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Flashbulb memories (FBMs) refer to vivid and long-lasting autobiographical memories for the circumstances in which people learned of a shocking and consequential public event. A cross-national study across eleven countries aimed to investigate FBM formation following the first COVID-19 case news in each country and test the effect of pandemic-related variables on FBM. Participants had detailed memories of the date and others present when they heard the news, and had partially detailed memories of the place, activity, and news source. China had the highest FBM specificity. All countries considered the COVID-19 emergency as highly significant at both the individual and global level. The Classification and Regression Tree Analysis revealed that FBM specificity might be influenced by participants' age, subjective severity (assessment of COVID-19 impact in each country and relative to others), residing in an area with stringent COVID-19 protection measures, and expecting the pandemic effects. Hierarchical regression models demonstrated that age and subjective severity negatively predicted FBM specificity, whereas sex, pandemic impact expectedness, and rehearsal showed positive associations in the total sample. Subjective severity negatively affected FBM specificity in Turkey, whereas pandemic impact expectedness positively influenced FBM specificity in China and negatively in Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how news images of refugees in the context of the war in Ukraine mobilize intergroup relations. A visual rhetorical analysis is used to examine the rhetorical strategies employed in news images of Ukrainian refugees in a mainstream Finnish national newspaper from February 25 to May 31, 2022. The data consisted of 465 images. The study constructed four humanizing visual rhetorical strategies based on the visual expression in news images: maternalizing, fragilizing, agonizing, and activizing. The rhetorical strategies constructed four subject positions for Ukrainian refugees: vulnerable victims, innocent victims, suffering Ukrainians, and persistent/resilient Ukrainians. All rhetorical strategies implicitly communicated the subject position of evil to Russia. The paper contributes to the current knowledge of the humanization of refugees in media discourse and the potential of media images to mobilize intergroup relations. Methodologically, the paper elaborates visual rhetorical analysis as a means of social psychological study of refugee discourse in the context of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes descriptions of Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Findings of previous research on news media descriptions of refugees point to problematic descriptions of refugees that downgrade their deservingness of refuge and treat refugee status as an inherent feature of fleeing individuals instead of as contingent on external circumstances. However, there is a widespread perception that Ukrainian refugees are being reported on in a more positive light. We therefore examine how news media describe these refugees. Our corpus includes English media news coverage from February 25, 2022, to March 25, 2022, the initial period of the invasion. A discursive psychological analysis of news interactions where hosts elicit information from correspondents about current ongoings with Ukrainian refugees shows that Ukrainian refugees are constructed as vulnerable, and their actions are treated as reasonable given the situation. These descriptions construct Ukrainian refugees as those who are only contingently refugees and legitimate help‐giving by other parties. Our findings, therefore, highlight distinct, previously unanalyzed ways that refugees are constructed: contingent refugees. We discuss implications of our findings for understanding refugee inclusion and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that political differences have increased markedly in the United States in recent decades. Differences may also emerge in the way that partisans express themselves through language, and it is possible that language differences vary in times of crisis and war. In the current work we examined over a decade's worth of transcripts from a liberal (MSNBC) and conservative (Fox) news network. More specifically, we examined evidence for two competing perspectives on language differences during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. One perspective, the depolarization perspective, suggests that we should see decreased differences, or parity in language styles between the two networks leading up to and during the invasion. Another perspective, the polarization perspective, suggests we should see increased differences in language styles between networks leading up to and during the early stages of the invasion. We examined an index of personalizing and formalizing language as well as 77 Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) dictionaries plus noun frequency using smoothed curves and linear discriminant function analyses (LDA) to examine the pattern of results in our data. Our results provide more support for the depolarization perspective, showing that both Fox News and MSNBC became more similar than different leading up to and during the invasion. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jasbir Puar introduced the notion of 'homonationalism' to describe the increasing acceptance of sexual minorities in Western nations, leading to their incorporation in the national in-group which is increasingly opposed to homophobic 'others'. While Muslims constitute the main out-group, other groups and nations are also targeted, in particular Russia and related countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Such discourses create a binary opposition between two homogenized parties, the uniformly LGBTQ-friendly in-group versus the uniformly homophobic 'other'. While the literature on homonationalism mostly discusses politics in the U.S. and a number of other nation-states, this article explores homonationalism in a smaller sub-national region in Western Europe, Flanders, focusing on the press as a tool for spreading homonationalist discourse. Exploring three months of Flemish newspapers, this article identifies some instances of explicit homonationalism but more implicit homonationalism which does not explicitly mention the in-group but does paint a one-sided picture of Russia and related countries as homophobic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the modern Russian press covers the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict, both historically and currently. Since print media are some of the most popular sources of information in Russia, such analysis helps us understand the media's priorities in presenting the conflict to Russian society. The article focuses on the inherently manipulative, albeit hidden, essence and layout of this material, which increases the likelihood of information bias. While the quality of the reporting on this conflict demonstrates the proximity of contemporary Russian media to the interests of the country's ruling powers, it also provides opportunities for the government to influence its audience's comprehension of Middle East politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the local media landscapes of present-day Russia by comparing 33 carefully selected regions. It adopts the theoretical approach to analyzing publics under authoritarianism suggested by Toepfl (2018) and analyzes the leading mediated publics in these regions along three dimensions: (1) environments; (2) participants; and (3) discursive practices (with a focus on the level of political criticism tolerated by the publics). In big cities, leadership-critical publics are visible in online news media, while the media of small towns experience tighter state control. VK news groups and Instagram accounts play a significant role in the media landscapes of all the regions studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout 2017, the Russian state broadcaster, RT (formerly Russia Today), commemorated the centenary of the 1917 revolution with a social media re-enactment. Centred on Twitter, the 1917LIVE project involved over 90 revolution-era characters tweeting in real time as if the 1917 revolution was happening live on social media. This article is based on an analysis of a sample of tweets by users who engaged with 1917LIVE, alongside focus group discussions with its followers. We argue that a cultural studies perspective can shed important light on the political significance of RT's social media re-enactment in ways that current studies of public diplomacy as a soft power resource often fail to do. It can advance soft power theory by offering a more nuanced, dynamic analysis of how state media mobilise, and how audiences engage with, social media re-enactments as commemorative events. We find that rather than promoting a unitary propagandistic narrative about Russia, 1917LIVE served instead to soften attitudes towards RT itself – encouraging audiences to view RT as an educator and entertainer as well as a news broadcaster – normalising its presence as a Russian public diplomacy resource in the international news media landscape. Our analysis of audience interactions with and interpretations of 1917LIVE affords insights into how the 1917 re-enactment worked as didactic entertainment eliciting affective identification with the characters of the revolution. Such public diplomacy projects contribute in the short term to a strengthening of the engagement required to create longer-term soft power effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian-sponsored Internet Research Agency's (IRA) use of social media to influence U.S. political discourse is undoubtedly troubling. However, scholarly attention has focused on social media, overlooking the role that news media within the country played in amplifying false, foreign messages. In this article, we examine articles in the U.S. news media system that quoted IRA tweets through the lens of changing journalism practices in the hybrid media system, focusing specifically on news gatekeepers' use of tweets as vox populi. We find that a majority of the IRA tweets embedded in the news were vox populi. That is, IRA tweets were quoted (1) for their opinion, (2) as coming from everyday Twitter users, and (3) with a collection of other tweets holistically representing public sentiment. These findings raise concerns about how modern gatekeeping practices, transformed due to the hybrid media system, may also unintentionally let in unwanted disinformation from malicious actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Herbert Schiller long ago observed, the mainstream (corporate) media (MSM) in the US have long been instruments of state power. However, since the nineteenth century, the reading public has relied on the news media as a pillar, albeit flawed, of a liberal democratic society. While the public still regards a "free press" as essential to democracy, it no longer has confidence that the mainstream media deserve that status. Trust levels in the MSM have plummeted since the 1970s, reflecting a larger pattern of distrust of public and private institutions in general, including the US Congress. Even many media professionals themselves do not see the US as defending the freedom of investigative journalism. Moreover, the quality of corporate media, more owner-concentrated than ever, has declined, often to the level of tabloid spectacle, as profit-oriented news departments try to compete with a wide array of 24/7 news platforms, including those coming from social media. The era of neoliberalism has all but eliminated the public service ideology behind news and public affairs reporting, and concurrently there has emerged a crisis of state legitimacy that threatens the foundations of the liberal democratic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the International Society of Cardiovascular Ultrasound (ISCU) news. Topics include the World Congress of chocardiography and Allied Techniques organized by the Peruvian Society of Cardiology to be held in Lima, Peru from July 16 to 18, 2020; and the World Congress of Echocardiography and Allied Techniques to be held in Tyumen, Russia from September 26 to 28, 2021.

In recent years, academics, politicians, and international news media have speculated about the influence Russia is capable of wielding, particularly among Russian speaking populations in the near abroad. This paper aims to reassess the unity or division of a common Russian language information space through an analysis of the top daily headlines presented in Yandex. Based on previous historical overviews of Russian political discourses on Europe and analysis of more recent discourses in Russian television, frames for analysis are proposed and compared with actual headlines collected in real from Yandex news concerning Estonia, Latvia, and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the growth of the Muslim press in Russia, its consolidation, and its survival during the Soviet Period, followed by its revival in the early 1990s. Although by no means comprehensive in scope, it is a necessary step in beginning to shed light on this under-researched topic. These unique publishing cultures represent outlets for freedom of expression, even in controlled cultural spaces, and document the intellectual protest among Muslim communities in Russia. Understanding the contributions of various Muslim publishing centres is critical to gaining a broader view of Russian and Soviet Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War, Kars remained under Russian rule until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk dated March 3, 1918, and during this process, because it applied a Russianization policy in all areas, the people preferred to migrate to the inner parts of Anatolia. Turkish people who did not immigrate and remained were tried to be disconnected with Anatolia, Turkish broadcasting was not allowed in Kars and any book excepting the Holy Koran was not allowed in the city. In this period of time, because the Kars Newspaper published by Russia was in Russian, it historically has a great importance, although it has no value for the Turkish people. The Kars newspaper included important information from the period between 1883-1917. The aim of the study is to reveal the experiences in the region through the newspaper and to determine the perspective of Russian intellectuals and administration towards Turkish-Muslim people. In this direction, the supplied issues of the newspaper were examined and translated with the support of my esteemed student Dilbar İzatova and some evaluations related to the newspaper were included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia is the only country in the G20 group of nations where Donald Trump is the preferred choice for the next President of the United States. This article examines a hypothesis that Trump owes his popularity in Russia to the way Russian media frames his image. The media content was analyzed by quantitative parameters and then, these parameters were further complimented with a discourse analysis which, in addition to examining the texts themselves, also appeals to the reality beyond the texts, including social and political circumstances that surround the issue. The results demonstrate that the discourse about Trump in the Russian media possesses all the necessary typological characteristics of propaganda. Russian official media actively supports Donald Trump and deliberately creates favorable opinion of him. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay investigates the relationship between habits of news consumption and geographical imaginations in Russia. It uses results from a survey of students at a Moscow university to demonstrate an association between the news sources used by respondents and their acceptance of the Russian authorities’ narrative about the West. Students who used at least one state-aligned news source were inclined to express greater agreement with the official (negative) narrative about the West than students who did not use any state-aligned news sources. However, some of the Russian authorities’ anti-Western claims resonated strongly even amongst the non-users of state-aligned sources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The central instruments of social policy include not only social programmes but also how social problems and social inequality are represented in the media. In this article, these representations are analysed, with a particular focus on the meanings attached to actors, events and phenomena in the field of social policy and how they are produced and diffused through society by means of language, symbols and images. The aim of the study is to provide an analysis of the representations of social inequality and social policy in one of modern Russia’s official state-run newspapers. The various means of explaining social inequality in the official print media will also be revealed and explained here. This is achieved through a content analysis of the articles in Rossiiskaya Gazeta [Russian Newspaper] from 2005 to 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on mass media and politics in Russia, focusing on the use of newer, Internet-based media versus traditional news media by Russians involved in the mass anti-government protests that took place in 2011-2012 as well as by those who participated in pro-government rallies. The authors cite media use surveys indicating complexity in the media use patterns of both pro- and anti-government protesters. Topics include the portrayal of Russian President Vladimir Putin in state-controlled television broadcasting; sociodemographic aspects of Internet adoption in Russia; and Putin's policies related to press freedom.

This article suggests that incremental small business development across Russia's regions has been associated with greater "civic-ness" as defined by civil society activism, diversity, and independence of regional press and media, greater transparency in regional and municipal policy deliberations, and greater dispersion of power among governors, mayors, legislatures, and courts. A retrospective analysis of regional variation over the period 1991 -- 2009 allows for a theoretically informed inquiry into the mutuality of property rights, entrepreneurship, norms of citizenship, and liberal democracy. While Russia has become more authoritarian at least since the mid 2000s, the variation in governance across regions remained significant, creating a promising basis for exploring the reasons for this variation. Might democratization viewed comparatively across regions be associated with the extent of liberalization of regional economies and specifically with the extent of small business development? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented, in which the author discusses reporting of good and bad news regarding the conflict in Ukraine. It mentions impact of effective economic sanctions against Russia by international community. It also mentions lacking in press coverage of various political development is any attention to the remarkable unity exhibited by the historically fractious populace of Ukraine.

Fuelled by the Arab Spring, the question of how the rise of internet-mediated communication affects authoritarian regimes has received unprecedented attention within the discipline of communications. However, in this debate, scholars have not yet turned to the concept of literacy and addressed the role of citizens’ knowledge about political media in any greater depth. This is surprising since the concept of literacy as ‘emancipatory knowledge’, in Sonia Livingstone’s words, has a ‘long and proud history’ of being linked with processes of enlightenment, political empowerment and democratization. The present study contributes to filling this gap by suggesting four highly consequential facets of critical news literacy in contemporary Russia, a high-profile hybrid regime. The conceptual development is grounded in western literature and 20 in-depth interviews with young, urban and educated Russians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An automated high-productivity method of making grinding balls that was first developed in Russia ensures the manufacture of high-quality products and is the most cost-effective method of isostatic pressing. This article examines the advantages of the method over static and hydrostatic pressing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests a nontraditional approach to Russian journalism and posits treating it as a national cultural value. With this purpose, the author brings attention to the question of patriotic view on the Russian domestic press. The Russian journalism possesses a number of features which noticeably distinguish it from journalism in other countries simultaneously putting it on the par with such high values as national literature, arts, and science. This cultural-valuable approach extends to journalism education which also cannot be evaluated according to generally accepted universal criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article shows how the practice of the Russian press in its early stages of development needed theoretical background. Originally, the initiative to create a conceptual model of journalism came from the authorities, represented, above all, by Russian tsars and their ministers. Later, political opposition, publishers, editors and journalists took the leading role. The understanding and providing freedom of the press became a main problem for many years. In the history of national press, you can find the origins of the sociology of journalism, rights of the media, typological analysis of publications, and tradition of studying the preferences and interests of readers. Scientific works gradually appeared and research direction of journalism emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to describe the dynamics of spatial-temporal relations in daily newspaper texts. This includes agreements on what constitutes the 'present', the extent of the 'past' and the 'future', and where the reader's hypothetical place in space is. The temporal dimensions that emerged in Estonian newspapers (Päevaleht, Rahva Hääl, Eesti Päevaleht) were strongly future-oriented. This was a characteristic tendency throughout the 20th century and it can be noted even today. The orientation towards future is notable in comparison with Finnish (Helsingin Sanomat) and Russian (Pravda) newspaper texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why and how does the Moscow city government limit the rights of migrants? How are Moscow police involved in enforcing these policies? Drawing on interviews, scholarly publications, and the Russian press, this article addresses these questions. Post-Soviet changes in migration to Moscow and the city government's efforts to restrict migration are examined as are changes in enforcing residence restrictions. Soviet and post-Soviet approaches to migration are compared and the relationship between political context and police conduct is analyzed to understand the relationship between the police and the contemporary Russian state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Varpas" is the newspaper, published in the years 1889-1905 in the Prussian Lithuania (Lithuania Minor). It was intended for people from the Lithuania Major belonging to the Tsarist Russia at that time, where the Lithuanian language press in Latin letters was prohibited by the Empire government in 1864-1904. The main goals of the article are: (a) to highlight the culture movement aspirations of Martynas Jankus as the most representative figure of Prussian Lithuanians (lietuvininkai), as well as other lietuvininkai culture movement members; (b) to analyse the most important national actualities in Prussian Lithuania at that time; and (c) to introduce the opinion about lietuvininkai way of living to the Lithuania Major people. All this is made on the basis of materials from the "Varpas" publications. Such analysis is possible because of the fact that we can find important Lithuanian culture figures such as Martynas Jankus, Morta Zauniūtė, Jurgis Lapinas, etc. among the "Varpas" editors. "The problems of the Lithuanian culture situation in Prussian Lithuania were also pointed by outstanding Lithuania Major culture workers, such as Vincas Kudirka, Jonas Basanavičius, Jonas Šliūpas, etc. The theme is new and actual for the following reasons. In spite of rather wide research studies on the nationalist movement by Vincas Kudirka, reflected from "Varpas" social and national aspirations, our historians still didn't pay actual attention to the same activities by Martynas Jankus in Lithuanian historiography. We can define some actual and predominant themes in "Varpas" publications: (a) local nationality situation and the problem oflietuvininkai denationalization; (b) the decreasing number of local Lithuanian-speaking people; (c) cultural and political activities oflietuvininkai; and (d) national collaboration and contacts between Lithuanians from Prussian Lithuania and Lithuania Major, including obstruction aspects here. The analysis of actual texts allowed us the following conclusion. Lithuanians in Lithuania Major understood the Lithuanian culture societies in Prussian Lithuania as an appropriate possibility to realize their own national and political aspirations. Anyway, the integration process of all people from both Lithuanias, separated historically by the Nemunas river at that time, was very problematic because of a different political, confessional and cultural situation in the period of the end of the 19th-beginning of 20th Centuries here. The ideas of joint Lithuanian culture movement were first pointed by the most active lietuvininkai culture figures, including Martynas Jankus. On the other hand, the main part of common lietuvininkai people were defined locally by a conservative understanding of their living area, determined by different political, cultural and economic life experience as compared with the situation in Lithuania Major. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian Liberation Committee was one of the most active of the Russian émigré organizations operating in London in the period following the Russian Revolution. It acted as a clearing house for news on the Russian civil war, receiving telegrams from each of the fronts and distributing them to the British press. It also produced a variety of publications of its own, for distribution to the public, government officials and to soldiers in Russia. In this article, the Committee's work and publications are examined for the light they shed on anti-Bolshevik propaganda in Britain, and on the sources of information on the civil war available to the British press. While the Committee's efforts could not alter the pragmatic policy of the British government or the already anti-Bolshevik attitude of the British press, their presence made an important difference to the amount and kind of information that was available in Britain during the course of the Russian civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the depiction of Russia in the history and geography books of Germany as well as various political newspapers. The relationship between both countries was also taken into account. According to the author, Thomas Mann's book "The Magic Mountain" depicts two types of Russians, the bad and the good. The depiction of the German unification was discussed as well as the educational system of Germany. Key information about the impact of the 1905 Russian Revolution on German Press is further presented.

The article discusses publishing trends in Russia during 2003 and the beginning of 2004. The Russian Book Chamber reports a total of over 80,000 titles published in 2003, a record. However, that figure is certainly too low. The number of scholarly books has also increased over the total in previous years. Meanwhile, the independent news media have had to contend wit/i an ever-increasing amount of government interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights the discussion held in the editorial offices of "Svobodnaia mysl’-XXI," triggered by Vitalii Tret’iakov’s “Leap to the Realm of Freedom,” published in the fourth number of the journal for 2004. Direction of the evolution of the Russian press; Situation with respect to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the country.

Highlights the press competition in Karelia, Russia and discusses the factors that have an impact on newspaper choice. Overview of the media in Petrozavodsk, capital of the Republic of Karelia, Russia; Trends in newspaper readership; Factors influencing the selection of newspaper.

The progress of the Russian press in the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras can be described (with apologies to Vladimir Lenin) as "two steps forward, one step back". The flowering of glasnost (openness) under Mikhail Gorbachev led to a "golden age" of Soviet journalism, including an explosion of new publications and a lifting of nearly all state restrictions on journalists' professional activities. However, the collapse of the USSR and the onset of material crisis in 1991/92 quickly produced a winnowing of the press and a retrenchment on the part of surviving publications. At the same time, powerful new forces—especially oligarchs and regional and leaders—arose to vie with the state for influence over post-Soviet media. This paper explores the trajectory of one of the leading newspapers of the Soviet and post-Soviet period, Izvestia, in the light of these broader trends. While Izvestia emerged from the ashes of Soviet communism with formal control over its material plant and journalistic collective, it was soon subjected to a tug-of-war between powerful actors determined to control its destiny—first the communist-dominated Duma (parliament), and then large corporations and business oligarchs. The struggle led, in 1997, to the dismissal of the paper's editor, Oleg Golembiovsky, and the departure of many staff to form Novye Izvestia (New Izvestia)—though this publication, too, was also unwilling or unable to avoid the temptations of a close alliance with one of the leading oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky. In the conclusion, the findings are placed in the broader comparative context of Russian and (briefly) global media in transition, based on the author's research into the process of media liberalization and transition worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines developments in the Russian media from the end of 1991 up until the middle of 1995. Reality of media pluralism; Dependence of media freedom on the fate of Russian democracy; Factors militating for and against media pluralism during post-Soviet rule; Performance of the Russian media in the 1993 election campaign; Potential leverage of state television.

The author reflects on the impact that Russian laws designed to curtail the influence of foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations will have on Russian scientific research. He comments on the closure of the private Dynasty Foundation (DF) as its founder, Dmitry Zimin, was designated a foreign agent and Russian news media claimed DF was anti-Russian. He mentions the repression of scientific research under the Soviet Union and suggests the policies will drive out scientific collaboration.