The Сrisis of Сonsciousness in the Russian Internet: The Experience of Discourse Analysis

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.

RusNet on the Offensive

The Internet, in the era of its availability and popularity in modern Russia, plays the most important role both in the dissemination of information and in the daily communications of people. Mass media also use Internet platforms as the main ones in their activities, because traditional forms of media already have a smaller audience coverage, than online-editions. Due to the fact, that in the modern Russia traditional mass media are controlled by the authorities, the Internet remains the last platform, on which independent sources can lead their activities. For today, Internet is the main force, shaping public opinion and trends. In this regard, the current Russian government has a need to develop new measures and introduce new laws to regulate this area. But is it really the primary authority`s task to ensure security within the Russian Internet, or is it driven by the desire to take control of the Internet and restrict its freedom?The main actions of the Russian authorities, taken to ensure the security of the Russian Internet, in chronological order, have been considered and analyzed. Both texts of laws and their real results after adoption have been reviewed and analyzed. For each such action an assessment of public opinion in relation to these innovations has been adduced. The compliance of the stated goals and objectives of the draft laws with their actual results has been considered. The analysis of international assessments of freedom of the mass media, freedom of the Internet and individual freedom in the Russian Federation during various periods of the implementation of these laws in everyday life has been given.

In the article, the authors identify and describe the role of the media in broadcasting content about new religious movements (on the example of the Scientol- ogy movement) on the Russian Internet. The Kribrum social media analysis system is used as a technical tool. The authors put into the project a model that included 80 concepts for the Center of Scientology and 1,242 concepts for Russian social institu- tions. The authors consider the periods 01/01/2018-12/31/2019 (stable social situation) and 01/01/2020-23/02/2022 (coronavirus crisis). The authors identify popular authors who wrote about Scientology in each of the periods. Media are grouped according to their legal status: official state media; private Russian media and bloggers; media and NGOs that are recognized as foreign agents; international media and their affiliates in Russia; other media (entertainment media, bloggers and users). The main channels for broadcasting content about Scientology were private media and bloggers. It was they who explained and broadcast material about Scientology on the Russian Internet. Their publications justified the activities of Scientology in Russia, declared the need for a liberal policy, demonized the state-confessional policy, the political system, the polit- ical system of Russia, and dehumanized academic child psychology. State Russian media in the news gave only the facts of the event, but the news was not interpreted, discussed or distributed.

This chapter analyses current processes in the Russian media system at three institutional dimensions of the Russian media system, that of the media industry, social media and media regulation, thus focusing on the work of currently influential ‘agents of change’ in the Russian media in the first two decades of the second millennium. The Russian media industry today is the result of the multi-layered and controversial post-Soviet processes of deregulation, privatization and shift to a market economy. The dominance of national television has even strengthened in the Russian digital switch-over, i.e. the national implementation of the federal programme for the ‘Development of Television and Radio Broadcasting in the Russian Federation in 2009–2015’. The Russian Internet has been developing since 1993 and the number of users has been increasing rapidly, initially in large industrial cities but, in the past decade, more evenly across the country, reaching an Internet penetration rate of 72 per cent in 2018.

In two important books, Runet (the Russian internet) is the central character, an essential component of the politics of commerce, economic policy, and strategic thinking. The first, written by an American specialist on information policy and the interaction between society and technology, looks back to the Soviet era, at the prescience and then failure of top Soviet scientists to introduce the networked society ahead of their American counterparts. The second is a collaborative work of Russian social scientists with an extensive agenda to identify, using discourse analysis, the principal political groups posting in “communities” of the like-minded in “VKontakte,” a large heterogeneous social media site combining personal interactions and extensive blogs within self-organized “communities.” The second half of this book differs substantially: Lev Gudkov, senior analyst at the Levada Center in Moscow, looks at the country as a whole through a different lens—a large number of national surveys gathered over the course of the Center’s activity. The first book chronicles the ambitious proposal by leading scientists to network the whole country in the service of the Soviet Union’s ideologically-based command economy. The second reveals a country riven by multiple, mutually incompatible ideologies espousing “anti” or negative platforms with little ideological heft until Vladimir Putin’s campaign to arouse a nationalist or, as the book puts it, an “imperialist syndrome” with the “return” of Crimea.

Introduction. The social policy of the Russian state is aimed at involving socially vulnerable groups of the population in all spheres of social life. One of the most important mechanisms of social inclusion is the formation of a positive image of people with disabilities in modern Russian media. Studying the features of the representation of people with disabilities in various types of media will form the basis for their future sociological monitoring and the creation of a positive image of people with disabilities in Russian society.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the study is the works of Russian and foreign sociologists devoted to the problems of social inclusion of people with disabilities. An integrative and inclusive approach is substantiated to ensure a transition from solving situational problems to the comprehensive implementation of inclusive practices for people with disabilities. The main research method is qualitative content analysis of articles from federal media and social media.Results and discussion. The conducted research and comparison of its results with a previously performed analysis of the representation of people with disabilities in the federal media made it possible to identify the main features of the formation of a positive image of people with disabilities in social media in accordance with the principles of social inclusion. In social media, the image of people with disabilities, more often than in traditional media, is constructed through the stories of individual representatives of this social group, a description of their life and everyday life. Such an approach, according to the authors, is a more effective tool for the social inclusion of people with disabilities than materials about the social group as a whole and the benefits provided to them, which more often appear in traditional media. Also, a special approach requires studying the comments under the main materials, which are the main difference between social media and traditional media.Conclusion. Based on the author's comparative research, conclusions are drawn about differences in the representation of people with disabilities in traditional media and social media. Based on these findings, directions for improving the activities of Russian media in creating a positive image of people with disabilities are formulated, and recommendations for further study of the representation of people with disabilities in the media are presented.

In the article, the authors consider the Telegram messenger as a platform for the distribution of news content. The explosive growth of Telegram as a communication and news platform occurred in 2022 due to drastic changes in world discourse, which is why the topic has been little studied from a scientific point of view. Due to its efficiency, conciseness and interactivity, new Telegram media successfully compete with traditional media, creating in-demand exclusive content. Through content analysis and discourse analysis, the authors have identified strategies for creating and distributing news content from the largest Telegram channels in the News and Media category. The choice of channels is due to the fact that in 2023 they entered the top 3 Telegram news channels by citation in the Russian media. The results of the study showed that new news media in the messenger have their own characteristics, and their work can be separated into a separate modern direction — Telegram journalism. Since messenger is a rapidly growing platform, future platform tools will allow for more active development of journalism in Telegram. The article highlights strategies that make it possible to win competition in the struggle for the reader from traditional media, which include: the promptness of presenting news content; elaboration of author’s exclusive topics and the current agenda; visual accompaniment of information messages; active use of the audience as sources of information. The result of the research was a scheme for creating news content in the messenger, which can be used as a content distribution algorithm.

Between 2014 and 2016 the news aggregator Yandex.Novosti was at the core of a political conflict between the internet company Yandex and state authorities in Russia. The Yandex algorithm, conceived and developed to select and publish online news, was suspected of political bias by the Russian authorities in the context of the Ukrainian crisis.Russian legislators engaged in a two year controversy in order to control the algorithm through its registration under the law on mass media. Since 2016 the Yandex.Novosti bot is legally responsible for the content it publishes, as with other mass media. Analysis of this conflict offers the opportunity to show the new political stakes and strategies surrounding internet bots in Russia. In the critical sociology of science and technology,Western scholars have worried about the undemocratic effects of algorithms and software governing the internet. Lawrence Lessig expressed this concern with his famous sentence “code is law,” arguing for the public regulation of code in order to protect the constitutional rights of citizens. In the Russian context, on the contrary, public regulation of the code by state authorities is considered a new attack against press freedom and democracy by defenders of the “bot.” The code is considered the main defender of citizens’ rights against the state. This controversy shows the specificity of political stakes concerning the “Runet” (Russian internet) and the necessity to shift interpretative frames on the internet depending on national context. DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2017-9-2-112-132

This article reviews the peculiarities of representation of COVID-19 pandemic by the Russian media. The theoretical-methodological framework is comprised of the philosophical and sociological concepts of fear, social emotions, social feeling, as well as information and mass communication theory. The empirical basis employs media content of the Internet resources, media discourse of news broadcast, and the nationwide sociological surveys. The article traces the dynamics of information materials related to coronavirus infection for the period from January to June 2020, which indicates the escalation of fearfulness of the media content. Such dynamics is compared to changes in in social emotions of the Russians, which reflect increase of anxiety and concerns, including the fear of getting infected with coronavirus. It is noted that the leading role in development of the fear of coronavirus is played by the traditional media, such as television. Characteristic is given to the information entropy in mass media, emerging as a result of the absence of accurate scientific records on the novel coronavirus infection. The author highlights the key contradictory theses of the Russian mass media related to coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic. It is underlined that information entropy is a psychotraumatic factor that promotes mass fears and anxieties, and simultaneously, distrust in the official information provided by media. The peculiarity of representation of COVID-19 pandemic in the Russian media is also viewed in the context of interaction between the traditional media and Internet resources. It is demonstrated  that the materials on coronavirus posted on the social media are used by the traditional media as a factor of increasing the validity of media content dedicated to coronavirus infection, and as proof of actual threat of the outbreak of coronavirus disease.

Russia’s Surveillance State

This thesis describes in detail the background, methods, results, and conclusions of a three-year PhD research project - “subsurface flow constructed wetlands for the treatment of domestic wastewater”, which was undertaken at Monash University between April 2008 and December 2010. The overall objective of the research was to discover the efficiencies of key pollutant removals (organics, nutrients, solids, and coliforms), when a medium-strength wastewater is treated in different types of subsurface flow wetlands, and how the pollutant removal should be modelled to reflect the biodegradation kinetics of the pollutants. The research was designed and carried out in four phases: In phase 1, a comparative experiment was carried out to understand how wetland media may affect the removal of organics and nitrogen; special focus was on studying the nitrification-denitrification process in hybrid wetland systems with an unconventional organic-containing wetland media (wood-mulch). The results indicated simultaneous nitrification-denitrification in vertical flow wetlands with organic mulch media, primarily due to greater oxygen flux in the wetland matrix and the supply of organic carbon from the media. In contrast, this unconventional media was found to be inefficient when it is applied in horizontal flow wetlands, as anoxic conditions caused excessive leaching of organics from the media. The monitoring of the performances of different wetland units, during this phase, allowed the selection of an effective hybrid wetland system for further experiments, to monitor pollutant removal stability in the next phase. In phase 2, experiments were carried out in three hybrid wetland systems that had identical configurations, plants (Phragmites australis), and media (including gravel, wood-mulch, and zeolite). The three systems were operated under different pollutant and hydraulic loadings, to monitor the removal of nitrogen and organics. The results demonstrated stable nitrogen and organics removal efficiencies within the range of hydraulic and pollutant loading variations. The media of wood-mulch and zeolite were found, or further confirmed, to enhance nitrogen removal in vertical flow wetlands, by enhancing simultaneous nitrification-denitrification and adsorption of ammonia. Horizontal flow wetlands with the traditional gravel media showed abilities to remove nitrate and the excess organics that was leached into the wastewater from wood-mulch media and, within the experiment range, the mass removals of nitrate and COD in the horizontal flow wetlands were found to increase with their loadings. In phase 3, kinetic models were developed to describe the biodegradation of nitrogen and organics removal in wetland systems. Reaction kinetics that were considered in the model development included first-order, Monod and multiple-Monod-kinetics; these kinetics were combined with continuous-stirred tank reactor (CSTR) or plug-flow pattern, to produce equations that link the inlet and outlet concentrations of each key pollutants across a single wetland. Using three statistical parameters, a critical evaluation was made to evaluate the suitability of five potential models for describing pollutant removals in vertical and horizontal flow wetlands. The results recommended the models that were derived from Monod kinetics for nitrogen and organics removal in both vertical and horizontal flow wetland systems. Finally, in phase 4 a simple MATLAB programme was established, based on the model studies in the previous phase, to provide a potential design tool for determining the surface area of a single subsurface (vertical or horizontal) flow wetland, when it is required to achieve a given pollutant removal target. The MATLAB programme can also be used to predict the performances of existing wetland systems. In order to assist readers to track the results of four phases of this research in its logic sequence, the thesis has been arranged to contain seven chapters. Chapters 1-2 describe the scope and objectives of the research and a literature survey on the technical development of subsurface flow wetlands for wastewater treatment. Chapters 3-6 describe in sequence the detailed methods and results of the four phases of the research. Overall conclusions are presented in Chapter 7. Four publications, including three ISI journal papers and one international conference paper, have been produced as a direct result of the research. The papers are attached in Appendix I, and all the original experiment records are attached in Appendix II. Overall, this research improved the current understanding of the removal of ammonia, nitrate, COD and BOD in vertical and horizontal flow wetlands. In addition, it produced kinetic models to describe the removal of these pollutants, potentially allowing model-based design of vertical and horizontal flow constructed wetlands for the direct treatment and reclamation of medium-strength wastewater.

IntroductionRussian President Vladimir Putin has built his political career on fighting terrorism in Russia. The apparent early successes of the 1999 conventional military campaign in Chechnya have been replaced by drawn-out guerrilla warfare, which has become a terror campaign aimed at striking civilian targets in Russia. The mass media are an important instrument for both sides of this conflict, which are fighting for the hearts, minds, and sympathies of their audiences. The focus of this article is to examine how the Russian mass media present the key political actors' messages. This article focuses on matters such as the rhetoric used and the significance of the time and place that the statements were made.The issues and rhetoric that surround terrorism in Russia can be most confusing. In the run-up to the second Chechen War, in 1999, domestic terrorism, perpetrated by Chechens, was considered to be a Russian problem. For their prosecution of antiterrorist actions in Chechnya, and alleged human rights violations, the international community criticized Russia. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, provided the Russian authorities with the opportunity to link Chechen terrorism with the global war on terror, which is being led by the United States. In doing this, the Russian authorities hope to reduce criticism of the Chechnya campaign, a calculation that seems to be working.Rhetoric, and its use through the conduit of the mass media, is an important aspect of society, especially when society is stressed by conflict, which can have a cultural/ideological component to it. It is a war over hearts and minds-that is being waged in the public information space. This is a war that is being fought over the perception of reality, rather than hard facts. In this information/ideology war, there is a struggle to maintain acceptance and legitimacy for policies and actions. This article is divided into a number of sections that deal with a small section of the broader questions of how and why the mass media issues certain statements. It begins with a brief description of rhetoric and its use, starting with a historical perspective and the use of rhetoric in a more contemporary sense. By doing so, the foundations of analysis for how the various extracts from the mass media are given. Another important aspect that needs to be explained early is the definition of the media's role in the war on terrorism. This section starts with the Western good practice definition. However, another definition is also given, the definition of how the Russian authorities view the mass media's role.Some basic facts and figures on Russia's casualties as a result of terrorist acts are given. Then terrorism and terrorists are defined. Because of the emotions and politics that surround this issue, it is particularly contentious and has a tendency to cloud our understanding and judgment. It starts with the Russian authorities definition of terrorists and terrorism, before finishing with an academic definition.The article then analyzes various rhetorical frames that are being used by key Russian actors. The first of these looks at the issue of normalizing the Russian war on terror in the international arena. Then the lack of understanding and double standards are examined, which is followed by calls for unity in the war on terror. The article concludes with attempts to close the rhetorical gap between Russia and the West through examples of shared history and mutual suffering. It should be noted that a number of extracts could contain more than one of the rhetorical frames.Rhetoric: A Brief DescriptionIn a classical sense, rhetoric relates to the discussion of a special topic, which is influenced by emotion and character. In this sense: Let rhetoric be the power to observe the persuasiveness of which any particular matter admits; additionally, proof is achieved more effectively when speech uses a real or an apparent aspect of a particular subject. …

IntroductionRussian President Vladimir Putin has built his political career on fighting terrorism in Russia. The apparent early successes of the 1999 conventional military campaign in Chechnya have been replaced by drawn-out guerrilla warfare, which has become a terror campaign aimed at striking civilian targets in Russia. The mass media are an important instrument for both sides of this conflict, which are fighting for the hearts, minds, and sympathies of their audiences. The focus of this article is to examine how the Russian mass media present the key political actors' messages. This article focuses on matters such as the rhetoric used and the significance of the time and place that the statements were made.The issues and rhetoric that surround terrorism in Russia can be most confusing. In the run-up to the second Chechen War, in 1999, domestic terrorism, perpetrated by Chechens, was considered to be a Russian problem. For their prosecution of antiterrorist actions in Chechnya, and alleged human rights violations, the international community criticized Russia. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, provided the Russian authorities with the opportunity to link Chechen terrorism with the global war on terror, which is being led by the United States. In doing this, the Russian authorities hope to reduce criticism of the Chechnya campaign, a calculation that seems to be working.Rhetoric, and its use through the conduit of the mass media, is an important aspect of society, especially when society is stressed by conflict, which can have a cultural/ideological component to it. It is a war over hearts and minds-that is being waged in the public information space. This is a war that is being fought over the perception of reality, rather than hard facts. In this information/ideology war, there is a struggle to maintain acceptance and legitimacy for policies and actions. This article is divided into a number of sections that deal with a small section of the broader questions of how and why the mass media issues certain statements. It begins with a brief description of rhetoric and its use, starting with a historical perspective and the use of rhetoric in a more contemporary sense. By doing so, the foundations of analysis for how the various extracts from the mass media are given. Another important aspect that needs to be explained early is the definition of the media's role in the war on terrorism. This section starts with the Western good practice definition. However, another definition is also given, the definition of how the Russian authorities view the mass media's role.Some basic facts and figures on Russia's casualties as a result of terrorist acts are given. Then terrorism and terrorists are defined. Because of the emotions and politics that surround this issue, it is particularly contentious and has a tendency to cloud our understanding and judgment. It starts with the Russian authorities definition of terrorists and terrorism, before finishing with an academic definition.The article then analyzes various rhetorical frames that are being used by key Russian actors. The first of these looks at the issue of normalizing the Russian war on terror in the international arena. Then the lack of understanding and double standards are examined, which is followed by calls for unity in the war on terror. The article concludes with attempts to close the rhetorical gap between Russia and the West through examples of shared history and mutual suffering. It should be noted that a number of extracts could contain more than one of the rhetorical frames.Rhetoric: A Brief DescriptionIn a classical sense, rhetoric relates to the discussion of a special topic, which is influenced by emotion and character. In this sense: Let rhetoric be the power to observe the persuasiveness of which any particular matter admits; additionally, proof is achieved more effectively when speech uses a real or an apparent aspect of a particular subject. …