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Manufacturing Enemy Images? Russian Media Portrayal of Latvia

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Manufacturing Enemy Images? Russian Media Portrayal of Latvia Manufacturing Enemy Images? Russian Media Portrayal of Latvia Ed. Nils Muižnieks Academic Press of the University of Latvia, 2008 llatvkriev-medijos-A.inddatvkriev-medijos-A.indd 1 22008.07.16.008.07.16. 116:31:556:31:55 UDK 316.3 Ma 520 Editor: Nils Muižnieks Layout: Ilze Reņģe Cover design: Agris Dzilna © Latvijas Universitāte, 2008 © Agris Dzilna, cover design, 2008 ISBN 978-9984-825-88-5 llatvkriev-medijos-A.inddatvkriev-medijos-A.indd 2 22008.07.16.008.07.16. 116:31:566:31:56 Table of Contents Introduction .....................................................................................................5 Nils Muižnieks Part I: Political Context and Historical Legacy Relations between the Media and the State in Russia ..................................9 Toms Rostoks Latvia’s Image in Russia: The Legacy of the 1990s ....................................27 Kristīne Doroņenkova The Editorial Policy of Russia’s Media and Journalists in Latvia .............35 Dmitrijs Petrenko and Solvita Denis Part II: Russian Media Portrayal of Latvia, 2002 to mid-2005 How Does the Russian Community Live in Latvia? ....................................45 Dmitrijs Petrenko The Story with History .................................................................................79 Solvita Denis Latvia’s Culture in Russia’s Media .............................................................109 Kristīne Doroņenkova Russia’s Media on Latvian Accession to the EU and NATO ....................127 Toms Rostoks The Latvian Economy – the Offshore Next Door ......................................145 Nils Muižnieks Conclusion ....................................................................................................161 Nils Muižnieks Chronology of Key Events, 2002 to mid-2005 ............................................164 Nils Muižnieks About the Authors ........................................................................................167 llatvkriev-medijos-A.inddatvkriev-medijos-A.indd 3 22008.07.16.008.07.16. 116:31:576:31:57 Introduction Nils Muižnieks According to sociological surveys, the inhabitants of Russia have long considered Latvia to be among the “least friendly” countries towards Russia.1 At the same time, the Russian government has devoted an astonishing amount of energy to demonising Latvia in international organisations and elsewhere.2 As documented and analysed below, the Russian media has devoted significant attention to Latvia, much of it negative. Why has Latvia evoked such animosity? To what extent are the Russian media responsible for manufacturing an enemy image of Latvia? At first glance, a combination of several factors would seem to explain negative media portrayal and perceptions of Latvia among many Russians. Latvia hosts a large Russian-speaking minority whose status has diminished significantly since independence. Latvia and its Baltic neighbours pose a systematic challenge to the official Russian understanding of history and core Soviet/Russian legitimising myths (e.g., regarding the “Great Patriotic War”). After independence, Latvia adopted a distinctly pro-Western foreign policy with a focus on accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). However, other countries also share these characteristics without evoking anywhere near the same degree of animosity from Russian officialdom, the Russian media, and the Russian public. Ukraine and the Central Asian countries, for example, also have large Russian-speaking minorities whose status has diminished significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Poland has been just as active as Latvia and its Baltic neighbours, if not more so, in reminding the world of the darker episodes of Soviet history, especially during World War II. Latvia is but one of many post-communist countries neighbouring Russia to have joined NATO and the EU. If Latvia is not so different from many other neighbours of Russia, why has it merited pride of place among Russia’s enemies? This book seeks to answer that question. The Russian government and the Russian media, which became increasingly beholden to the Russian government during the presidency of Vladimir Putin, have played a central role in creating Latvia’s image in Russia. Of course, the creation of Latvia’s image did not begin under Putin, 1 See, e.g., Stephen White, “Russia and ‘Europe’: the public dimension,” in Roy Allison, Margot Light and Stephen White, eds., Putin’s Russia and the Enlarged Europe (London: Chatham House, 2006), 143. 2 See Nils Muižnieks, “Russian Foreign Policy Towards ‘Compatriots’ in Latvia,” in Nils Muižnieks, ed., Latvian-Russian Relations: Domestic and International Dimensions (Rīga: University of Latvia Academic Publishers, 2006), 121-5. 5 llatvkriev-medijos-A.inddatvkriev-medijos-A.indd 5 22008.07.16.008.07.16. 116:31:576:31:57 or even under Yeltsin for that matter. Russians have long considered Latvia a “window to Europe,” one of the most Western parts of first, the Russian empire, then, the Soviet Union.3 Many Russians, particularly members of the elite, harbour a certain nostalgia for Latvia in general, and the Latvian seaside resort Jūrmala in particular. Along with Crimea on the Black Sea, Jūrmala was the prime vacation destination for the nomenklatura during the Soviet years. While the image of Latvia as “the West” and nostalgia about Jūrmala persist, these positive associations intermingle with and are often overshadowed by far more negative ones in contemporary Russian political and media discourse. Insofar as most inhabitants of Russia have not been to Latvia personally and do not have relatives there, they acquire their information and get an impression about Latvia primarily from media discourse. Another source of information about Latvia, particularly among younger inhabitants of Russia, is teaching materials in Russian schools. This topic is not examined here, but is the subject of a new research project planned by the Advanced Social and Political Research Institute (ASPRI). This book examines how the media in Russia construct the image of Latvia – the topics covered, the discursive strategies employed, and the way in which Latvia is portrayed. Thus far, Russian media portrayal of Latvia has received very little academic attention in both Russia and Latvia.4 Thus, the research below is based almost solely on an investigation of primary source materials. The research team benefited from access to a unique source of information – a data base of Russian media materials mentioning Latvia and/or Latvians that the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned from a media monitoring company in Russia.5 The data base covers press, radio, and television reports mentioning Latvia or Latvians. It is solely a text database, which means that images, often so crucial for understanding media portrayal, were not analysed. The data base contains materials covering the time period January 2002 through May 2005. Subsequent materials are available, but not in as comprehensive a fashion. Thus, the research team decided to focus only on the portrayal of Latvia for the period in which the full data base was available. As the chronology at the end of the book suggests, January 2002 through May 2005 was a very eventful period in Latvia, Russia and in Latvian–Russian relations. On the Latvian side, it saw accession to the EU 3 See, e.g., Roman Szporluk, ed., The Influence of East Europe and the Soviet West on the USSR (New York, Praeger, 1977). 4 For a rare Russian analysis, see R.X. Simonyan, “Obraz stran Baltii v Rossiskikh SMI,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 2004, No. 6, pp. 98-106. For a Latvian analysis, see Mārtiņš Lācis, “Baltijas valstu tēli un ar tiem saistītie stereotipi Krievijas federācijas plašsaziņas līdzekļos” [“The Images of the Baltic States and Related Stereotypes in the Mass Media of the Russian Federation”], unpublished master’s thesis, University of Latvia Communications Department, 2003. For Russian media influence on Latvia, see Ainārs Lerhis, ed., Outside Influence on the Ethnic Integration Process in Latvia (Rīga: Centre for East European Political Studies, 2008). 5 The company is called Agenstvo monitoringa SMI WPS. See its website at www. wps.ru. 6 llatvkriev-medijos-A.inddatvkriev-medijos-A.indd 6 22008.07.16.008.07.16. 116:31:576:31:57 and NATO, as well as mass mobilisation of Russian-speakers against the education reform. On the Russian side, it saw the consolidation of Putin’s power as president, moves to bring media and Russian “oligarchs” to heel, the onset of the Iraq War, as well as challenges to Russian influence posed by the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. In bilateral Latvian-Russian relations, the period was marked by a failed attempt to reach agreement on a border treaty, as well as controversy over the Latvian president’s participation in events in Moscow commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Advanced Social and Political Research Institute at the University of Latvia assembled a team of young scholars from the departments of political science and communication studies to analyse the media materials. The methodologies used by the authors are broadly the same, combining elements of discourse analysis, sociology, and political analysis. As a first step towards making sense of the vast amount of empirical material in the data base, the team reviewed the evolution of topics concerning Latvia, and found that the materials could be divided into a number of categories:
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