Soviet and Russian Press Coverage of the United States - Press, Politics and Identity in Transition (Electronic book text)

This book examines changing Soviet and Russian press coverage of the United States from the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party through Boris Yeltsin's re-election as Russian President and onward to the Putin Era. Becker argues that, owing to the absence of a language to support the reform strategy, the Soviet press presented positive images of its chief ideological and military opponent, the United States, as a means of supporting political, social and economic reform. Indeed, journalists were so overcome by a desire to present a 'new America' that, if anything, the United States was idealized where it was once reviled. Becker suggests that the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a more self-confident Russia means that the symbolic and discursive significance of the United States for Russia has diminished. His conclusions come from a careful reading of the Soviet and Russian press over a ten-year period and from interviews with journalists and editors.