Cold War motifs in the Russian media narrative – selected examples

Abstract

The article is an attempt of a short analysis of the Russian-language New Cold War narrative in order to capture the perception of linguistic influences on the recipients of (multi)media information, both in the Russian and Western spaces. The linguistic image of the world built by Russian agitation and propaganda machine does not necessarily appear in symbiosis with the non-linguistic image of reality, but it has a specific influence on its “structure”. Some of the linguistic justifications of warfare are even contradictory to Russian reality but they are so suggestive and effectively based on the propaganda foundations built during the previous Cold War period that are immediately accepted by Russian/Russian-speaking audiences (Russian Field, 2022; Levada-Centr, 2022; WCIOM, 2022). It can be concluded that the determinant of the end of the post-Cold War order is the Russian return to the above-mentioned Soviet terminology of propaganda, in line with (deliberate and subliminal) terms borrowed from the previous Cold War period of 1947–1991. These terms are well-tried/proven both in theory and in practice, in particular from the post-fascist period – it is about the perception of the linguistic and extra-linguistic world of an average Russian, i.e. an actor/player/participant in the current opposition. From 1945 until now, the anti-fascist propaganda and scaring Russians (Soviet people) with the fascist threat (and the rotten capitalism of the West) is so powerful that the use of this terminology is clearly associated with the fear of war, murder, rape, etc.