AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
"Kommersant", "RussiaToday", "Ekspert", "Vesti", "Rosbalt",
"Moskovskii komsomolets", "Komsomolskaia pravda", "Pervyi
kanal"). The choice of media was shaped by the need to exclude
the ideological and genre bias from the analysis of publication
texts. Therefore, our sample comprised news agencies, actual
online media, online versions of traditional media, print media,
television channels, as well as media with a pronounced liberal
ideological orientation (for instance, "Novaia gazeta"); state-
owned media ("Rossiiskaia gazeta"); Russian media based
abroad ("Meduza"), conservative ("Vesti"), religious
("Tsargrad"), and business ("Delovoi Peterburg",
"Kommersant") media.
The chronological scope of the study: March 21, 2020 (first
reports indicating Russia was going to send humanitarian aid to
Italy to combat COVID-19) – May 1, 2020.
Content analysis was organized in the following manner. In
analyzing the pre-selected texts, we identified the appearing
lexemes in semantic clusters corresponding to a certain
mythological concept. We then attempted to evaluate the degree
to which the mythological concept affected the state of the myth
in the Russian media sphere and ultimately the formation of
contextual contradictions arising in Russian media space.
3 Results and Discussion
We will mark the publications selected from the InoSMI portal
as media episodes composed of articles by regular authors of
newspapers in Italy, Great Britain, France, Poland, China, Egypt,
Germany, Finland, Denmark, the USA, etc., responses/reviews
of the responses of readers of these publications, and
"comments" of InoSMI readers. (However, in one part of the
study of materials of the portal the most recent materials of
Russian origin were not taken into account due to being
incompatible with the conditions of the objective of researching
mythogenesis in the countries of the EU).
In the period ranging from March 21, 2020, to April 21, 2020,
the authors of the InoSMI portal located 280 media episodes
there publicists, correspondents, and politicians discussed the
help provided to Italy by Russia:
1) in every second publication of the sample (taken as the
general population according to the object of the study) the fact
of humanitarian aid is used as a media event to build the author’s
conception of the political state of modern Russia on;
2) in one-third of the sample of publications the "example of
Italy" serves as an argument in the discussion of the future of the
EU after the pandemic.
In the first case, mythogenesis can only be identified as the
continuation of political myth-making about Russia, the authors
of such publications are typically the largest actors in the media
sphere; in the second case, the political agenda of the day is
examined mostly based on already existing myths about the
history of Europe. This part of mythogenesis appears to be
primarily linked to the core of cultures of countries where the
examined newspapers and publications are posted.
In the context of resolving the next ensuing objectives of the
study a sample of 15 media episodes (5% of the general
population) obtained through secondary sample analysis and
compiled using the search function of the InoSMI portal by
"help", "coronavirus", and "Italy" keywords presents the most
interest. The sample included only those articles and reader
opinions that accentuated the political views/values of their
authors related directly to the participation of Russian military
doctors in the fight against the Apennines pandemic.
Compilations of readers’ opinions that demonstrate the
contradictory structure of the audience’s values and presents a
base of operational mythogenesis of current political practice
present special significance.
We compiled the opinions of readers of newspapers published in
Italy [21], Poland [22], and Bulgaria [23, 24]. The statements’
authors simultaneously belong to the general European audience
and the audiences of particular EU member countries. In
accordance with this gradation, it was found that the fact of
cooperation of Italy and Russia in the fight against coronavirus
lead to the emergence of a range of relevant mythologemes
based on a certain interpretation of European solidarity values.
We conducted a new analysis of the selected opinion
compilations focused on the research questions allowed to
identify 32 typical reader statements of readers who belonged to
the EU member countries and related to the declared European
solidarity values.
Not the most significant portion of these statements was
composed of phrases where solidarity in the time of hardship
was interpreted in a wider sense – both within and outside the
EU. The image of Russia accompanied by confidence in the
ideas that "Together we will win", "Help is better than inaction",
"There are facts in favor of the Russians" [21], "A noble gesture
of Russia" [22], "Reciprocity is needed" [23; 24] was only found
in nine reader statements (7% of the whole sample of reader
responses). In contrast, we identify 11 statements combined into
theses most clearly expressing anti-Russian rhetoric:
distrust of Russian doctors is expressed – "their identity
cannot be established, they fought in Syria" [21];
confidence in the aggressive nature of Russia and its
leadership is demonstrated – "Putin cheats" [21], "Putin is
a criminal" [23], "Russia is an aggressor" [24].
However, the number of readers’ opinions following the political
myths of the history of the united Europe that have been forming
for the past two decades is also symptomatic – there were only
five of those (4%). This finding can indicate that in pandemic
conditions the voices of dedicated supporters of the EU are heard
more rarely than usual which is consistent with Noelle-
Neumann’s theory suggesting that a person can experience "fear
of isolation" when they find themselves in conditions where they
seem to be in the minority. This presents "the driving force
unwinding spiral of silence" [25, p. 36]. This assumption can be
supported by the fact that half of the positions expressed by the
readers are extremely difficult to qualify strictly in any way.
Again, in full accordance with the "spiral of silence" theory, this
part of the readers has yet to go through a stage Noelle-Neumann
characterizes as "the last-minute shift" [25, p. 68]. The
conditions for this shift, however, are not present yet.
The adherence of the thinking part of the readership to the
political myth of European solidarity could not but unfold in
their expression of concern/critique of the slowness of Western
leaders in the context of medical assistance to the people of Italy
coming from Russia, China, and Cuba: "What did the Germans
or French do for us?", "The EU deviates from the solidarity
principle" [21]; "Russia is helping and where is the USA?" [22];
"The EU may end up at the graveyard of history" [23]; "The EU
is compromised" [24]. As expected, there are few critical
statements – 8% of the entire sample.
Finally, in statement compilations, we indicate diametrically
opposite positions originating equally from the myth of
solidarity of the European countries. In the first case, there are
calls for media actors to "temper the anti-Russian paranoia" [21];
"Those who write about spies rather than help are idiots", "The
world needs reciprocity" [24]. In the second case, adherence to
the myth of solidarity leads to aggressive conclusions: "Russian
doctors in Italy are “the little green men”" [22]; "Exterminate
Putin’s aggressors!", "Medical assistance is a hybrid war" [24].
Characteristically, no aggressive statements were observed in the
Italian audience.
Verdicts expressed by the audience of readers primarily derive
from social reality and, naturally, from the political views
cultivated in the mass media, in this case – the ones related to the
ideology of the EU. The range of identified media episodes
includes a certain number of newspaper publications written by
regular employees of well-known newspapers. Their political
views are familiar to readers and their evaluations of the current
- 307 -