Discussing her new book, Natalia Roudakova carefully traces the process of erosion of the values of truth-seeking and truth-telling in post-Soviet Russian journalism and in Russian society at large. The implications of Losing Pravda extend beyond Russia as the book ultimately describes what could happen to a country’s public life when the value of collective truth is displaced by cynicism, falsehoods, fabrication, and disregard for public interest.
Natalia Roudakova is a cultural anthropologist working in the field of political communication and comparative media studies. She also has a broad interest in moral philosophy and political and cultural theory. She was educated in both the Soviet Union and the United States (Ph.D. in Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University, 2007). From 2008 to 2017, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, University of California in San Diego, USA.
Her research in communication has been located at the intersection of journalism studies, classic social theory, and philosophy of communication, with a particular focus on questions of media and ethics. She is especially interested in the political role journalism plays during revolutions and more gradual political transitions, when – as an institution – it works simultaneously as an agent and a target of political and social change.
Presented as part of the Havighurst Colloquia Series - The Intimacy of Power: Politics and Everyday Life in Russia and Eastern Europe
