Chapter 5. Russian Media Narratives About Young Drug Users

Abstract

Since the 1960s, the media in Western Europe and the United States has been one important actor in the public understanding of the drug phenomenon. In Russia, however, it is only since the 1980s that illegal drugs have been discussed in the media and this discussion remains on-going today. By using narrative analysis, this article focuses on how illegal drug use among young people is constructed in the Russian press. As a result of the narrative analysis, three main discourses were identified: a foreign problem discourse, a disease discourse, and a medical discourse.

Manufacturing resilience: An analysis of broadcast and Web-based news presentations of the 2014–2015 Russian economic downturn

“…These components are collected from the analysed texts and are sorted into the appropriate categories and counted to measure frequencies (Lieblich et al, 1998). While this method resembles the text content analysis method in many ways, the categorical-content approach of narrative analysis primarily focuses on interpretations and qualitative forms (Lilja, 2013). As Lieblich et al (1998) explain, there are four steps to the categorical-content approach of narrative analysis: (1) selecting the subtext, (2) defining the content categories, (3) organizing the content into the categories and (4) making conclusions from the findings.…”

“…While numerous studies have focused on the power of television and print news in increasing public awareness, impacting decision-making and crafting public rhetoric in Western societies (Oksan and Ekim, 2013; Wang and Gantz, 2007), less scholarship has focused on the types of narratives created in Russian media. Most of the scholarship acknowledges that the Russian state-controlled narratives serves to provide lenses for the public to process information, rather than attempts by the state to deny their occurrence (Levintova, 2010; Lilja, 2013; Persson, 2015). Although Persson’s (2015) study focused on narrative analysis of non-traditional sexuality, the argument that the state confronts issues in the public eye by crafting interpretations of that issue through the media, rather than attempting to deny it, can also be seen in the analysis of Russian state narratives justifying actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine (Hutchings and Szosteck, 2015).…”

“…These authoritarian sources are claim makers seeking to solidify support for their views on societal issues from various stakeholders (i.e. citizens) (Lilja, 2013).…”

Resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church: Narrative of Analysis of the Russian National Myth*

“…Public narratives in news rely on authoritarian sources as a key component of the rhetoric. These authoritarian sources are claim makers seeking to solidify support for their views on societal issues from various stakeholders (i.e., citizens), including the public at large (Lilja, ). Authoritarian regimes with vast control of the media, such as Russia, have tremendous power in crafting public narratives.…”

“…Through its crafted narratives, Russia's state‐controlled media is able to offer counter‐worldviews to those presented by Western media to Russian citizens. Scholars have shown Russian media capable of providing ideological positions through narratives on the ethnic identity of self and other (Levintova, ), or issues like drug‐use (Lilja, ) and homosexuality (Persson, ) that provide justifications to the populace for actions taken by the Russian state. Homosexuality in particular was presented as directly connected to the West and its claimed agenda to corrupt Russian values in place of Western ones (Persson, ).…”