How TV propaganda is affecting Russian society | Hacker News Reader

How TV propaganda is affecting Russian society

bbc.co.uk

21 pointsgruez10 comments

This isn't unique to Russia.

Anyone who was in the US around 2003 will know how warped people there were when the war in Iraq was starting: https://youtu.be/DJ3RrqBqk14?t=3m34s

The same is true for just about every country, the UK when you start mentioning every genocide and famine they started (there were a rather lot of them), the French when you mention how much they screwed up Africa and Indochina, the Turks when you mention the Armenian genocide, etc.

Hopefully we will use the clear example of another country slowly going insane to stop the same thing happening here. But somehow I doubt it, because we are special.

Whole thing leads to really weird situations. I have few friends from Russia, who visited USA few times, praise it for freedoms, commerce, life, etc. Some seriously considered moving. Some - moved for good. People who mostly doing their business online (yet I know they watch TV more than I do for example.)

And these people are supporting everything propaganda is pushing.

So from outside it looks really disconcerting - on one hand they praise west, on the other - they hate it... and this hatred feel very unnatural. It is like person get second personality.

I don't think that's fair. "The West" is not a monolith. You can like and dislike certain cultural, political, and social realities and like others. Your characterization of issues seems very tribal.

Well, from personal conversations russians as a whole blame "westerners" as a whole. I.e. if there will be post about guy, who made floor from recycled wood, there will be tons of hatred comments towards this particular person. And this hatred is based only on the fact he is from USA.

I.e. this hatred targets not officials or politicians. It targets whole population.

no worries, there's a lot of people in Russia who laugh on this propaganda.

Since BBC decided to talk about propaganda, I will call them out on their own coverage of civilian deaths from the war in Eastern Ukraine.

When civilians were killed in Kiev controlled areas BBC described their deaths as result of rebel activity. When however civilians were killed in rebel controlled areas, they were described as having died from shelling without perpetrators being accused but the fact that it was a rebel area highlighted. A lot more people fall into the second category than the first. Even in straight forward cases of deaths resulting from air strikes against cities, BBC did not assign blame to the government.

It was so bad, I have been tempted to go over every BBC story about the war in Eastern Ukraine and analyze for the language it used to discuss the causes of civilian casualties. Maybe I will.

EDIT: It appears I am not the only one to have noticed this particular bias of BBC. Alan Dix, a professor at Birmingham University, goes at length with examples about this issue at the BBC[1].

[1] http://alandix.com/blog/2015/02/13/lies-damned-lies-and-the-...

The media, whether Western or Russian, exists in order to rally support for the actions of the elite, usually by misrepresentation, oversimplification, and blatant lies. When Euromaidan was in progress, it was impossible to even hint that there was a presence of political groups with Nazi sympathies. You were immediately discredited as a pawn of Russian media. I have no idea why the emotional zeal. Of course, it was true, but the West needed support from the demos and downplayed anything that would hurt the geopolitical sparring match with Russia.

Ukraine in general has a history that has been unaddressed. Ukrainian collaboration with Nazis during WWII, genocide against Poles (which many continue to deny, downplay, or rationalize), and Western Ukrainian reverence for national heroes and militant groups entangled in these events (e.g., Stepan Bandera and UPA) remain taboo subjects. They're topics that will likely remain untouched as long as Ukraine is being bought over by Russia and the US.

Oh, old 'Ukraine is Nazi' card? You know that this is played mostly by Russian media? And do you know that part of Russian history where they collaborated with Nazis (how about a million-strong Nazi collaborationist army which flag Russia uses even now?) and that they invaded Poland with the Hitler?

And as for reverence - Russian praise for Stalin and Lenin, two of the most bloodiest dictators in modern history - can speak volumes about Russian soul.

This seems like an equally propaganda-laden piece intended to influence Western attitudes towards the Russian government.

Anecdotally, I was in Russia about a year ago and did not sense any resentment towards my Western-ness.

Propaganda is aimed to hate "western governments", not usual people. And russians have asian mentality mostly - they'll never show you they dislike you while you're their guest. Drink with them couple of bottles to know their real minds.

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