Deconstructing Homophobic Discourse in Russia: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the #YesWillChoose Movement

Abstract

This paper explores the use of homophobia as a political tool in Russian state-affiliated media, particularly in relation to the 2020 referendum and how art activism contested this in social media. The 2020 constitutional referendum in Russia included an amendment that defined marriage as the union between a man and a woman on a constitutional level, reflecting the state’s rising radical conservative ideology and posing greater danger to the LGBT+ community. Using multimodal discourse analysis, this paper examines how state-affiliated media constructed homophobic narratives in the political advertising campaign video “Will you choose this kind of Russia?” and the ways in which the #YesWillChoose movement challenged the content of this campaign on Twitter.