The New Cold War Narrative in American and Russian Media in 2019 (The New York Times, Usa Today, Kommersant, Rossiyskaya Gazeta)
Abstract
The article deals with the role of Russian and American media in shaping today’s Moscow-Washington relations. Although the press has a limited influence on both countries’ foreign policy, it still does have an impact on the perception of Russia in America and, vice versa, the U.S. in Russia. The in-depth analysis of the materials published at the websites of Russian and U.S. newspapers — Kommersant, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, The New York Times, USA Today — indicates that media frequently used the term “Cold War” between January and June 2019, with journalists and newsmakers viewing the current U.S.-Russia conflict as “a new Cold War”. Initially, in 2014 it was just a metaphor, yet now it is turning into the term that describes the current state of the relations between two countries, while a new Cold War is gradually becoming part of today’s geopolitical reality.
The methodology of the article includes content analysis, discourse analysis of publications in the mentioned media as well as the method of interdisciplinary research, with the media factor in U.S.-Russia relations explained through the lens of philosophy and political science. The novelty of the article is an attempt to understand how Russian and American media are exploiting the new Cold War narrative and reshaping the global agenda in the times of the confrontation between two countries. In addition, the author tries to analyze the current discourse of U.S.-Russia relations from the positions of analytic or linguistic philosophy, neorealism, critical theory, postmodernism.
Acknowledgement:
This article has been prepared with support from the RAS Presidium fundamental research program "Analasys and Forecast of new global challenges and opportunities for Russia in 2018-2020, project “U.S. security policy in today’s world and the Russian-American relations”.
Downloads
References
Barnes J., Cooper H. (2019, April 3). In Rare Speech to Congress, NATO Leader Says Allies Must Deter Moscow. The New York Times. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/nato-congress-russia-.html
Baudrillard J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press.
Bullock P. (2019, February 26). Brexit, Kim Jong-un, Michael Cohen: Your Wednesday Briefing. The New York Times. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/briefing/brexit-trump-kim-meeting-michael-cohen-your-wednesday-briefing.html
Butrin D. (2019, January 23). Lyzhi plokho edut: V Davose nastorozhenno obsuzhdayut rezul'taty global'noy stavki na sil'nykh liderov. Kommersant. URL:https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3860754
Dudina G., (2019, March 26). Montbrial Th. Esli govorit' o kholodnoy voyne kak o protivostoyanii dvukh ideologiy — ona ne zakonchena. Kommersant. URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3923448
Fairclough N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse and Text: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.
Gavrilov Y. (2019, March 17). Razvorot na Vostok: NATO styagivaet voyska k granitsam Rossii. Rossiyskaya Gazeta. URL: https://rg.ru/2019/03/17/nato-stiagivaet-vojska-k-granicam-rossii.html
Grawitz M. (1984). Méthode des Sciences Sociales. Dalloz.
Gupta A. (2019, June 20). Iran, North Korea, India: Your Friday Briefing. The New York Times. URL: ttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/briefing/iran-north-korea-india.html
Gusman M., Kissinger H. (2019, March 26). Bez Rossii net poryadka. Rossiyskaya Gazeta. URL: https://rg.ru/2019/03/26/genri-kissindzher-rossiia-i-ssha-dolzhny-proiavit-vzaimouvazhenie.html
Ismay J. (2019, April 30). Why Whales and Dolphins Join the Navy, in Russia and the U.S. The New York Times Magazine. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/magazine/beluga-whale-russia-military-dolphins.html
Kavanagh J., Rich M. (2018). Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life. RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/rr2314
Kheyfets V. (2019, March 15). Tsena voprosa: Direktor Tsentra iberoamerikanskikh issledovaniy SPbGU Viktor Kheyfets o sud'be rossiyskikh vlozheniy v Venesuelu. Kommersant. URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3908147
Kommersant. (2019). The website, January 1 – June 30, 2019. URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/
Koryakin O. (2019, February 7). ‘Svetovoy kupol’: veteran VVS SShA rasskazal o "sekretnom oruzhii SSSR". Rossiyskaya Gazeta. URL:https://rg.ru/2019/02/07/svetovoj-kupol-veteran-v-ssha-rasskazal-o-sekretnom-oruzhii-sssr.html
Koshkin P. (2018). Five Lessons on U.S.-Russian Relations Thirty Years after the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit. The Russia File. A blog of the Kennan Institute. URL: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/five-lessons-us-russian-relations-thirty-years-after-the-reagan-gorbachev-summit
Koshkin P. (2019). Ob"yavlenie kibervoyny: protivostoyanie derzhav prinyalo opasnyy oborot. Forbes. URL: https://www.forbes.ru/obshchestvo/378113-obyavlenie-kibervoyny-protivostoyanie-derzhav-prinyalo-opasnyy-oborot
Kruglova L. (2016). Rossiyskie pechatnye SMI: spetsifika onlayn-versiy. Mediaskop, 4. URL: http://www.mediascope.ru/2205
Legvold R. (2014). Managing the New Cold War. Foreign Affairs. URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2014-06-16/managing-new-cold-war
Lupyan G., Ward E. (2013). Language can boost otherwise unseen objects into visual awareness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). URL:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1303312110
Maksimov I. (2019, March 5). ‘Russkie idut’: SShA vozrozhdayut voennuyu programmu vremen kholodnoy voyny. Rossiyskaya Gazeta. URL: https://rg.ru/2019/03/05/russkie-idut-ssha-vozrozhdaiut-voennuiu-programmu-vremen-holodnoj-vojny.html
Mearsheimer J. (1994–1995). The False Promise of International Institutions. International Security, 19(3), 5–49. URL: http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0021.pdf
National Academies. Facilitating interdisciplinary research. (2004). National Academy Press. Washington: Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. URL: https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/additional_resources/interdisciplinary_research/definition.jsp
New York Times Company’s annual report (2016). URL: http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000071691/37d516f5-b9da-4ca8-a50f-d70630760094.pdf
Newman, N. (2017). Digital News Project 2017. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. URL: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2017-04/Journalism,%20Media%20and%20Technology%20Trends%20and%20Predictions%202017.pdf
Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Kalogeropoulos, A., Nielsen, R. (2019). Digital News Report 2019. URL: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/digital-news-report-2019-out-now
O’Hanlon, M., Zeigler, S. (2019, July 12). No, we aren't on the brink of a new Cold War with Russia and China. USA Today. URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/07/12/no-new-cold-war-with-china-russia-column/1681926001/
O’Neill, E. (2019, April 18). Russian interference, confirmed by the Mueller report, has been going on since Cold War. USA Today. URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/18/mueller-report-russia-attacked-us-election-cold-war-tactics-column/3507288002/
Oganov, A., Sukhova, S. (2019). Voyna po nauke: SShA otkryvayut novyy sanktsionnyy front. The Ogonek magazine. URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3894311
Osnos, E., Remnick, D., Yaffa, J. (2017). Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War. The New Yorker. URL: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war
Peiser, J. (2018, November 1). New York Times Tops 4 Million Mark in Total Subscribers. The New York Times. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/business/media/new-york-times-earnings-subscribers.html
Reed, S. (2019, February 26). Burned by Russia, Poland Turns to U.S. for Natural Gas and Energy Security. The New York Times. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/business/poland-gas-lng-russia-usa.html
Rice, D. (2019, April 29). Spy games? Russia could be using beluga whales for military purposes. USA Today. URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/29/beluga-whale-discovered-harness-could-russian-military/3617313002/
Robb, R. (2019, March 6). Are we headed for a second Cold War with China, Russia? Not likely. USA Today. URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/03/06/china-and-russia-not-terrorism-now-our-biggest-threats-column/3079468002/
Rossiyskaya Gazeta. (2019). The website, January 1 – June 30, 2019. URL: rg.ru
Schwirtz, M. (2019, March 31). Russia Ordered a Killing That Made No Sense. Then the Assassin Started Talking. The New York Times. URL:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/world/europe/russian-assassinations-putin-ukraine.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2002). Ludwig Wittgenstein. URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
The Editorial Board. (2019, February 10). For Decades, the United States and Russia Stepped Back From the Brink. Until Now. The New York Times. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/10/opinion/trump-putin-inf-treaty.html
The New York Times. (2019). The website, January 1 – June 30, 2019. URL: nytimes.com
Trenin, D. (2014). Russia and the United States: A Temporary Break or A New Cold War? Carnegie Moscow Center. URL: https://carnegie.ru/2014/12/08/russia-and-united-states-temporary-break-or-new-cold-war-pub-57601
Tungate, M. (2004). Media Monoliths: How Great Media Brands Thrive and Survive. London: Kogan Page.
USA Today. (2019). The website, January 1 – June 30, 2019. URL: usatoday.com
Weinstein, D. (2019, July 6). We must deter Russian cyberattacks to prevent a digital Cold War. USA Today. URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/07/06/deter-russian-cyber-attack-cold-war-column/1587711001/
