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UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 7th Annual International Postgraduate Conference

Inclusion Exclusion

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Friday 17 February  2:30 – 4:00:: Panel F4: Russia in the Media

Felicitas Macgilchrist (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt-am-Oder): ‘Metaphorical politics: is Russia "western" or not in the UK, US and German press coverage of the Russian-Chechen conflict?’

With Europe’s current 25 states, what is the role for its neighbour Russia? Is Russia included in this expansion - as part of ‘the West’ - or excluded as the ‘barbarian at the gate’ it has been for many (western) Europeans since the 18^th century (Neumann 1999, Wolff 1994)? Human rights organizations lament the ‘drop-off’ in criticism of Russia’s actions in Chechnya since Sept 11, 2001, which they say goes hand in hand with the inclusion of Russia in the ‘war against terror’. But is this really the case? This paper analyses the press coverage of the Russian-Chechen conflict over the last 10 years, and suggests that the media have two dominant modes of discourse for describing Russia: Based on the metaphor of Nation-As-Family, there are two ways of discussing national politics – The Strict Father Frame and the Nurturing Parent Frame (Lakoff 2002). In the Strict Father frame, authority and discipline are fundamental in order for the father (the government) to protect the family (the citizens); the Nurturing Parent frame sees empathy, open-ness and understanding as key to protecting the family, i.e., negotiation and compromise among all conflict parties are central to improving the lives of all concerned. Newspaper reports from Germany, the UK, and the USA between 1995 and 2005 are divided between these two frames of reporting the events. The Nurturing Parent frame excludes Russia entirely – as an authoritarian regime which brutalizes the civilian population in Chechnya, cares nothing for the lives of Russian citizens, and is not prepared to negotiate and compromise. The Strict Father frame attempts to include Russia in the (western) war on terror, and support its resolute policies against terrorism, but the news media subvert their own inclusion narrative by focusing on Russia’s weakness, incompetence and lack of discipline. No matter what the Russians do, they are too strict to be a Nurturing Parent and too weak to be a Strict Father. (Still) not European?