The 30th Anniversary of Fall of the Berlin Wall and Russian-German Relations as Reflected in the Media

Abstract

The article deals with mass media impact on Russian-German relationships after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which used to divide the world into two socio-political systems. This remarkable event of the XX century has never lost its topicality in the media. The authors make a retrospective analysis of stages of the two countries bilateral relations development. The research shows that the bilateral and world wars have greatly influenced Russians and their perception of Germany and its subjects. At the same time, due to the wars, perception of Russians by Germans has also been ambiguous. The article studies the role of the mass media in the deterioration in state-to-state relations in the recent years in the context of the information war. The current shift in the vector of Russian-German relations has inevitably found its reflection in the media. It was the commentariat that, being a powerful international political and communication tool, gave impetus to the massive promotion of the negative image of Russia, which was fuelled by the crisis in the EU and global sanctions. All this has resulted in Russias becoming a key villain-like character in the global media landscape whose image is influencing a large number of current processes in the world. The authors have analyzed interpretations of over 500 media texts dealing with Russian-German relations, both in Russian and in German, and highlighted such components as fake news and post-truth as applied in political media discourse.