NecroSpeak: The Special Language of the Special Military Operation

Актуальность выбранной темы заключается в безусловной важности роли СМИ в процессе формирования общественного сознания. Более того, интерпретация и целостное восприятие важнейших государственных и мировых событий и явлений осуществляется с непосредственным участием средств массовой информации. Современное мировое сообщество подчиняется жесткому правилу: реальное событие значительно только при условии широкого упоминания в средствах массовой информации. Необходимо подчеркнуть, что в число особенностей СМИ входит и способность формирования образа не только конкретной личности (политика, активиста), но и страны в целом. Ввиду такой степени влияния СМИ на восприятие конкретной страны в целом (ее политика и культура) изучение трансформации медиа-имиджа государства (в нашем случае - Российской Федерации) и его характеристик всегда актуально. В зарубежном медийном пространстве мифы о России и связанных с ней фобиях были сформированы в течение долгих лет холодной войны и последних месяцев специальной военной операции. Важно выяснить, насколько и какизменился подход к освещению современного образа России и российской действительности в европейских СМИ. Новизна данной работы заключается в попытке проследить динамику развития медиаобраза России в западных средствах массовой информации и их связь с событиями, предшествующими и в рамках специальной военной операции на Украине. Также предпринята попытка осуществления подробного анализа основных составляющих образа России в СМИ, а также выявление доминирующих тем, которые характерны для каждой составляющей. Объект исследования: медиаобраз России в европейских средствах массовой информации. Предмет исследования – особенности формирования образа России в европейских СМИ в рамках специальной военной операции на Украине. Цель исследования – проанализировать особенности создания медиа образа России в европейских СМИ в условиях проведения специальной военной операции на Украине. Задачи исследования: 1. изучить научные подходы к понятию «образ», «медиаобраз»; 2. определить исторические особенности создания образа России в европейских СМИ; 3. проанализировать специфику восприятия России в европейских СМИ после начала специальной военной операции на Украине; 4. выявить репрезентацию образа России в европейских СМИ с началом СВО. Основными методами для написания данной работы выступили: анализ научной литературы по теме исследования, историко-аналитический, интерпретация и дискурсивный анализ, контент-анализ, контекстуальный анализ. Практическая значимость данной работ заключается в том, что полученные результаты могут послужить основой для более детального исследования образа России в европейских СМИ. Так же основные выводы могут быть использованы в процессе информационного противостояния и защиты имиджа России за рубежом The relevance of the chosen topic lies in the absolute importance of the role of the media in the process of forming public consciousness. Moreover, the interpretation and holistic perception of the most important state and world events and phenomena is carried out with the direct participation of the media. The modern world community is subject to a strict rule: a real event is significant only if it is widely mentioned in the media. It must be emphasized that the features of the media include the ability to form an image not only of a specific individual (politician, activist), but also of the country as a whole. Due to such a degree of influence of the media on the perception of a particular country as a whole (its politics and culture), the study of the transformation of the media image of the state (in our case, the Russian Federation) and its characteristics is always relevant. In the foreign media space, myths about Russia and related phobias were formed during the long years of the Cold War and the last months of a special military operation. It is important to find out how much and how the approach to covering the modern image of Russia and Russian reality in the European media has changed. The novelty of this work lies in the attempt to trace the dynamics of the development of the media image of Russia in the Western media and their connection with the events preceding and within the framework of the special military operation in Ukraine. An attempt was also made to carry out a detailed analysis of the main components of the image of Russia in the media, as well as to identify the dominant themes that are characteristic of each component. Object of study: the media image of Russia in the European media. The subject of the study is the peculiarities of the formation of the image of Russia in the European media within the framework of a special military operation in Ukraine. The purpose of the study is to analyze the features of creating a media image of Russia in the European media in the context of a special military operation in Ukraine. Research objectives: 1. to study scientific approaches to the concept of “image”, “media image”; 2. determine the historical features of the creation of the image of Russia in the European media; 3. analyze the specifics of the perception of Russia in the European media after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine; 4. identify the representation of the image of Russia in the European media since the beginning of the Northern Military District. The main methods for writing this work were: analysis of scientific literature on the research topic, historical- analytical, interpretation and discourse analysis, content analysis, contextual analysis. The practical significance of this work lies in the fact that the results obtained can serve as the basis for a more detailed study of the image of Russia in the European media. Also, the main conclusions can be used in the process of information confrontation and protecting the image of Russia abroad

The age of digitalization can be characterized by new media communication channels. Resulting from that, new influential subjects of information started to appear – they are often called influencers and their impact on public opinion should not be underestimated. This paper compared audience profiles of traditional Russian media and those of influencers, as well as the ways these actors provided feedback with their audience. Preferences of the above mentioned audiences primarily differ due to age: traditional media attract mainly people of the older generation, since they prefer reading personalized analytics, detailed reviews, whereas influencers’ audience is much younger, since young people tend to prefer brief, but expressively brought messages. Traditional media and influencers act as significant actors in the process of interpreting and promoting relevant political information related to important events, which should include a special military operation (SVO) conducted by Russia in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. This operation caused powerful streams of hostility discourse to develop, broadcast primarily by foreign media and influencers. These days political media discourse of hostility has become a crucial part of the information agenda, however it is variously presented on different channels of network environment. Thus, the discourse of hostility broadcast by Russian media discredit the leadership of Ukraine, the political course towards SMO conducted by the United States and a number of European states. It is also directed against a group of people who left Russia and are publicly calling for destruction of Russian’s state institutions. At the same time, Russian media and influencers are not engaged in dehumanizing the population of Ukraine, of the United States and Europe, while Ukrainian media institutions use the entire arsenal of information warfare to create an anti-human image of Russia. This paper aims to carry out a theoretical analysis of media discourse of hostility promoting through traditional media and influencers in terms of their covering the problems of the SMO. Methods used in the research appear to be mainly a comparative analysis and a discourse of hostility promoting method, the latter uses different media technologies to consider topical issues related to the SMO. The paper comes to a conclusion that since Russia’s military, political, economic and international positions strengthen during the course of its military and political campaign, information flows promoting the political discourse of hostility will naturally increase in volume.

The coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has varied widely between Western, Russian, and Chinese media ecosystems with propaganda, disinformation, and narrative spins present in all three. By utilizing the normalized pointwise mutual information metric, differential sentiment analysis, word2vec models, and partially labeled Dirichlet allocation, we present a quantitative analysis of the differences in coverage amongst these three news ecosystems. We find that while the Western press outlets have focused on the military and humanitarian aspects of the war, Russian media have focused on the purported justifications for the “special military operation” such as the presence in Ukraine of “bio-weapons” and “neo-nazis”, and Chinese news media have concentrated on the conflict’s diplomatic and economic consequences. Detecting the presence of several Russian disinformation narratives in the articles of several Chinese media outlets, we finally measure the degree to which Russian media has influenced Chinese coverage across Chinese outlets’ news articles, Weibo accounts, and Twitter accounts. Our analysis indicates that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chinese state media outlets have increasingly cited Russian outlets as news sources and spread Russian disinformation narratives.

The research – based on the material of the Russian and American daily print publications – systematically analyzed alternative forms of coverage of the incident with the MH17 airliner that crashed near Donetsk on July 17, 2014. It is revealed that in the publications under consideration, when reporting a tragic event, the same frames with conflicting conceptual content are activated. The basis of the conflict is the ideological stereotypes that the publications adhere to. The qualitative analysis has shown that in the media with different ideological attitudes, during the reconstruction of the tragedy, the frames of opponents are used in order to refute their implicit conceptual content. As a result, the Russian and American media cover the tragic eventfulness in a contrasting way. The same frames used by the alternative media reproduce the dramatic event with the Boeing MH17 in a mirror way: each of the publications blames the ideological antagonist for the incident. The watershed line between the concepts of reportage framing and propaganda is blurred. As a result, taking into account the geopolitical factor, it is possible to determine similar and differentiating features between the strategic narratives of the Russian and American media. The relevance of the research is seen in the need to determine the content of the frames identified in a discursive work about tragic events and their impact potential on the target audience. This relevance is based on the distinction between the basic and additional content of mass media frames in terms of the expression of alternative opinions on the issues under discussion. It contributes to the clarifying such concepts as «impartial coverage of current events», «language specifics of analytical discourse in the post-truth era», «deliberate restriction of the amount of information and the choice of sources for recreating the event canvas». The discussion between the Russian and American media regarding the MH17 tragedy reflects the reportage management of journalists who occupy contrasting ideological positions, and captures the logic of shaping the political agenda in a globalizing and at the same time disunited world.

Introduction. The article considers the official and regional Germanic language varieties of Wallonia. As researchers mainly focus on the confrontation of the French and Dutch parts of Belgium when analyzing sociolinguistic processes in the country, studying the linguistic situation in the Wallonia regions where German, Luxembourgish, Ripuarian (Plattdütsch) are widespread might be of great current interest. Methodology and data sources. The research methodology is based on Russian and foreign approaches towards studying pluricentric and regional languages. Through the example of Plattdütsch the current state of the concept of dialect continuum boundaries was analyzed. A continuous sampling method was used to search for examples showing lexicogrammatical peculiarities of the Germanic language varieties common in Wallonia. Results and discussion. The article presents the diversity of the Germanic language varieties widespread in Wallonia. The history of the German language in Belgium and its current state have been explored. The correlation of the Limburg language and Ripuarian dialects has been studied. In an attempt of linguistic identification of Plattdütsch, the Germanic language varieties of East Cantons have been reviewed, the role of Low German dialects (Plattdeutsch) in the evolvement of German-speaking regions in Belgium has been analyzed. Lexical and grammar peculiarities of the Luxembourgish language in comparison with German and Limburg have been summarized. The Limburg language is presented as one of the foundations of Plattdütsch. Conclusion. Whereas the German language is an official language in Wallonia, Luxembourgish and Plattdütsch have the status of regional languages, notably, the latter is often used for political manipulations, which hinders its linguistic identification. By presenting it as a special language, French-oriented politicians aim at downgrading the role of Dutch in East cantons. Limburg is a variety of Dutch both in Belgium and the Netherlands, the Ripuarian language in Germany represent German, however the Wallonia government prefers to point out uniqueness of Plattdütsch.

Russian President is both a political institution of key importance and a distinctive individual of a specic manner of behaviour in his authoritarian rules. In this article I would like to present the role of the President in society with reference to historical heritage and the modern political culture of Russian society. Taking into consideration the fact that public opinion and the media, in conditions of democracy or democratization, constitute basic social mechanism that forms bases and formulas of legitimacy, I have decided that it is merge to join the issues into one. It is the President that I aim my examination at, not the Russian media themselves, the history of their development a€er 1991, or their ownership structure that governs them. e media will be of interest as long as they are necessary to understand how the President legitimizes his powers, to what extent he is successful, and what scope of success or failure depends on in the legitimacy e‚orts.

The article, based on an analysis of the publications of the Soviet media, examines the problems of the functioning of propaganda ideologies in materials devoted to the Arab­Israeli armed conflict of 1967 (six­day war). In total, more than 500 materials were studied, selected during the period of hostilities and immediately after it, according to the keywords “Arab­Israeli conflict”, “war”, “aggression”, “Zionism”, “imperialism”. The theoretical basis of the study was represented by scientific publications by the Russian scientists on media propaganda, the use of ideologue by journalists in political texts. The scientific significance of the topic is updated by the mediatization of a special military operation in Ukraine, the appearance in the Russian media and blog space of a large number of propaganda media materials, the active use of ideologized vocabulary by journalists and bloggers to characterize and analyze various aspects of the armed conflict, and the improvement of media techniques for marking a political and military enemy.

An attempt is made here to analyze mental conditions of Vladimir Putin and the ideologist Aleksandr Dugin, who was called the “Putin’s Brain”. Physical maltreatment was described in Putin’s biographies. Child abuse is associated with various psychiatric and related conditions including paranoia. A paranoid call may sanction destruction of supposed enemies. Putin formulated the aims of his current military operation: to disarm and denazify Ukraine, to protect ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers from “genocide”. Apparently, this idea is delusional. Certain war instigators are paranoid in their tendency to present themselves as prophets or world saviors. Some of them are aggressive against delusional goals. Mentally healthy people can be susceptible to psychotic appeals, a predisposing condition being fear of strangers and projection of hatred upon them. Certain behavioral stereotypes include attacking weaker individuals and yielding to dominant figures. The latter seems to be reflected by Putin’s relationships with Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechen Republic. Some ethnically non-Russian subjects of the Federation may be interested in a continuation of the Ukraine war; and there are concerns that Putin has come under their influence. The most important topic in this connection is the inter-ethnic difference in the birth rate and migrations, which is avoided by Russian media and officials these days. In conclusion, mental derangements in politicians are dangerous and must be diagnosed by psychiatrists on the basis of speech, writings, and behavior. More expert opinions are needed.

Inscribing Ukraine: The symbolic dimensions of Russian reterritorialization through war

RELEVANCE. The relationship between politics and sports is a pressing issue, since political contradictions between states are reflected in sports. Major sporting events are not just competitions between athletes, but also fierce political struggles. Through professional sports with the help of various media technologies, it is possible to influence global society and achieve geopolitical results. The relationship between elite sports and politics is considered using the example of the exclusion of Russian sports from international competitions and materials about this in the media.MATERIALS AND METHODS. Materials from foreign media have been studied on the topic of removing Russia from big-time sports, depriving it of state symbols, removing Russian athletes from international competitions due to disagreement with the political course of the authorities of the Russian Federation, and the introduction of so-called sanctions in the field of sports. The study was based on a comparative historical method, which helps to consider the dynamics of the development of relations between Russian sports and the political course of Western countries. The theoretical basis was the work of domestic and foreign researchers of the history and theory of sports. Content analysis was also used to study materials from Russian and foreign media with the aim of determining the attitude of foreign states towards Russian sports and its oppression in the international sports arena from 2014 to 2024.RESULT AND DISCUSSION. An analysis of foreign media materials confirms that pressure on Russian sports is being exerted by Western countries due to their disagreement with the political course of the Russian Federation. An analysis of sources showed that Western media agree on the issue of sanctions against Russian sports: they support the introduction of restrictions against Russian sports, but at the same time they call such measures an instrument of geopolitics, an instrument of “containing Russia”. This confirms the politicization of sports through the media.CONCLUSION. Analyzing the content of publications in both foreign and Russian media, we can conclude that pressure on Russian sports and members of the Russian national team began to intensify after the victory of the Russian team in the team event at the Olympic Games in Sochi 2014 and after the Republic of Crimea joined the Russian Federation . After the Russian Armed Forces launched a special military operation in Ukraine, even more sanctions and restrictions were introduced against Russian sports, and Russia was actually excluded from international sports. The author believes that the pressure on Russian sports will only increase.

The article presents a linguo­axiological analysis of a supertext segment of traditional and online Russian media during the period of the special operation in Ukraine (February 24 — December 24, 2022). The aim of the study is to identify the mental specifics of the axiological space of our anxious time, taking into account the accepted distinction between axiologemes, counteraxiologemes, as well as the contextually determined axiological marking of the language units. Among suggested features are: a linguoaxiological interpretation of the markedness of the lexeme blockade, as well as the corresponding attributive and genitive combinations; interpretation of the counteraxiologemes to isolate, isolation; interpretation of groups of verbs that nominate technologies of prohibition and restrictions aimed at excluding Russian civilization from the global environment. The policy of blockade and isolation is stated to contribute to the formation of axiological resistance based on upholding the core values of Russian linguistic culture. The article reveals a fragment of the axiological lexicon, its systematic description being a future task of Russian linguistic axiology.

As Edwin Gentzler’s latest book (2001) reveals, translation studies (as opposed to translating) is an area that is becoming increasingly relevant to both cultural and literary studies. Developing this point further, Sherry Simon states that, “Increasingly, translation and writing have become a particularly strong form of writing at a time when national cultures have themselves become diverse, inhabited by plurality”(Simon 1999: 72). Or indeed how “Symbolically, translation comes to be the very representation of the play of equivalence and difference in cultural interchange: translation permits communication without eliminating the grounds of specificity” (Simon 1992: 159). Therefore, particularly in postcolonial contexts, where the balance of power hinges on questions of language possession and linguistic insecurities, translation allows this power to be repositioned: it can establish a form of plurality by refusing to allow one language to dominate another. In recent works exploring the complex relationship between postcolonial environments and translation,1 these issues are examined in a worldwide context – writings from Quebec, North Africa, India constitute but a few examples. Yet, Simon also draws our attention to processes of translation that allow each language to maintain its own specific identity. In the French Caribbean, this becomes highly problematic because of the tensions between French – the official language – and Creole – the native spoken language.2 This article will explore the difficulties involved in establishing and maintaining this language specificity and will look at how, and if, French and Creole can ‘translate ’French Caribbean culture.

In political science literature on contemporary China, ideology is mostly regarded as a dogmatic straitjacket to market reforms that has been worn out over the years of economic success, an obsolete legacy of the past waiting to be cast off in the course of the country's transition toward capitalism. This article posits, however, that ideology still plays an indispensable role in the quest to legitimize authoritarian rule in contemporary China, and that it does so precisely due to its high degree of adaptability. Based on David Beetham's theoretical model of political legitimacy, three legitimating functions of ideology that demand the constant adaptation of party theory and official language are introduced. Presenting various examples of reformulations of party theory and official language from the beginning of the reform period up to the present, the article demonstrates how the party regime relies on ideology to constantly reproduce its legitimacy, as well as the pitfalls of this reliance. It argues that ideology in contemporary China should be analysed not as a matter of belief but of playing by the rules of the official language game, and it shows how ideology is deployed as a set of practices and incentives for the proper performance of the political elite.

Theories ascribing democracy to inclusive contestation imply that the speech of authoritarian rulers will differ from the speech of electoral politicians. Authoritarian rulers will use an official language that insulates them from populations under their control. This official language insults subject populations by implying that the vernacular in which they formulate their thoughts is inadequate for the discussion of political ideas. Electoral politicians, praising the competence of citizens to decide political questions, take care to frame their ideas in ordinary language, as otherwise the politicians would contradict their message that bearers of ordinary language are politically competent. If rulers implicitly insult and politicians flatter, citizens should respond with disaffiliation to rulers' language and affiliation to the language of politicians, at least of those politicians whom the citizens favour. This hypothesis is tested using an experimental paradigm in three Russian cities at the end of 1993. The prediction that Russians will affiliate to the texts of some electoral politicians contrasts with the claim that Russians evaluate political ideas mainly by contemplating change in their standard of living, since Russia represents an unusual case in which authoritarian speech is associated with greater affluence, while electoral speech is associated with increasing impoverishment for most people.

This article analyses the digital remembrance of the Russian Revolution in the year of its centenary. It examines what memory narratives about 1917 were constructed by leading Russian online media in 2017, in the absence of an overarching narrative about the event imposed by the state. The authors reveal a multiplicity of digital memories about the revolution and discuss their implications for the regime’s stability. It is argued that the flexible nature of digital remembrance does not necessarily challenge authoritarian rule and can even work in its favour by allowing one to target—and satisfy—various sections of a fragmented society.