Russia's Political Image In The English-language Media

In today's world, the way people think is directly linked to the mass media. In fact, the media exists for the purely technical transmission of information, but today the media is a powerful means of influencing the mass consciousness. The media shapes the human mindset. Often media influence on public consciousness is reduced to manipulation and pre-planned reactions of the addressee, but sometimes media influence is reduced to the deliberate misrepresentation of information. In this way, the media controls and manipulates the behavior of large masses of people.

The image of a country and how it is represented on the world stage is of particular interest today. The national image of the country affects the attitude of the participants of the world community towards this or that state. One of the main sources of Russia's image in the West in the twenty-first century is the printed media and the image it creates plays a huge role in establishing international contacts, especially in politics, economics and culture.

A stereotype is a people's perception of other peoples, which reflects some simplified knowledge, the truth of which is not always absolute. Stereotypes express the attitudes of one nation towards another nation. The main causes of stereotypes are society itself, language and thinking patterns, history, the government and its influence on citizens' opinions through the media.

The perception of Russia in the West is different from our own. The foreign media is not interested in the lives of ordinary Russian citizens; they judge the president's foreign policy on all geopolitical fronts and all measures directed against Russia apply to the government and oligarchs close to the president, who has been dubbed "Putin's cronies" in the West. The current image of Russia in the West is predominantly negative, which is also reflected in public discourse.

One of the most powerful newspapers in the US is The New York Times (The NYT), which has been published since 1851. The main Russia-related topics covered in each issue are: Russia and Vladimir Putin's policies and activities in the West and the US; intervention in the US presidential election; Russian oligarchs as collaborators with the Kremlin and the Russian president; and cyber-attacks on social media. The head of state is portrayed as an "increasingly authoritarian leader" who "crushed most of his political opposition. Mr. Putin's critics have met with sudden and violent deaths", whose actions are not always good: "mischief, nefarious activities, heinous behavior". No wonder why only negative adjectives are used to describe the image of Russia: "dangerous, cynical and distasteful". We believe that such a picture does not reflect reality in its full spectrum and that journalists have taken a one-sided approach to describe our country. Having examined the image of Russia from the point of view of The New York Times, we conclude that our country is portrayed as some kind of evil represented by the government of Vladimir V. Putin and his company, which poses a threat to the US and Western civilization.

The Washington Post creates an image of Russia as a dictator who, despite a weak economy, is trying to establish world domination through trade, new foreign oil fields and threats up to and including the physical elimination of the enemy. Russia is actively waging information wars through social media and building a nuclear capability for a new Cold War phase.

In the activities of the BBC English-language service, it is important to highlight articles on the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, as the events described are significant for Russia. It again appears as a country that shoots, bombs, invades foreign territory ("Why would Russia deploy bombers in Crimea?", "How many Russians are fighting in Ukraine?", "Ukraine crisis: What's going on in Crimea?", "Little green men" or "Russian invaders"?"). Various anti-Russian sanctions are imposed for these actions ("Ukraine crisis: US sanctions target Putin's inner circle", "EU extends Russia sanctions over Ukraine"). With regard to Russia and Ukraine, not only Russia's actions, but also the actions of Ukraine are written about, which represents these relations between the countries as a struggle. It is noteworthy that in most foreign media there is no news containing positive qualities of Russia's image. The image of Russia is an important phenomenon in the modern world. The analysis of Russia's political image in the English-language media allows us to determine the attitude of representatives of linguistic culture to the state and, as a consequence, to predict possible contact behavior. The relations between Russia and other countries portrayed in foreign media cannot be called friendly, they are conflictual and complex. In a conflicting political situation, Russia is presented as a strong opponent; the political image of the country carries a negative assessment, as it is associated with such words as: war, chaos, seizure of territory, conflict and corruption.   The articles look monotonous, and positive information about Russia is almost supplanted. As a result, the image of Russia in the English press has become distinctly negative.