Interesting article from the “The Conversation” titled “Russia: the west underestimates the power of state media”
While it is true that Ukraine has exposed the biasedness , racist double standards and the discriminatory coverage of some Western media outlets, it is to be noted that “many western countries have a wide range of news sources that are free from direct government interference. From the development of multi-channel television, rolling 24-hour news journalism, to the ever-expanding choice, immediacy and reach of online and social media, the infrastructure of western national media systems makes it hard for states and a few media conglomerates to seize control of the news agenda."
Some American journalists and researchers -Michael Arlen, Walter Lipmann and Anne-Marie Slaughter- have noted that “….during the Vietnam war,…the western media moved away from its position as a governmental mouthpiece, and began to adopt a more watchdog approach . It was this change, combined with the graphic reporting of the war, which has since been accredited with the thwarting of American victory. The media’s role is seen to have stoked domestic anti-war sentiments in the American public by presenting them with the atrocities of war into their own living rooms. This occurrence shows a decline of the media’s role in maintaining antagonism and public support for conflict …”
The basic desire for democratic liberties, including access to honest and fact-based journalism, can never be extinguished.
“Academics have even begun to talk about a ……..new communications environment where audiences are often celebrated for being savvy and active – and able to resist media power and influence. But in Russia, with a state-controlled information environment and limited access to independent journalism, the digital age of communications has not delivered the kind of freedoms associated with 21st-century western media.”
The article warns us that in Russia , the power of state-controlled media is absolute, we are back to cold war years of sensational propaganda and politicised reporting developing a societal fear of imminent destruction and severe paranoia.
Mr Putin has told his nation that Ukraine’s drug-addled neo-Nazi elite has been perpetrating genocide and that Ukrainians, especially Russian-speaking ones, needed saving.
“A Moscow news correspondent ..revealed six days into the invasion of Ukraine, Russian people’s reliance on state television appears to have influenced their response to warfare. He interviewed a Russian pensioner who depended on state TV to understand what is happening in the world and her response was chilling: A lot of what they say on TV, it’s truth. It’s true… You know, when I read in a foreign newspaper that Russians bomb Kharkiv and so on, I know that it’s not true because they promised not to do this and they will never do this.
In another story, it was reported that Oleksandra, a young Russian woman living in Kharkiv, called her mother in Moscow to tell her the city was under heavy artillery attack, and that Ukrainian civilians were being killed. But her response was it had probably happened by accident because the Russian military would not deliberately target civilians. According to Oleksandra, her “mum exactly quoted Russian TV. They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them”. Interviews with ordinary Russians on the streets also reinforce Putin’s narrative and justification for warfare”
“Russian authorities have tightly controlled Putin’s narrative by limiting people’s access to media that challenges his perspective and ensuring that state media closely follows the Kremlin’s script.
But how long Putin can control the narrative of his “special operation” remains to be seen. Once the west’s sanctions begin to hit ordinary Russians and their social and cultural isolation from the world cuts through, they may want to search for themselves a new reality independent of state media.”
Hats off to the Russian journalist ,Marina Ovsyannikova ,who burst on to a live TV news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine ,holding an anti-war sign.
The sign, clearly visible for a few seconds, read: "No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here."
She has been missing since. Her whereabouts are now unknown. Her calls have gone unanswered.
Before the incident she recorded a video in which she called events in Ukraine a "crime" and said she was ashamed to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda. "I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies," she explained. "We just silently watched this inhumane regime
