Manufacturing the Enemy: Frame Analysis of LGBT+ Discourse in Russian State Media, 2003–2024

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has increasingly relied on state-controlled media to manufacture consensus, define moral boundaries, and mobilise support for an authoritarian political project. In this context, the construction of internal enemies has become a vital tool of governance, and LGBT people have been positioned at the centre of a symbolic battle over Russian identity, sovereignty, and cultural survival. While the early post-Soviet period was marked by relative silence on questions of sexuality, the 2000s and 2010s witnessed a growing obsession with regulating gender and sexual norms. Today, queerphobia is not simply a byproduct of conservative values, but a deliberate narrative strategy that serves broader ideological and geopolitical goals. This thesis investigates how Russian propaganda frames LGBT rights as a threat to national sovereignty, public morality, and traditional values. Drawing on a multidisciplinary theoretical framework that combines media framing theory, Goffman’s frame analysis, Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, Pomerantsev’s concept of postmodern propaganda, and Yablokov’s work on conspiracy thinking in Russian political communication, the study examines how emotional, moral, and conspiratorial appeals are used to construct LGBT people as existential threats. By analysing television programmes, political speeches, and popular Telegram channels from the late 1990s to the present, the research identifies recurring discursive patterns and symbolic motifs that enable the state to link LGBT visibility with foreign interference, moral decay, and civilisational collapse. Situating the Russian case within broader debates about authoritarianism, cultural politics, and the manipulation of public perception, the thesis argues that propaganda plays a central role in producing and sustaining moral panics that legitimise repression. The success of Russian state media in framing LGBT identities as a danger lies not only in its repetition of anti-LGBT messages, but in its ability to embed these messages within emotionally resonant narratives of national victimhood, historical trauma, and resistance to Western hegemony. By dissecting the techniques and frameworks through which these narratives are constructed and circulated, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of how propaganda functions as a cultural and affective system of governance.