Narratives of Otherness: Deconstructing the ‘Russian threat’ in the British Press

By Nicholas Cobb -

Narratives of otherness: Deconstructing the ‘Russian threat’ in the British press

Ernest A Reid, IMESS in Politics & Security, Researcher-Analyst

The ‘Russian threat’ narrative has been prevalent in the British press for quite some time now. While it may have somewhat evolved since the days of the Crimean War in the 19th century and the ‘Self vs Other’ nexus is hardly a new phenomenon for the propaganda industry, there are some key staples to this discursive construct that can be distinguished. Furthermore, it can be added that the aforementioned narrative always lingers in the background, but it becomes particularly amplified at times when Russia’s gains in a zero-sum game mean actual or potential losses for its ‘western partners’.

In this analytical piece we shall deconstruct the ‘Russian threat’ narrative and examine the key components of modern anti-Russian propaganda. The source we have chosen for our examination is ‘The Sun’ – one of the most widely read newspapers in the United Kingdom – and we are going to examine five articles written by an author names Neal Baker in the period between March 2017 and November 2018, around the time of Russia’s advances in Syria, run-up to the presidential elections in Russia and the Skripal incident. The method of textual analysis for the aforementioned articles will be based on John E. Richardson’s linguistic analysis framework from his book ‘Analysing Newspapers’ (2007) that involves micro- and macro-textual analysis – structuring and combining propositions, the two aspects initially suggested by Norman Fairclough (1995: 104). With such an analysis being largely a social constructivist affair, the ontological position taken here will be a constructivist one and epistemology – interpretivist; thus, while aiming for objectivity, this analysis, nevertheless, does not lay a claim to universality.

Let us begin by examining the text at the lexis level – the words used to describe the ‘Other’. The bulk of the chosen referential strategies fit into Teun van Dijk’s ‘ideological square’ framework whereby positive Self-presentation is created via contrast with negative Other-presentation with the Other’s negative attributes being foregrounded and positive attributes de-emphasised (cited in Richardson, 2007: 51). Hence, when describing the president of Russia Vladimir Putin his past career in the infamous secret service organisation – the mention of which invokes negative images of the Cold War – is foregrounded and thus he is presented as a ‘former KGB-man’ rather than a ‘head of state’ or a ‘father of two’, while Theresa May is referred to simply by her full name. These referential strategies are further complemented by predicative strategies whereby Russia’s leader is referred to as ‘hardman president’ and ‘chest-thumping leader’. Of course, the utilisation of these strategies are not limited to the president of Russia; hence, the image of the negative ‘Other’ is completed with references such as ‘Putin’s forces’, ‘Putin’s assassins’, ‘Moscow’s puppeteers’, ‘Kremlin threat’, ‘Kremlin hackers’, ‘hyper-aggressive Kremlin machine’, ‘aggression’ etc. Even an event commemorating the Soviet victory over the Nazi Germany is referred to as a ‘bash’ – a term that would normally be more appropriate to describe a teenager’s birthday party rather than a war memorial event. All of the above are in stark contrast with the value-laden terms used to describe the positive ‘Self’ – ‘British public’, ‘unsuspecting Brits’, ‘British woman’, ‘citizens of powerful democracies’, ‘the government’ etc. More ideological contrast is added by dismissing the information coming from ‘Them’ as ‘nonsense’ and normalising the information that comes from ‘Us’ as the ‘truth’.

Moving on to the sentence level, let us consider the aspects of transitivity and modality. The former does not seem to favour active over passive forms of the verbs or vice versa and seems to utilise various types of verbs denoting verbal, mental, relational and material processes (transitive, as well as intransitive). However, once again, verbs used to describe the processes initiated by the ‘Other’ are often that of offensive, negative nature – ‘to attack’, ‘to hack’, ‘to swallow’ etc. On the other hand, the verbs used to describe the ‘Self’ reflect either a neutral or defensive stance – ‘to recommend’, ‘to protect’, ‘to warn’ etc. Furthermore, this contrast potentially facilitates a moral foundation for future securitisation of the ‘Russian threat’.

As for modality, the following pattern can be observed. When it comes to truth modality, there is a prioritisation of categorical statements, especially when they are backed by or come from authoritative sources such as British (or other Western countries’) governmental agencies and experts – e.g. ‘It’s certain that the Russians will be trying to hack UK state systems’ and ‘Russian hackers ultimately want to get into users’ Wi-Fi systems’. However, there seems to be somewhat of a ‘the more the merrier’ trend whereby even hedging statements are added to the mix in order to reinforce the key idea. Hence, even statements such as ‘Russia could be trying to create an “internet army”’, ‘fridges and TVs can be harnessed by Kremlin hackers’ and ‘[i]f Russia can call on millions of devices to target infrastructure, it could cause a lot of damage’ – that merely propose a potential situation – are utilised to bolster the overall concept. In terms of obligational modality, it is generally of a categorical nature. ‘The Sun’ seems to avoid one of the blatantly propagandistic strategies of directly telling its readers or politicians what to do and rather distances itself by delegating that responsibility to individuals who are presented as external neutral voices – the likes of former Soviet spy-turned-dissident and British cyber security expert – who tell Theresa May that she ‘should boot out the Russian ambassador’ and use imperative mood to tell the reader what programs to use on their computer.

Furthermore, Baker’s articles often set the angle by utilising presuppositions from the start. For instance, one of the headlines is ‘Former KGB officer warns Vladimir Putin set to order MORE assassinations’, which is reinforced yet again in the subheading – ‘Theresa May needs to front up to Putin before he strikes again’ and again in the lead part of the article – ‘Vladimir Putin is planning yet more assassinations’. Here ‘more’ and ‘again’ are used to reinforce an implicit claim that Putin has previously ordered assassinations in Britain; thus, by the time the reader gets to the main body of the article this claim would have been already internalised. Another headline reads: ‘CYBER FEARS: Russian hacking fears – The signs YOUR computer has been targeted and how to prevent getting hacked’. While there is no false information in this title, it has nevertheless opted for combining an eye-catching circumstance setting clause of the ‘fears’ that exist in relation to Russia with a sentence that suggests that the reader’s computer (‘YOUR’ capitalised for an additional personal effect) may be targeted and at the same time does not directly accuse Russia (via agent deletion) but merely creates a cognitive link between the two. Moreover, ‘how to prevent getting hacked’ is utilising the question word ‘how’ to implicitly emphasise the reality of threat and need for action.

Moving on to rhetorical tropes, there is an abundance of them in Baker’s articles where Hollywood imagery of Russia as the ‘Other’ is brought to life with a use of countless metonyms, metaphors and hyperboles. Hence, the Russian decision-makers turn into gremlin-like ‘Kremlin’, homogenous ‘Russia’, Moscow and even ‘the Russians’, thus the lines between Russia’s government and its people becoming blurred. This is further enhanced by horrifying imagery of ‘The Russian Bear’ that is ‘mauling’ on its ties with the West. This image of Russia as a dangerous animal is not new as it was previously used during the Crimean War when the first wave of Russophobia was launched in the British press; moreover, this strategy of dehumanisation has been utilised successfully elsewhere throughout history (Chirot and McCauley, 2006: 51-3). The key idea here is that dehumanisation of the ‘Other’ erases any identification with the ‘Other’, and thus creates foundation for moral acceptance of any further actions against the ‘Other’ – whether economic sanctions or ethnic cleansing. Finally, in terms of the narrative aspect, there seems to be an on-going variation between content and form, whereby most of the articles seem to follow the ‘climax-first’ form – ‘CYBER FEARS: Russian hacking fears…’, ‘FLYING BLIND: Russia “hacked NATO war games…”’ etc. However, it should be pointed out that this type of narrative content-form dynamics are fairly common for ‘The Sun’ and is not exclusive to the ‘Russian threat’ discourse.

Finally, let us draw a conclusion. As we have discovered from the linguistic structure of the text, the ‘Russian threat’ construct is highly dependent on the ‘Self vs Other’ nexus that is created by the use of referential and predicative strategies at the lexis level that reinforce the ‘ideological square’ as per van Dijk, as well as transitive strategies and a combination of categorical and hedging truth modality and categorical obligation modality often enacted by external voices. Familiar Cold War themes are reinforced through systematic mentioning of ‘KGB’ for more mental cohesion. This is further complemented by a vast array of presuppositions and rhetorical tropes such as metonyms, metaphors and hyperboles, while the narrative often follows the ‘climax-first’ form rather typical of British tabloids. Overall, it can be observed that the author of these articles followed the standard ‘Us vs Them’ media protocol whereby ‘We’ are ‘democratic’, ‘unsuspecting’ and in need of protection against ‘Them’ who are ‘aggressive’, ‘chest-thumping’ and bear-like, thus creating pre-conditions for a ‘war-based polity’ where the lines between the public and private enemies are blurred (Bigo, 2002: 81) and reinforcement of identity that can in due time be activated as a ‘basis for social action’ (Steele, 1999: 30). This model is more or less applicable to any other ‘usual suspects’– from ‘Islamic terrorists’ to ‘immigrants’ – and can be observed in virtually any major media source from around the world.

Bibliography:

  • Bigo, D. (2002) Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease, Alternatives. 27 (Special Issue), pp 63-92
  • Chirot, D. and McCauley, C. (2006)Why Not Kill Them All?, Princeton: Princeton University Press
  • Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse, London: Arnold
  • Richardson, J.E. (2007)Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Palgrave Macmillan
  • Steele, B. (1999).Ontological Security in International Relations, London: Routledge

Objects of research:

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