Cold War redux in US–Russia relations? The effects of US media framing and public opinion of the 2008 Russia–Georgia war

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksan Bayulgen ◽  
Ekim Arbatli
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Cold War

This paper examines the Cold War rhetoric in US–Russia relations by looking at the 2008 Russia–Georgia war as a major breaking point. We investigate the links between media, public opinion and foreign policy. In our content analysis of the coverage in two major US newspapers, we find that the framing of the conflict was anti-Russia, especially in the initial stages of the conflict. In addition, our survey results demonstrate that an increase in the media exposure of US respondents increased the likelihood of blaming Russia exclusively in the conflict. This case study helps us understand how media can be powerful in constructing a certain narrative of an international conflict, which can then affect public perceptions of other countries. We believe that the negative framing of Russia in the US media has had important implications for the already-tenuous relations between the US and Russia by reviving and perpetuating the Cold War mentality for the public as well as for foreign policymakers.

scholarly journals The New Frontier: Religion in America’s National Space Rhetoric of the Cold War Era

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen E. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
National Space ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
Religious Imagery ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Cold War

The origins and use of national space rhetoric used by NASA, the US government, and the media in America began during the Cold War era and relied, in part, on religious imagery to convey a message of exploration and conquest. The concept of space as a “New Frontier” was used in political speech, television, and advertising to reawaken a sense of manifest destiny in postwar America by reviving notions of religious freedom, courage, and exceptionalism—the same ideals that originally drove expansionist boosters first to the New World and then to the West. Using advertisements, political speeches, NASA documents, and other media, this paper will demonstrate how this rhetoric served to reinforce a culture held by many Americans who maintained a long tradition of believing that they were called on by God to settle New Frontiers and how this culture continues to influence how human spaceflight is portrayed today.

Securing Central America Against Communism: The United States and the Modernization of Surveillance in the Cold War

1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Holden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Central America ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central American ◽  
Sponsored Programs ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

The US.-sponsored programs of military and police collaboration with the Central American governments during the Cold War also contributed to the surveillance capacity of those states during the period when the Central American state formation process was being completed. Guatemala is used as a case study. Washington’s contribution was framed by the conventional discourse of “security against communism” but also by an underlying technocratic ethos in which “modernization” and “security” were higher priorities than democratization.

scholarly journals Public Perceptions of Biofuels - Case Study: Frames of Biofuel Discussion in the Finnish Context

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elina Siivari ◽  
Ilia Safrutin ◽  
Khalil Mozaffari ◽  
Esa Käyhkö ◽  
Risto Jouttijärvi
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Forest Biomass ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Eu

Biofuels are fuels made of biological materials and they can be used in cars, trucks and other engines. The EU's policy and regulatory framework for bioeconomy and biofuels is seen as a multi-layered and complex issue. Policies around biofuels have developed recently in the EU. Renewable Energy Directive II established a binding target for the use of renewable energy across the European Union by 2030 to be 32% of the total energy production. Finland is a country where the utilization of forest biomass has traditions ranging back centuries and continues in the present day with bioenergy holding a central role in the Finnish energy matrix. Our case study is focused on examining the public perceptions of biofuels in Finland and is linked to the discussion about climate change, global warming, and sustainable development. We used a stakeholder approach and mapped key stakeholders in the biofuel sector in Finland from six stakeholder categories: corporations, governmental actors, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), municipalities, universities, and the media. We selected 59 online publications for our analysis from a time period between 2010-2019. Frame analysis was conducted using three pairs of polarised frames: environmental positive and negative, economic positive and negative, and technological positive and negative. The results show that for the most part the framing of biofuel discussion in Finland is positive and emphasizes the environmentally and economically positive aspects. The negative aspects that came to front are especially in the notions of economic costs and in arguments for environmental calculations. The EU legislation itself is seen as a background to all this discussion and is itself not scrutinized extensively by the various stakeholders.

‘Meeting [our] domestic Communism problem’: Cold War governance and the public university

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Alice Garner ◽  
Diane Kirkby
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Government Interference ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War the Fulbright program was considered an effective arm of US ‘soft power’ and cultural diplomacy. The US saw Australia as strategically valuable in the Asia-Pacific region of the world and under the Menzies Liberal Party government, Australia shared the US military and defence agenda. How could the Fulbright program maintain its independence from government interference in the powerful force of Cold War geopolitics? Australia’s Fulbright Board held strongly to the importance of independence and the role of academics to ensure that.

Jürgen Kuczynski and the Search for a (Non-Existent) Western Spy Ring in the East German Communist Party in 1953

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW STIBBE
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
Party Control ◽  
The Us ◽  
East German ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Labour History ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractJürgen Kuczynski, the East German Marxist intellectual and economic historian, is best known for his numerous publications on labour history. Far less has been written about his role as a leading figure in the German Communist Party in Britain between 1936 and 1944, and his work for the US Strategic Bombing Survey in 1944–5, activities which later came back to haunt him when he was the subject of a major inquiry launched by the Central Party Control Commission in 1953. Using newly available documents in London and Berlin, this article examines the investigation into Kuczynski as a case study for the inter-relationship between party purges, spy scares and the manipulation of individual biographies during one of the most volatile periods of the cold war.

scholarly journals Swedish Media Research in the Service of Psychological Defence During the Cold War?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Peter Jakobsson ◽  
Fredrik Stiernstedt
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Media Research ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Media And Communication

AbstractIn this article, we address the history of Nordic media research through a case study of the formation of media research in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s and the role that The Board for Psychological Defence played in the formation of Swedish academic media research during the Cold War era. Based on archival research, we find that the impact of the psychological defence on Swedish media research was mainly concentrated to one Swedish university, and that the impact on the theoretical and methodological development of the discipline has been rather limited. This distinguishes the Swedish case from what has been argued in historical research on the development of media and communication research in the US.

scholarly journals The hegemon's choice between power and security: explaining US policy toward Asia after the Cold War

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (04) ◽  
pp. 1121-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAI HE
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International System ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Soft Landing ◽  
Early Implementation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Power Perception

AbstractAfter the Cold War, US strategists have suggested four strategies for the hegemon: hegemonic dominion, selective engagement, offshore balancing, and multilateralism. Rather than debating which strategy is the best for the US at all times, this article focuses on examining which policy is more likely to be chosen by the hegemon – the US – under different strategic conditions. Through a neoclassical realist argument – the power-perception hegemonic model, I argue that US foreign policy depends on how US policymakers perceive US hegemonic status in the international system. Under rising and stable hegemony, selective engagement and hegemonic dominion are two possible power-maximisation strategies given the weak security constraints from the system. Under declining hegemony, offshore balancing and multilateralism are more likely to be chosen by US policymakers to pursue security because of a resumed security imperative from anarchy. US policy toward Asia after the Cold War is a case study to test the validity of the power-perception hegemonic model. I conclude that US policymakers should prepare for life after Pax-Americana, and early implementation of offshore balancing and multilateralism may facilitate the soft-landing of declining US hegemony.

Values and Media in US-Russia Relations

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Andrei P. Tsygankov
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
National Values ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Systems ◽  
The Cold War

The chapter introduces the topic of the US-Russia relationship for understanding the role of values and media in cooperation and conflict between nations. These relations reflect nationwide beliefs as accentuated and radicalized by different media systems. Western nations have built competitive political systems with checks and balances and popular elections of public officials, whereas many non-Western societies, including Russia, have relied on a highly centralized authority of the executive. Over the last thirty years, US-Russia relations in the realm of values went full circle from confrontation between “communism” and “capitalism” under the Cold War to convergence, growing divergence, and then a return to confrontation that a number of observers view as a new cold war. These changes should be explained by the media’s ethnocentrism and interstate tensions that were construed by the media as challenging dominant national values.

International interventions in non-democratic states between democratic change and achieving interests (Iraq as a case study after 2003)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omran Ali
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Democratic Change ◽  
The Cold War

This research seeks to critically analyze the international efforts, particularly the United States of America, in transforming authoritarian and non-democratic states into democratic ones, and clarify to what extent the US seeks to achieve real democratic change in non-democratic countries, especially Iraq, and whether their main goal is to achieve stability and their vital interests or democratic change and reform. It argues that although spreading democracy and human rights in the Middle East has become, especially after the end of the Cold War, one of the main goals of the US, but, in reality, the US is not ready to sacrifice its vital interests in the region at the expense of spreading democratic values, as well as reducing its strong security and economic relations with its non-democratic allies, or even applying the required pressure on them. Consequently, this increases doubts about the credibility and seriousness of the US in achieving its goal of spreading democracy in the Middle East in general, and Iraq in particular.

scholarly journals Public Perceptions on Population: U.S. Survey Results

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelley Dennings ◽  
Sarah Baillie ◽  
Ryan Ricciardi ◽  
Adoma Addo
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Survey Monkey ◽  
Reproductive Healthcare

The Center for Biological Diversity conducted a paid, self-selected, national online survey on the knowledge, attitudes, behavioural intentions and norms around population growth to inform a theory of change that highlights education and reproductive healthcare as solutions. We surveyed 899 people across the US. The sample was recruited via MTurk and Survey Monkey was used to collect the data. Results were segmented by demographics to assist in building culturally sensitive, inclusive and effective campaigns advocating for rights-based solutions to population growth. Results demonstrated that the public draws a correlation between the number of people on the planet and the alarming rate of animal extinction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document