Difference between revisions of "Dzhinsa (Russia and FSU)"

http://aei.pitt.edu/58378/1/commentary_90.pdf</ref>). Academic works on the Russian media make little reference to ''dzhinsa'', despite the term’s common use in journalistic circles. Lack of sources makes empirical analysis difficult. Journalists speak of it as a widespread phenomenon, but are reluctant to provide concrete details about it, such as information about prices, frequency, and the actors involved. Nevertheless, Koltsova (2006<ref>Koltsova, O.  2006. ''News Media and Power in Russia''. London and New York: Routledge </ref>) succeeded in gathering and analysing data about ''dzhinsa'' in the Russian media at the beginning of the 2000s.

http://aei.pitt.edu/58378/1/commentary_90.pdf</ref>). Academic works on the Russian media make little reference to ''dzhinsa'', despite the term’s common use in journalistic circles. Lack of sources makes empirical analysis difficult. Journalists speak of it as a widespread phenomenon, but are reluctant to provide concrete details about it, such as information about prices, frequency, and the actors involved. Nevertheless, Koltsova (2006<ref>Koltsova, O.  2006. ''News Media and Power in Russia''. London and New York: Routledge </ref>) succeeded in gathering and analysing data about ''dzhinsa'' in the Russian media at the beginning of the 2000s.

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In Russia, the emergence of ''dzhinsa'' is intimately linked with the marketisation of economic relations in the media. It results from the commodification of media products, which began in the late 1980s. The practice of publishing ''dzhinsa'' developed in the 1990s, during the economic reforms of the ‘shock therapy’ period. It allowed newly privatised firms to promote their products and work in a novel way, via journalistic articles. At the same time, the use of ''dzhina'' also came to be of great significance in the political sphere. From the early 1990s, politicians in their election campaigns used PR strategies based on the publication of covert political advertisements in the media. The privatisation of the media was the catalyst for this marketisation of journalism. The lack of resistance by journalists to ''dzhinsa'' was the result of economic difficulties encountered in the media business. As Australian scholar Brian McNair noted, during the 1990s, ‘those who work in the Russian media have struggled for survival in an environment characterised by chronic resource shortages, political instability and the ever-present threat of criminal interference’ (McNair 2000: 69<ref>McNair, B.  2000. ‘Power, profit, corruption and lies: The Russian Media in the 1990s’ in  M.J. Park and J. Curran (eds.), ''De-Westernizing Media Studies''.  London and New York: Routledge </ref>). According to Russian academic Olessia Koltsova, ‘in some extremely badly off publications, journalists lived almost entirely on ordered articles. Thus, ''dzhinsa'' is a form of latent privatisation of media organisations by individual journalists’ (Koltsova 2006<ref>Koltsova, O.  2006. ''News Media and Power in Russia''. London and New York: Routledge </ref>). ''Dzhinsa'' is just one aspect of the informalities, oligarchism and ‘black PR’, which are often considered as the main features of the ‘wild 1990s’ in Russia (Ledeneva 1998<ref>Ledeneva, A.  1998. '' Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press </ref>). However, this practice did not cease during the 2000s. In the Russian media today ''dzhinsa'' remains a widespread informal practice, which is periodically denounced by journalists not involved in the practice. According to the Insider, an independent Internet web site, the leading Russian newspapers ''Komsomolskaia Pravda'', ''Izvestia'' and ''Rossijskaia Gazeta'' continue to publish ''dzhinsa'' (The Insider, 2014 <ref> ‘Zolotye Slova. Kak rossijskie SMI zarabatyvaiut na dzhinse’ 2014. The Insider, 23 September, http://theins.ru/korrupciya/1631</ref>). This was confirmed in 2014 by hackers from the '' ‘Shaltaj-Boltaj’'' Internet site who published documents showing that government authorities in Moscow paid for the placement of articles in the main Russian newspapers. According to these documents, the newspaper ''Izvestia'' received 935,000 rubles, ''Nezavisimaia Gazeta'' – 760,000 rubles, and ''Komsomolskaia Pravda'' – 645,000 rubles to promote the polities of the government (Okrest 2014<ref>Okrest, D.  2014. ‘Zakazuha optom I v roznicu’, ''The New Times'', 29 September, p.31 http://www.newtimes.ru/articles/detail/87750/</ref>). Journalists report that the development of the Internet in the 2000s has not diminished the appearance of ''dzhinsa'' in the media sphere and paid-for content in newspapers remains a common practice to the present day. Economic difficulties have not disappeared with the web economy; on the contrary, growing competition for financial resources between Internet sites and traditional newspapers has created further economic difficulties for journalists.

In Russia, the emergence of ''dzhinsa'' is intimately linked with the marketisation of economic relations in the media. It results from the commodification of media products, which began in the late 1980s. The practice of publishing ''dzhinsa'' developed in the 1990s, during the economic reforms of the ‘shock therapy’ period. It allowed newly privatised firms to promote their products and work in a novel way, via journalistic articles. At the same time, the use of ''dzhina'' also came to be of great significance in the political sphere. From the early 1990s, politicians in their election campaigns used PR strategies based on the publication of covert political advertisements in the media. The privatisation of the media was the catalyst for this marketisation of journalism. The lack of resistance by journalists to ''dzhinsa'' was the result of economic difficulties encountered in the media business. As Australian scholar Brian McNair noted, during the 1990s, ‘those who work in the Russian media have struggled for survival in an environment characterised by chronic resource shortages, political instability and the ever-present threat of criminal interference’ (McNair 2000: 69<ref>McNair, B.  2000. ‘Power, profit, corruption and lies: The Russian Media in the 1990s’ in  M.J. Park and J. Curran (eds.), ''De-Westernizing Media Studies''.  London and New York: Routledge </ref>). According to Russian academic Olessia Koltsova, ‘in some extremely badly off publications, journalists lived almost entirely on ordered articles. Thus, ''dzhinsa'' is a form of latent privatisation of media organisations by individual journalists’ (Koltsova 2006<ref>Koltsova, O.  2006. ''News Media and Power in Russia''. London and New York: Routledge </ref>). ''Dzhinsa'' is just one aspect of the informalities, oligarchism and ‘black PR’, which are often considered as the main features of the ‘wild 1990s’ in Russia (Ledeneva 1998<ref>Ledeneva, A.  1998. '' Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press </ref>). However, this practice did not cease during the 2000s. In the Russian media today ''dzhinsa'' remains a widespread informal practice, which is periodically denounced by journalists not involved in the practice. According to the Insider, an independent Internet web site, the leading Russian newspapers ''Komsomolskaia Pravda'', ''Izvestia'' and ''Rossijskaia Gazeta'' continue to publish ''dzhinsa'' (The Insider, 2014 <ref> ‘Zolotye Slova. Kak rossijskie SMI zarabatyvaiut na dzhinse’ 2014. The Insider, 23 September, http://theins.ru/korrupciya/1631</ref>). This was confirmed in 2014 by hackers from the '' ‘Shaltaj-Boltaj’'' Internet site who published documents showing that government authorities in Moscow paid for the placement of articles in the main Russian newspapers. According to these documents, the newspaper ''Izvestia'' received 935,000 rubles, ''Nezavisimaia Gazeta'' – 760,000 rubles, and ''Komsomolskaia Pravda'' – 645,000 rubles to promote the polities of the government (Okrest 2014<ref>Okrest, D.  2014. ‘Zakazuha optom I v roznicu’, ''The New Times'', 29 September, p.31 http://www.newtimes.ru/articles/detail/87750/</ref>). Journalists report that the development of the Internet in the 2000s has not diminished the appearance of ''dzhinsa'' in the media sphere and paid-for content in newspapers remains a common practice to the present day. Economic difficulties have not disappeared with the web economy; on the contrary, growing competition for financial resources between Internet sites and traditional newspapers has created further economic difficulties for journalists.