Foreign Media About the Great Patriotic War in the Context of Information Confrontation

Abstract

The article presents the research results of the media information activity in the United States, Britain and Germany in the coverage of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War. This event serves as a plot prism, through which methods of information confrontation producing and its subject orientation are considered, as well as the reasons for the predominance of negative tonality when covering a memorable event all over the world. As a method of measuring media content, the method of political mediametry was used, which is based on a quantitative calculation of the mass media publications of the world media, determining their tonality and deriving the final result based on the obtained data. Its use allows us to more accurately assess the degree of foreign media participation in shaping the context of information confrontation and measure the parameters of their activity in the display of current events. The specificity of the information strategy implementation in relation to Russia lies in the fact that the American media act primarily as a general tone generator, while the powers of the translator are transferred to their European allies. At the same time, the tonality indicator inside the country shows that in a small volume of American publications the negative dynamics is more pronounced than in a large volume of materials from the English and German press, where the negative is leveled down. It is not necessary to take into account the level of positive tonality due to its insignificant presence. The article focuses on the Russian president V. Putin’s media figure. The number of mentions of his name in the titles of the presented publications demonstrates the vector of the information policy pursued within the state, and in proportion to the general information activity according to the specified plot. By force of the personification of public political relations, the placing of V. Putin’s media figure in the center of media attacks by Western countries leads to an extrapolation of aggressive sentiments to all Russian society. Added to this is the participation of domestic media, which are trying to use retaliatory measures, but their orientation does not always correspond to the declared goal. The results of the research allow us to consider the media as participants in the formation of information confrontation conditions, whose actions are directly correlated with the foreign policy aspirations of the country in which they operate.