would uh who would

like listening to Shaman's music

well and he has a kind of almost a

little visual expression of Counter

Culture however at the same time the

message is really contradictive to what

real counterculture would kind of demand

or want to hear and this is very

paradoxical but I also want to note

another very important thing that has to

do with the image of Shaman for example

you know I am a specialist of uh on the

topics of cyber war and disinformation

and propaganda and things like this not

a popular culture and probably otherwise

I wouldn't have noticed Shaman if not

the name itself so he actually came

across my attention precisely because of

the name and here I find it quite

problematic

and also uh kind of you know

instrumentalized uh name because the

name obviously comes from different

religions different cultures of

so-called Russia right from the

indigenous people of Russia who are

being colonized and occupied and the

fact that so much a kind of you know

Russian looking boy and a young man who

sings the songs that appeal mostly kind

of almost for the older generation not

so much for younger people but he is a

combination you know like his age

appeals to Young groups his songs appeal

to kind of some middle age and maybe

even all the population but at the same

time there is also attempt by using

cultural appropriation to make a link to

other kind of ethnicities and indigenous

people of Russia but the way how it's

done it's extremely problematic and

shows again a kind of really embedded

imperialism and colonialism right

tell us how effective you think it is

foreign

I mean it's very difficult in fact to

evaluate and to measure the uh impact

because we don't have enough information

probably and because also what we see

there is just the surface looking at the

surface looking at his dominance on the

scene on the pop scene if it may looks

effective but at the same time the

question would be quite similar in the

situation would be quite similar when

you speak about the effect of Russian

propaganda right so even though the

machine like the news even though the

machine is definitely incredibly

powerful and totally dominate but if you

look at and really think of whether or

not people indeed believe it right it's

it's we don't know I'm gonna have to

unfortunately we're running out of time

we could talk about this for quite a lot

longer but thank you for joining us on

DW Svetlana matfienko.