The Physicality Audiovisually Propagated by Russia since the Beginning of the War in Ukraine, its Transformation, Function and Effect: A Film-psychological Analysis

Abstract

This article offers a film-psychological analysis of Shaman's music video oeuvre. Shaman is a Russian singer who has become a superstar since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and who embodies Russia's major media strategy of aestheticizing the broad civilian population. Considering current Russian propaganda and applying affective-integrative film psychology as approach, an instrumental and a cultural function of the audiovisual propaganda of physicality are elaborated. The instrumental function lies in the mobilization—i.e., the actual and symbolic recruitment—for the war in Ukraine. The cultural function is to suggest to the Russian audience a national identity as devised by Putin and thereby homogenize it. Moreover, the article shows that it is the power of emotionalization, achieved in part through physicality, that serves as gateway to the propagated content. It is further argued that Shaman's music videos have radicalized in two phases while Russia is on the way to becoming a fascist state.