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The confrontation between Israel and Palestine that has been continuing during many decades is embodied nowadays not only in incessant military activities, but also in the media. Those ones protecting Palestine serve as sources of aggressive propaganda that incite irreconcilable hatred toward opponents. Correspondingly, with permanent attacks against Israel the above media insistently use a specifically colored lexis that escalates the tense situation in this region. This article purposefully envisages the “topic of hatred” promoted by the Palestinian print media as an active actor of modern political transformation in the Middle East. Investigating principles of functioning these media provides with better understanding of contemporary authoritarian society and raises the question of the media dependence on the political guidelines of Palestinian authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The content of mass information in any society is closely linked to the patterns of its political development. A typical example of this concerns the modern Russian media, which have been influenced particularly by their embeddedness with the authorities. Indeed, the Russian media have served as the mouthpiece of the country's political leaders, and this fact has left a significant imprint on media coverage. To understand the symbiotic relationship between Russian political leaders and media, this article focuses on the Syrian Civil War, which is currently one of the most important issues on the international political agenda. The Russian government's role in the conflict over the last several years has affected the Russian media's tremendous interest in this topic. Nonetheless, Moscow's participation in the war was determined uniquely by how the communication sphere related the conflict to its audience so that its involvement in the Syrian imbroglio was not an objective reflection of reality. Guided by the political interests of the authorities, the Russian media created an emotionally oriented story, which intended to advance an extremely positive interpretation of Russia's role in this conflict in the minds of the audience. Therefore, in terms of propaganda, these media acted not as "pure" promoters of the state's will, but rather as its "interpreters." This study highlights how leading Russian publications approach this agenda and the consequences this fact has for the Kremlin's political priorities. The authors come to a definite conclusion regarding Russian media's unconditional dependence on the political priorities of modern Russian society. It was crucial for the Kremlin that the media present a positive view of Moscow's involvement in the conflict given that Russia's military presence in Syria caused a very controversial reaction throughout the world and led to increased tensions and contentious disputation between Russia and many Western countries. Therefore, the Kremlin needed to justify its policies and did so through manipulating the Russian public by means of a large-scale propaganda campaign conducted through the Russian media. This phenomenon is pivotal to understand not only the case of Russia's involvement in Syria but also contemporary international media development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing amount written on the decline of professional journalism around the world. One of the factors that are used to illustrate the decline of journalism is the interaction and collaboration between journalists and public relations (PR) practitioners in the production of mass media news content. On a theoretical and conceptual level, the aims and goals of the two professions are quite different, even though there are a number of superficial similarities between these forms of mass communication. Studies of the interaction between journalism and PR in the United States reveal a certain underlying tension, yet simultaneous mutual dependency. An indicative survey was conducted across different cities in the Russian Federation to understand the perception of professional journalists and PR practitioners on the current level of interaction between their professions. The answers were remarkably similar and reveal a deep concern for the direction of journalism, which many viewed as being subordinated to PR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the contemporary Russian media causes great concern. This relates, first of all, to the level of objectivity of information on the most pivotal issues of the day. The reduction in its quality, following the media coverage of the most pivotal issues in international and domestic politics, seems to have been extraordinary since 2000, after Russian President Vladimir Putin's coming to power. Except for purely political and economic changes that occurred in the country over the last 15 years, the past period was marked by the transformation of the media leading to a specific situation in which journalists seem to be unable to properly fulfill their professional duties. It concerns the whole spectrum of issues being covered by the Russian media following specific relationships between politics and the media in Russia. The author reviews the main tendencies relating to this topic, together with the media content promoted in existing conditions and aims to distinguish the main trends in the evolution of the modern media, together with Putin's decisions securing political partisanship of mass information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]