The Image of NATO in Soviet and Russian Media: Changing Circumstances, Unchanging Myths

This study concerns the NATO image in Soviet and Russian media. The empirical research of this work centers on the analysis of political cartoons depicting NATO in the main Soviet daily Pravda and Russian newspaper articles concerning NATO in President Putin s time. The method of study is content analysis with the qualitative approach. This work examines the changes NATO s image has undergone in the depiction by Soviet and Russian media depending on time and circumstances. The Soviet media served as a mouthpiece for those in power and all published material was under the strict control of the Communist Party. The main Soviet daily at the time, Pravda, was a propaganda tool for the Soviet echelons of power during the Cold War. The world was divided into two hostile camps, capitalists and socialists, and propaganda was one of the main weapons in this war. The mass media were used as a battlefield. The image of the enemy on the pages of Pravda was clear it was the NATO military bloc and the USA as its leader. However, this image did alter with time, as did the perception of NATO, and this Thesis analyses these changes and their significance. When the USSR collapsed, there were big changes in the field of the Russian media. After the wild 1990s, a chaotic time for the Russians, Vladimir Putin came into office and set a different tone in NATO-Russia relations; this was depicted in the Russian media. However, as there were both governmental and independent media in existence now, it is important to analyze how the same event in NATO-Russia relations is interpreted in these two different types of media. In this Thesis, Nezavisimaya gazeta has been selected to represent independent media, while Izvestia is an example of government-oriented media. Much time has elapsed and the political map of the world has changed; the USSR is no longer, while Russia has come to be its successor so the question is whether the image of NATO has also undergone great changes in the shift from Soviet to Russian media. The research conducted in this Thesis indicates that, despite the great alterations on the world political scene, there is a great amount of continuity in Soviet and Russian media approaches to NATO