The Impact of Foreign Sanctions on Russian Media Economy

In this study we attempted to analyze the impact of foreign sanctions on the media economy of Russia through the prism of several groups of theories: media system theories, media concentration theories and sanctions theories, taking into account their specificity with regard to Russia. The identification of possible forms of influence of sanctions on the media market was carried out by analyzing the content of publications in the two largest Russian business newspapers «Vedomosti» and «Kommersant». During the content analysis it was possible to confirm the hypothesis, that sanctions encourage the outflow of foreign capital from the Russian media, thereby increasing concentration on the domestic media market with its historically established oligopolistic structure. In addition, it was possible to determine that restrictive measures from the US and the European Union contributed to increasing loyalty on the part of the business elite to the Kremlin.