PBS高端访谈:克里姆林宫是如何使用电视媒体来塑造俄罗斯政治的真实性

 　　GWEN IFILL: Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state of the nation speech today. Defiant¹ in the face of international sanctions, he boasted of his country's incursions into Ukraine and the annexation² of Crimea, reiterating³ that it belongs to his nation.

　　PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia (through interpreter): For Russia, Crimea, ancient Korsun, Khersones, Sevastopol have a major civilizational sacred meaning, the same as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has for those who confess Islam and Judaism. And this is exactly how we will treat it from here forever.

　　GWEN IFILL: For many observers, the speech was classic Putin, using television to assert his view of reality to his own people and the world.

　　Putin's use of the medium is the subject of a new book, "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible," by Peter Pomerantsev, a Russian-born British writer and television producer. He returned to Moscow to work in the Kremlin's vast television apparatus⁴, creating Russian reality TV shows.

　　Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner spoke⁵ with him yesterday.

　　MARGARET WARNER: So, Peter Pomerantsev, thank you for joining us.

　　You have described television as the nuclear weapon of politics in Russia.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV, Author, "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia": Yes, it takes on a — it's at the core of the political system.

　　You have to imagine a country that is absolutely huge. It's about a sixth of the world's land mass and it's also sociologically very varied⁶. So you have sort of very contemporary towns like Moscow, and then you have near feudal⁷ villages, which have a completely different sense of reality.

　　And the only thing that brings them together is the television. Television is at the core of the present political system.

　　MARGARET WARNER: You say, now, at the center of all of this is the president himself as performance artist. What do you mean?

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: Putin was no one. He was this great guy famous for wearing horrible suits everywhere he went. Nobody would notice him in meetings. He was a no one.

　　And they took him and created him to be what we know today, oligarchs who control TV, and P.R. TV producer guys who were very close to the KGB. It's this incredible mix of secret services and television producers. And they made him into sort of a hero for all seasons.

　　So he could be the president who is the ideal lover, the ideal matcher guy, the ideal businessman. And this was all done through television. And the first thing that Vladimir Putin did in 2000, when he came to power, was to get rid of the oligarchs who controlled television and take it over.

　　MARGARET WARNER: And at a very young age, from London, you got a chance to get in on the inside. You describe this one organization that essentially⁸, you said, controls everything on television, entertainment and news.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: That place is actually the Kremlin.

　　There was always a telephone to all the major TV channels, but all kind of coordinated⁹ by the Kremlin itself.

　　MARGARET WARNER: But you started out as a producer for one of the networks in that big apparatus called TNT doing reality shows.

　　It sounds harmless, sounds apolitical enough.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: Around 2000, TV started making a lot of money. And they wanted to get producers from the West to come and make their version of "The Apprentice¹⁰" or "Housewives of New York."

　　And that's why they needed people like me. You have to understand the Kremlin is very, very aware that they have to make TV entertaining nowadays. Their aim is kind of synthesize political manipulation and entertainment.

　　And so very soon, I found that even entertainment had this sort of very insidious¹¹ element of social control. Politics has become like a reality show. So, you have debates on Russian TV. They're completely sort of scripted from the Kremlin.

　　So, you have a puppet right-wing opposition¹², a puppet left opposition. They kind of shout at each other. And the result is to make you feel, oh, my God, Putin is in the middle and kind of let's have Putin instead, the opposition is mad. People become very malleable¹³. The population becomes almost sort of incapable¹⁴ of critical analysis. So, that's a much sort of deeper form of manipulation.

　　MARGARET WARNER: This has much broader international implications. This isn't just a problem for Russia.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: Well, increasingly, the Kremlin has been thinking about information in terms of — basically as a weapon, weaponized information. It's a tool to distract, demoralize the enemy, to be used as a decoy in a military operation.

　　So now you have a huge international sort of broadcasting arm being set up by the Kremlin, whose aim is really to sort of do psychological operations against Russia's enemies, whether that's Ukraine or increasingly the West.

　　MARGARET WARNER: And we have certainly seen it play out in Ukraine.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: Well, in Ukraine, it's been total.

　　That's really been the new thing about this war in Ukraine. So, there's a small military operation, covert¹⁵ mainly, and 98 percent propaganda. They are using the idea of freedom of information, which is something that we value very much, to do disinformation.

　　Let's say Russia today after the MH-17 crash spits out tens of conspiracy¹⁶ theories about why it might have happened. The idea that Ukrainians thought it was President Putin's personal plane and they shot it down? They're not doing this out of a search for the truth. They're not doing this out of a passion for investigative journalism¹⁷.

　　They're doing this to kind of muddy the waters as quickly as possible.

　　MARGARET WARNER: Now, one of the great mysteries in the West is why, as the sanctions tighten¹⁸ around Russia, as oil prices drop, as Russia's headed into recession next year, Putin remains¹⁹ wildly popular.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: In Russia, love is always very close to fear. So, when 84 percent of say they love Vladimir Putin, they might almost be saying that they fear him.

　　MARGARET WARNER: Is there something about him that touches something in the Russian soul?

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: I think they have manipulated it to make people feel that there is something in him which touches the Russian soul.

　　Listen, his polls were doing very, very badly after coming back into power. They started a big war in order to get his ratings up. And 84 percent is what Bush had after the start of Iraq. It's the classic figure for a wartime president. And the question is, how are they going to hold this? Are they going to have invent new wars?

　　And you have to understand who the war is with. So, Russia isn't in a war with Ukraine, according to Russian propaganda. It is at war with America. It's kind of this funny thing. America is like barely paying attention to Russia. Russia, if you watch Russian TV and if you increasingly talk to Russians, is now at war with America.

　　MARGARET WARNER: Peter Pomerantsev, thank you so much.

　　PETER POMERANTSEV: My pleasure.

1 defiant   

adj.无礼的，挑战的

参考例句：

• With a last defiant gesture,they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.他们被带走投入监狱时，仍以最后的反抗姿态唱起了一支革命歌曲。
• He assumed a defiant attitude toward his employer.他对雇主采取挑衅的态度。

2 annexation   

n.吞并，合并

参考例句：

• He mentioned the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 .他提及1910年日本对朝鲜的吞并。
• I regard the question of annexation as belonging exclusively to the United States and Texas.我认为合并的问题，完全属于德克萨斯和美国之间的事。

3 reiterating   

反复地说，重申( reiterate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He keeps reiterating his innocence. 他一再申明他无罪。
• The Chinese government also sent a note to the British government, reiterating its position. 中国政府同时将此立场照会英国政府。

4 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

7 feudal   

adj.封建的，封地的，领地的

参考例句：

• Feudal rulers ruled over the country several thousand years.封建统治者统治这个国家几千年。
• The feudal system lasted for two thousand years in China.封建制度在中国延续了两千年之久。

8 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

9 coordinated   

adj.协调的

参考例句：

• The sound has to be coordinated with the picture. 声音必须和画面协调一致。
• The numerous existing statutes are complicated and poorly coordinated. 目前繁多的法令既十分复杂又缺乏快调。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

10 apprentice   

n.学徒，徒弟

参考例句：

• My son is an apprentice in a furniture maker's workshop.我的儿子在一家家具厂做学徒。
• The apprentice is not yet out of his time.这徒工还没有出徒。

11 insidious   

adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧

参考例句：

• That insidious man bad-mouthed me to almost everyone else.那个阴险的家伙几乎见人便说我的坏话。
• Organized crime has an insidious influence on all who come into contact with it.所有和集团犯罪有关的人都会不知不觉地受坏影响。

12 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

13 malleable   

adj.(金属)可锻的;有延展性的；(性格)可训练的

参考例句：

• Silver is the most malleable of all metals.银是延展性最好的金属。
• Scientists are finding that the adult human brain is far more malleable than they once thought.科学家发现成人大脑的可塑性远超过他们之前认识到的。

14 incapable   

adj.无能力的，不能做某事的

参考例句：

• He would be incapable of committing such a cruel deed.他不会做出这么残忍的事。
• Computers are incapable of creative thought.计算机不会创造性地思维。

15 covert   

adj.隐藏的；暗地里的

参考例句：

• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。
• The army carried out covert surveillance of the building for several months.军队对这座建筑物进行了数月的秘密监视。

16 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

17 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

18 tighten   

v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧

参考例句：

• Turn the screw to the right to tighten it.向右转动螺钉把它拧紧。
• Some countries tighten monetary policy to avoid inflation.一些国家实行紧缩银根的货币政策，以避免通货膨胀。

19 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。