Stories About Russians in the English-Language Media: Construction of National-Civiс Identity

Abstract

The “Russian threat”, popularized by many foreign media sources, actualized a request to continue the study of the national-civic identity of Russians. The study is based on the communicative behavior of subjects in the media and in the collective cultural memory. The article is dedicated to the detection of the repertoire of identifications, the construction of the discursive identity of Russians by the subjects of communication in the English-language media space. The identification was carried out in the course of the analysis of speech statements, the subjective positions of the communicators, reflecting the formed collective communicative and cultural memory. On the basis of the structural-semiotic approach, the concept of cultural memory by J. and A. Assmann and the Russian cultural model built by M. Bergelson, English-language texts about Russia and Russians were analyzed. The system of text-generating practices and codes of journalistic discourse formed by E.V. Chepkina, the network principle of organization of discursive identity introduced by L.V. Enina, the concept of plotting by V.Ya. Propp and the types of K. Booker's stories were used to detect the identities of Russians in journalistic discourse. Basing their research on the analysis of 22 journalistic stories, the authors come to the following conclusion: domestic and foreign authors use similar facts in their stories about Russians, but in the end they formulate opposite positions and construct different meanings. What is recognized as “a norm” by Russian communicators, causes confusion among foreign authors. This is a reflection of the previously assigned communicative behavior during the Cold War era, low-contextual cultural traditions and the national cultural memory of foreign actors. Most likely, this distinction is now used by political communicators to support intentionally organized “information confrontations”. Foreign journalists admit that one-dimensional “formalized patterns” are not applicable to understanding the identity of Russians. In the analyzed texts, the authors, first of all, translate or search for a “Soviet” and “traditional” cultural model (according to M. Bergelson). Perhaps, this is important for the implementation of the “adjustment” of Russians in the current geopolitical situation, and, moreover, it helps to broadcast what has proved to be a successful “defensive position” for centuries. At the same time, both domestic and foreign journalists identify the character of a Russian as of a “Hero” in the process of “Searching and finding a goal”.