Linguistic means and devices in the construction of an enemy image in mass media

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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

School of Foreign Languages

Linguistic means and devices in the construction of an enemy image in mass media bachelor's thesis

Field of study: Linguistics

Degree programme: Foreign Languages and Cross-cultural Communication

Ksenia Samokhvalova

Moscow, 2020

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Literature review

1.1 How media became mass

1.2 Major media theories

1.3 Propaganda as a means of manipulation

1.4 Enemy image as a means of propaganda

1.5 Media texts analysis - techniques and perspectives

1.6 Linguistic means of enemy image creation

1.7 COVID-19 in Russia: statistics, expectations and public anxiety

2. Research methods

3. Results

Discussion

References

Introduction

Mass media have been a topic of heated discussion since the very day they emerged. There is still seemingly no consensus on how they actually affect their audience, although one must acknowledge the fact that they do have their impact on one's mindset and are widely used as a means to achieve political or ideological goals. When it comes to traditional media, it should be highlighted that their primary task is to inform their audience about whatever topic they choose to cover. Although admittedly oriented at sensationalism of a piece of news in question, they struggle to create an image of wise, omnipresent and truthful messengers.

However, it can be seen that mass media are by no means unbiased - be it their intention to please the higher authority, attention-seeking, one-sided perception of the facts or incomplete and unexhaustive amount of data, they constantly distort the reality accordingly. It must be highlighted that the reasons for that are not always purely reprehensible, just as they can not be always justified.

One of the most prominent types of media manipulating mass consciousness is propaganda - a set of tools aimed at directing people's thoughts and decisions by the change of narrative and nurturing certain actions and behaviours. As suggested by the French philosopher Jacques Ellul (Ellul, 1973), there exist several types of propaganda and it might be either conscious or unconscious, so one can not undoubtedly present propaganda as an exclusively negative phenomenon, although it seems that current mindset implies exactly that - especially because deception is perceived as one of the underlying principles of propaganda (see, for example, Gerbner & Gross, 1976).

Hate is admittedly the easiest way to mobilize masses and trigger an emotional response from the audience (Ellul, 1973). This feeling is often cultivated by the media by creating an enemy in front of them, external of internal, who would represent whatever values, actions or ways of life a group involved in propaganda despises. It is curated by suggesting a simple yet powerful idea of opposition - “we” vs “they”, “good” vs “bad”, etc. Implementing hate into the media narrative, one can easily make it more scandalous -thus, getting more attention while transmitting messager carefully picked by the propagandists. If started slowly and constantly repeated, it can become a part of the audience's behavioural patterns and preconceptions, spreading its seeds across the board and becoming the so-called “pre-propaganda” (Ellul, 1973), which can be utilized whenever the need emerges.

This narrative of “hate speech” is created, as it can be seen from the name, using language. Linguistic means of manipulation include a very vast number of different techniques implemented depending on the context. There are, for example, such phenomena as labelling, negative personification, evaluative vocabulary, etc. In order to detect them, the whole field of semiotics, first explored by a Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, developed a comprehensive set of methods, of which the one suggested by a Lithuanian linguist Algirdas Julien Greimas (Greimas, 1983) seems to be the most pervasive. It provides a very interesting framework allowing the researchers to take both linguistic and contextual aspects of any given text into account when analyzing it.

Nowadays, during the unprecedented times o COVID-19 pandemic, mass media - especially on the Internet - transformed themselves into every day update reporters providing information on how many people are infected, what is the death rate and whether there are any recovering patients. Trying to keep up with the updates as soon as possible, they face the lack of time to critically evaluate the publications and are prone to making errors and creating unnecessary panic - which, arguably, is what currently happens in Russia. Here, where the pandemic unexpectedly interrupted the daily life of the country, in smaller Russian regions emerges a completely new type of an enemy - a person carrying the virus. It seems noticeable even in simple social interactions that in Russia people become increasingly aggressive towards those who come from Moscow, other regions or other countries as they are seen as a hazard. In its turn, the media create and nurture this image, and these publications became the subject of this study.

This paper states as its main goal to explore the main mechanisms of the indirect enemy image creation in the regional Russian Internet media. To achieve this goal, the author sets the following objectives:

1. To figure out the main ways by which the enemy image is created

2. To analyze how mass media implements these ways into their narrative

3. To determine the peculiarities of how people supposedly carrying the Covid-19 are portrayed in different Russian regional media resources - including, but not limited to, linguistic means

4. To suggest reasons for creating this enemy image

While analyzing media texts, Greimas' approach was implemented. It consists of critical discourse analysis, narrative analysis and deep analysis. During the CDA, the author was searching for the linguistic means of enemy image creation. The narrative analysis serves to identify manipulation techniques distorting the perception of reality. Deep analysis is an attempt to simplify the oppositions created by the media and find the core ones. A variety of media texts from smaller Russian regions were taken as a sample.

This work consists of an introduction, theoretical background, methods, findings, and a discussion of the results in the conclusion part. The List of References comprises 40 items.

propaganda media enemy linguistic

1. Literature review

1.1 How media became mass

There is no doubt that, whenever one is asked about what mass media is, a whole list of immediate associations appears - newspapers, magazines, TV and the Internet can all be considered means of transmitting information in a variety of forms. However, this question might turn out to be harder than it seems.

First of all, what is “media”? According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, this word is a plural form of “medium” - “a method or way of expressing something”. Hence, one can define media as a set of such methods, be it traditional printed media, television or the Internet. This notion, seemingly obvious at first, becomes much more complicated when it comes to “mass media”.

Neither Cambridge nor Oxford dictionary clearly distinguishes “media” from “mass media”, which is curious considering their historical development - namely, the fact that the media we perceive as common and omnipresent nowadays were not always “mass” per se. It can arguably be partially explained by the nonexistence of any such mass before the 20^th century. There are several reasons for that, of which the following 4 seem to be the main: illiteracy, theological factors, economic factors and psychological factors.

The first reason is the most controversial because the evidence for the development of literacy in the world is quite scarce. Moreover, it is still arguably unclear what skills and knowledge can be named “literacy”. In general, it is believed that only small groups of elites were truly literate up until the late 19^th century (Collins, Blot, 2003) - at least, that seems to be true for European countries. François Furet and Jacques Ozouf (1981, p. 215), for instance, write that the French people “were practically fully literate” a century after the French Revolution of 1789. David Cressy's analysis in one diocese of Norwich, England shows that, while members of the clergy and of the professions were entirely literate by 1700, 79 percent of husbandmen, 85 percent of laborers, and 89 percent of women were illiterate (Cressy, 1981, p. 108). From the extant records it appears, then, that literacy developed over a 400-year period after the invention of the printing press.

When it comes to theological reasons, it must be highlighted that there existed certain rules about who counted as a person. Slaves, serfs and women were excluded from the picture and could not be considered fully functional individuals. Despite the refutations of the theories propagated by the advocates of male dominance, the development of equal gender rights was held sway in the US, for example, until 1920. With more than 50% of a nation's population excluded from political engagement, the development of a “mass public” was constrained. Similarly, slaves - as well as freed slaves - were not considered part of the political landscape.

Economic issues consisted mostly of the people's inability to buy materials to read, combined with them not seeing the necessity to do so. Despite there being those rich enough to invest in books, newspapers and other printed materials, they were by no means an exhaustive amount to comprise a mass audience.

The last - but not least - set of factors constraining the creation of a mass audience was connected with the mindset of people - namely, with who they perceived as worthy of education, literacy, rights or basic freedoms. Women, children, peasants, serfs and the poor - all these categories had been considered uneducable throughout the world for centuries.

Combining all these factors, it is easier to understand why the whole subject of media theory is comparatively young. It was not until 1930 when different political groups started using media as a set of tools to manipulate and persuade people (Fortner, 2014), and that shift in perspective stemmed from the new society being increasingly inclusive:

People's status, regardless of education, class, or social and occupational situation, had become acceptable within the larger society; education levels had increased and, along with them, literacy; people had organized and had begun to define their own interests, then to promote them through the media; and the voting franchise had been expanded, so that most people were now eligible to vote. (Fortner, 2014)

It by no means implied total inclusivity and acceptance - however, the way was paved for the development of mass media, and the academics started looking into the subject more.

1.2 Major media theories

With mass media reshaping the way people from all social classes think and perceive the surrounding reality, it was only natural for the academics all over the globe to turn their attention to this new and understudied phenomenon. During the 1930s a group of social psychologists and sociologists combined their efforts to create an Institute for Propaganda Analysis and began publishing analytical bulletins, books, and teachers' guides (Silverstein, 1987, p. 50). This was arguably the time when the history of media studies began. Throughout the following years, there was an influx of different theories and approaches regarding how mass media is created and what influence it might have on the audience.

Media theory can be defined as a systematic way of thinking about means of communication. Whatever perspective to look at the processes in mass media one decides to choose, there will be certain aspects historically perceived to be universally acceptable - e.g., that the media influence audience, or that they are biased and transmit different points of view depending on the author of the material in questions. Taking this perspective into account, one can proceed with looking at it from different angles in order to create a comprehensive theory - which, as history shows, seems to never become exhaustive. In this paper, the author would like to mention some of the most influential and critically acclaimed theories in order to set a context for further research.

The ways in which any media interact with their audience can be explored through the realms of a special field of study called “media ecology”. Media ecology is the study of the symbiotic relationship between people and the media technologies they create and use. It is “the study of media as environments” (Postman, 1970, p. 161) and of the way in which and the extent to which complex communication systems impact upon how people think, feel, and behave (Nystrom,1973). This framework provides a great scope of different theories trying to embrace the methods media use to influence, inform, entertain or manipulate their audience.

Firstly, the Innis' theory of the “Communication bias” should be mentioned (see, for example, Innis, 1986). He distinguishes between “the medium biased towards time” and “the medium biased towards space”:

Media that emphasize time are those that are durable in character, such as parchment, clay or stone. The heavy materials are suited to the development of architecture and sculpture. Media that emphasize space are apt to be less durable and light in character, such as papyrus and paper. The latter are suited to wide areas in administration and trade. (Innis, 1986)

This opposition stems from the Innis' perception of any historical development as a movement along the continuum between time and space. His ideas serve as a great example of dialectical relationships. According to the theory, society can be found somewhere between the two variables at any given time, and the relative proximity of the society toward them indicates a certain kind of bias. Ultimately, the system created by Innis struggles to achieve balance by minimizing bias correcting the tension created within it - sometimes implementing violent corrections.

Innis argues that empires of power - both political and economic - `persist by overcoming the bias of media which overemphasizes either dimension' (Innis, 1986). Media biased towards time concerns (like stone) serve to keep economic and political power within centres of bureaucratic authority, but empires can only maintain their power by delegating some of it to external agencies. Therefore, media biased towards space concerns (like paper) help to decentralize and spread an empire's power. According to Innis, institutions such as governments and big businesses have used a mix of media communications to accomplish and protect their power.

Further implications of his theory include the fact that the medium through which information is transmitted is more impactful on societies than the character or content of that information. This claim is further supported by McLuhan, who states that any advanced modern society is shaped by the various media technologies that are available to it (McLuhan, 1964). Being Innis' predecessor, he also suggests that the medium itself contains the most impactful message - not the content this medium transmits - and divides such media into “hot” - those needing close to no participation from the audience - and “cold”, which require increased attentiveness and sensory involvement. Consequently, one can name lectures, tabloid newspapers or photographs “hotter” that, e.g, seminars, broadsheet newspapers and cartoons respectively. When it comes to modern media, it can be argued that “hotter” types of media dominate on the Internet, since Internet posts require attention, encourage feedback, and are overflowing with different points of view forcing people to engage with the narrative analyzing - if not scrutinizing - it.

McLuhan's emphasis on medium over the message, format over content can appear somewhat abstract and is certainly open to debate. Following and expanding his approach, Postman (1987) creates his own time frame, where the “Age of Exposition” - namely, thorough explanation, represented by the traditional printed media - is followed by the “Age of Show Business” right after the invention of the electric telegraph in the United States in 1837. He is much more cynical about the society he lives in - While McLuhan suggests that the telegraph catapulted society into a phase of mighty progress and advancement, Postman suggests that it attacked the literate culture nurtured by print media in `introducing on a large scale irrelevance, impotence, and incoherence' (Postman, 1987). He criticizes his generation, which switched from reading - a more intellectually involving task - to watching television entertaining themselves, and claims that television is `an instrument that directs not only our knowledge of the world but our knowledge of ways of knowing as well' (Postman, 1987). He excoriated the new media for placing entertainment before the fruitful intellectual debate, causing the mindset of people to change from the culture of awareness to the culture of sensationalism.

1.3 Propaganda as a means of manipulation

Manipulation of collective consciousness is by no means a new method for the powerful to achieve their goals. Although the origin of the term might be traced back to S. Freud's theories (Freud, 1921) ingeniously implemented into marketing by his nephew E. Bernays in the 1920s, who then described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct, one could agree that subconsciously people have used manipulative methods for centuries. One of the most prominent of them is propaganda - positive or negative, political or socially oriented, it is always designed to persuade the masses and convince them to rally for a shared cause.

Although commonly perceived as a negative phenomenon, propaganda is historically neutral - the word itself is a nominalized gerundive propaganda (Latin) meaning “things to be propagated”. Consequently, its positive or negative connotation depends entirely on the message which is spread out. However, the word has a strong connection to the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide founded by Pope Gregory XV in 1622, an organization that formalized the work of a committee of cardinals and others set up under Pope Gregory XIII a few decades earlier. The organization came to be known as “the Propaganda,” and no doubt the name had negative connotations for Protestants in those times.

It might be argued that the idea of propaganda as something wrong and reprehensible has its most strong roots in the time of WWI. However, it must have depended on the culture and context of a particular country - e.g., the Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, did not mind calling his ministry one of “Propaganda and People's Enlightenment,” suggesting that “propaganda” was being treated as a neutral term. English-speaking countries, in their turn, would rather prefer to use the word “information” for a ministry doing essentially the same work.

When it comes to defining what propaganda actually is, it must be highlighted that, due to differences in historical and perceived connotations, this turned out to be harder than one might imagine. The most prominent and comprehensive research of the phenomenon of propaganda was admittedly conducted by a French philosopher Jacques Ellul (see mainly Ellul, 1973). He defines it as follows:

Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization. (Ellul, 1973, p. 61)

In his works, Ellul mentions several examples of the usage of propaganda in different historical times - e.g, how the tyrant Peisistratus of Athens (6th century BCE)

staged an attack against himself in order to persuade Athenians to give him a bodyguard. Peisistratus then used the bodyguard to expand his power, eventually becoming tyrant of Athens. On another occasion, having lost power, he regained it by displaying a tall and beautiful woman dressed in armour and claiming that she was the goddess Athena and that she supported him. The trick worked, providing an early example of the “God is on our side” technique for winning over a population (Ellul, 1973). This evidence supports the argument that different manipulative methods were used throughout history long before the phenomenon of propaganda was established in its current form.

Ellus was also critically acclaimed for his classification of different types of propaganda. He developed a system of four oppositions, thus creating an invaluable tool for analyzing particular instances of propaganda:

1. Political vs sociological propaganda. Political propaganda is carried out by governments or political parties and uses specific methods calculated to achieve clearly defined political goals. It can be strategic or tactical, the latter dealing with more immediate goals designed to affect the masses in ways favourable to accomplishing long-term political objectives. Sociological propaganda, in its turn, does not involve specific groups with defined goals. It is carried out by society as a whole, through individuals or groups communicating messages that serve to bring individual thinking and attitudes into conformity with those of the larger society. It can be conscious or unconscious and works slowly, eventually “creating a fully established personality structure” (Ellul, 1973, p. 66).

2. Propaganda of Agitation vs Propaganda of Integration. The propaganda of agitation serves as an opposition to an established order and has particular actions as its goal - often a revolution or a war. It demands the highest levels of dedication and devotion from its followers and can only be implemented for a limited period of time due to impossibility of maintaining such level of energy for a longer period. Ellul thought of Lenin as a person who used this type of propaganda to its peak. As opposed to it, the propaganda of integration takes its time and aims at a total submersion of the individual into the collectivity. Ellus considers this type of propaganda nonexistent before the 20th century.

3. Vertical vs horizontal propaganda. Vertical propaganda, as it is seen from its definition, is implemented and directed by some sort of authority, who has certain political goals - a religious or political leader, for example. Both Hitler and Stalin utilized this kind of propaganda, hypnotizing, depersonalizing, mechanizing, and dominating those manipulated using their charisma, authority and higher social position. However, it should be mentioned that the effects of such propaganda wear off fairly quickly, especially comparing it with how impactful horizontal propaganda can be. Although it does initially require a leader to set wheels in motion and direct conclusions the mass would draw, it spreads like a wildfire, connecting people with a sense of understanding and encouraging a healthy yet carefully led discussion. Such propaganda takes an immense volume of human resources but seems to pay off very well (e.g., Chinese propaganda often takes this form).

4. Rational vs irrational propaganda. Irrational propaganda relies on deception, seduction, bamboozlement of its audience. It constantly appeals to emotions and needs little to no explanation to follow. Rational propaganda, in its turn, uses people's belief in science and logical reasoning to manipulate them and takes the form of a reasonable and objective source of information. Just “letting the facts speak” is a well-known way of misleading people through the selection of some facts and the omission of others.

Ellul also suggests an idea of so-called “pre-propaganda” (Ellul, 1973), which denotes a set of background myths and preconceptions that can be usefully harnessed by a propagandist if needed. It might be linked to another prominent theory widely used in media studies - the cultivation theory, which was developed by George Gerbner, Larry Gross and their colleagues. They explored how violence-laden television influences the viewer and stated that constant consumption of such content cultivates a fearful attitude to the world of general audience, while also nurturing violent behaviour in emotionally and psychologically unstable people (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). Thus, it creates certain stigmas - a mindset where, e.g., women, the elderly, and racial minorities are generally perceived as victims of violence and white males as enforcers. These ideas might later be used to propagate a point of view beneficial for those spreading it.

1.4 Enemy image as a means of propaganda

In the case of subversive propaganda, hate is a simple and effective way of mobilizing the people, and Ellul speaks of targeting some not too powerful enemy as being a very successful tactic, as long as people can be made to believe that the designated group is the source of all their misery. “Enemy”, according to the Cambridge English dictionary, is “a person who hates or opposes another person and tries to harm them or stop them from doing something” - thus, it is anyone that can threaten you or anyone you consider a part of your social group. Essentially, any enemy image is formed by creating a basic opposition “friend-foe”, highlighting the alienation of one of the sides of the opposition. This method is widely historically present and can be implemented into any narrative in order to stimulate certain reaction and behaviour using any linguistic means. Developing such opposition, the ones setting it as their goal use language of manipulation as their tool. The most used methods of manipulation are simplification/complication, repetition, artificial significance and coverage asymmetry. Combined with the negative meaning of statements and mandatory addressing the source of the hazard (Arifkhanova, 2010), all these components constitute the so-called “hate speech” - a set of linguistic and social means used to abuse or threaten a particular group expressing prejudice, disapproval and ostracism.

The image of the enemy is a qualitative (estimated) characteristic of the “enemy”, formed in the public consciousness. This perception of the "enemy" and the idea of ??the "enemy", while the "enemy" and its "image" can differ significantly from each other since the perception reflects not only the objective reality but also evaluative interpretations and emotional components of perception. In addition, the formation of the image of the enemy is influenced by stereotypes and attitudes, myths and prejudices inherent in the mass consciousness. It must be kept in mind that the perception of the “enemy” is mediated by diverse sources of information, such as the media, which can purposefully shape its specific image. Various images of "enemies" give an idea that (who) is a threat to a particular social community at a certain point in time, in a certain situation, what are the parameters of this threat (strength, activity, anti-humanity), what needs to be done to protect against "the enemy". These images can be transmitted from generation to generation, change from era to era, level, disappear and be reborn again. In recent years, the search for internal and external enemies has been revived in Russia. If in 1989, during the nationwide public opinion research conducted by WCIOM, to the question: “Do you think our country has any enemies today?” only 13% of respondents answered positively, and 47% chose the option “Why look for enemies if all the troubles lie in ourselves?”, then in 2003 to the question “Do you think Russia has enemies today?” - 77% answered “yes”, “no” - 9% of respondents. Such significant changes in public consciousness must have a good reason. It must be borne in mind that the mentality of the people cannot change radically in a relatively short period of time, even if the problem of the "enemy" is purposefully updated. Obviously, the Russian people have significant historical experience of predominantly negative (traditional) mobilization and self-identification. At the same time, real stereotypes are superimposed with real risks of the present and future.

The problem of actualization of the “enemy” in the mass consciousness in Russia may have the following reasons:

1. Living conditions in the country and in the world have become more dangerous; people have become less tolerant.

2. Despite certain positive changes in the economy and living standards in recent years, on the whole, the hopes and expectations of a significant part of Russians have not been met, most people have experienced deep disappointment, which raises the obvious question: who is to blame?

3. Uncontrolled internal and external migration exacerbated interethnic relations in the country. Ethnic groups, especially the titular or traditional ones, as the most widely represented, in search of the reasons for their bleak situation, as well as a suitable object for negative projections, often attribute the image of the enemy to non-traditional, relatively recently formed non-cultural social groups. Hence, according to a sociological survey conducted by the Levada Center after the well-known events in Kondopoga (September 2006), 54% of those who supported the slogan “Russia for Russians” agreed that “people of non-Russian nationalities are to blame for many of Russia's troubles”, 34 %, proposed to limit residence in the country for immigrants from the Caucasus 42% and China - 41%.

4. The lack of a specific national idea that could unite the country and reduce social tension in society; the income impairment and differences in living standards between the poor and rich strata of the population continue to grow, while there is also an increase in mutual hostility.

5. External challenges also have a stimulating effect on the actualization of the image of the “enemy” in Russian society. Only 4.5% of Russians today believe that Western countries would sincerely want to help Russia, while over 45% of the population believes that they solve their problems at our expense, and 37.5% of those polled see, for example, NATO as an active aggressor.

6. It is also necessary to take into account the purposeful, largely baseless actualization of the image of the internal and external “enemy” in Russian society. Some theorists and politicians believe that the traditional Russian method of negative mobilization by creating the image of the “enemy” is almost the only method of consolidating society in the face of an external threat and internal disruption. However, such a “consolidation” poses a threat to the emergence of authoritarianism, traditional for Russia, with its rigid dichotomy “friend-enemy” and confrontation with the surrounding international environment.

1.5 Media texts analysis - techniques and perspectives

There exists a substantial number of approaches to the media text analysis. Ultimately, they all come down to two main perspectives: one can either focus on linguistic properties of a given text or switch their attention to its context. Both of these methods have their benefits and limitations, some of which are described in this part of the paper.

The first perspective uses semiotics - a field of study describing how the meaning of words is generated - as its main set of tools to analyze texts. As the leading French semiotician Jacques Fontanille has argued, the ultimate goal of the semiotic enterprise is ideological: the discipline seeks to bring into question the fundamental value systems underlying our societies and to open a pathway toward a new humanism. The origins of semiotics can be traced back to the works of a Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who was the first to apply scientific rigour to the study of language. He stated that any given linguistic sign is comprised of two main elements - the signifier and the signified. A signifier is a physical object, for example, a printed word, a sound, or an image. The signified, on the other hand, is a cognitive image we have of a concept or an object: the word “water” for example, is the signifier, whereas the idea of water is the signified.

The French critic and semiologist Roland Barthes (1915-1980) expands Saussure's ideas and suggests a completely new concept, which became immensely influential among future researchers - namely, he introduced the notion of connotation or, as he puts it, “second-order meaning” (Barthes, 1973), whereby a signified can become the signifier for another level of meaning.

In the 1980s, the semioticians Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress implemented these ideas for analyzing the media contemporary to them. Their notable text Social Semiotics (1988) highlight that, when analyzing TV ads, comics or any other modern media pieces, one should always take the context of social relations and processes into account. Social semiotics is closely connected to critical discourse analysis, which was also introduced by Hodge and Kress in 1979.

These theories, developing with years from Saussure's approach to linguistics, all come from the UK. In parallel with this, a second branch emerged in France - Greimassian semiotics, named by a Lithuanian linguist Algirdas Julien Greimas, whose theories are outlined in the seminal text Structural Semantics (Greimas, 1983). His theories have their roots not only in Saussure's works but were also influenced by the Russian formalist and folklorist Vladimir Propp, whose study of Russian tales leading to a paradigm including seven “spheres of action” in any story (Propp, 1928) inspired several generations of linguists and is also still used in the field of cognitive psychology in research into the process of reading and the recognition of story structures by children.

Basically, Greimas' approach divides any given text into three levels: the discursive level, the narrative level and the deep level. It is extremely instrumental while analyzing media texts because it provides a researcher with a set of tools for a comprehensive and exhaustive analysis. This paper will implement Greimas' techniques in order to take both explicit and implicit aspects of media texts into account.

The discursive level of analysis includes figurative and enunciative components. The figurative component helps an author to connect their text and the real world by using concepts, places or objects available to people through their five senses. It plays a key role in the media, for example in the presentation of a news item, where it is crucial that an appearance of truth be created in order to ensure the authority of the text and its credibility in the eyes of the receiver.

This component includes an exploration of evaluative terms. Here we explore what is known in semiotics as the thymic category, that of euphoria versus dysphoria. In his Understanding News, John Hartley draws attention to the manner in which the media resort to neat categorizations and thrive on the “us/them” opposition (1982, pp. 115-117). The result is a stereotyping and demonizing of whole groups of the population through the use of phrases such as “the problem of uncontrolled immigration,” “Islamic terrorism,” “extremist elements,” “groups of surly hoodies.” What was initially a subjective view becomes a cultural assumption, a commonsensical truth. John Sorenson (1991, pp. 47-48) has also described how, in the media coverage of famine, Africans are frequently presented negatively, as incompetent backward peasants, in contrast to their generous white Western “civilized” benefactors.

As it was already mentioned, hate is an easy way for mobilizing masses, and this hate is encouraged by creating a narrative where there is “us” and there is “them”.

The enunciative component contains information about the narrator, the narrative stance and focal point. A news article or broadcast is always presented in the third person (“he”/“she”/“they”), where the position of the narrator/observer remains hidden. This device serves to disguise the origin of the information, which, as Noam Chomsky (2002) has argued, can frequently be a government source. The impersonal stance, coupled with omniscience, strengthens the “truth effect” by creating the impression of absolute objectivity and factivity. It is a stance that is basically authoritarian and establishes a distance - that of the expert - between the text sender or producer and the receiver. In TV news, this distancing effect can be conveyed visually through the position of a desk, the formality of clothing, and rituals of communication such as particular gestures and eye movements. The persuasive function of the enunciative strategies can be further enhanced through the choice of categorical modality, that is, through the use of categorical statements, which express certainty, rather than tentative utterances.

When it comes to the Internet media, it can be argued that the way a narrator presents themselves highly depends on the source of information an individual chooses. Traditional or official media tend to remain distant from the audience saving their face and insisting on their high level of expertise, while personal blogs and other social media posts try to become closer to their followers by admitting their lack of certain knowledge or skills. However, this doesn't imply that a reverse situation is impossible.

After analyzing the text itself along with the implications coming from the words chosen by the author, it is reasonable to proceed with the narrative analysis, which includes the usage of the actantial narrative schema - a simplified version of Propp's seven “spheres of action”. Implementing it, one should answer the following questions about the text in question:

1. Who is the subject of the quest? The subject is usually the person or group of people most talked about, for example, “the British army” or “the American president.” It gives the overall perspective from which a media item is composed.

2. Who or what is the object of the quest? Is there more than one object? The goal could be concrete, such as acquiring money, or abstract, such as acquiring knowledge.

3. Does the subject have helpers and opponents? A helper can be a person, an object, or a quality. The opponent is an obstacle - for example, a rock or the attribute of laziness.

4. Who or what is the sender? What motivates the quest of the subject? Is it a person, an idea, a desire, or a sense of obligation?

These questions are aimed at finding hidden motivations of a text, especially if its author deliberately avoids evaluative vocabulary.

When this step is finished, Greimas suggests to take one more step back and look for core underlying oppositions. To facilitate the task, it may be helpful to ask the following questions:

1. Can we reduce all the oppositions at the discursive and narrative level to one or two umbrella oppositions that function as a common denominator for the whole text?

2. What are the two most abstract poles of meaning between which the text moves?

That wraps up the text analysis method suggested by Greimas. It seems to be placed right in between the two approaches - it analyses the text itself while also acknowledging its context.

It should also be mentioned that there are scholars stating that to scrutinize texts it is futile to actually read it. One of the most prominent scientists enforcing this idea is Franco Moretti, who described his ideas of “distant reading” in the article “Conjectures of world literature”. He criticizes Saussure's detailed reading:

At bottom, it's a theological exercise--very solemn treatment of very few texts taken very seriously--whereas what we really need is a little pact with the devil: we know how to read texts, now let's learn how not to read them. Distant reading: where distance, let me repeat it, is a condition of knowledge: it allows you to focus on units that are much smaller or much larger than the text: devices, themes, tropes--or genres and systems. And if, between the very small and the very large, the text itself disappears, well, it is one of those cases when one can justifiably say, Less is more. If we want to understand the system in its entirety, we must accept losing something. (Moretti, 2000)

Thus, one can conclude that there is still no common ground on how to analyze texts and the development of such methods is still in progress. In the meantime, it seems the most reasonable to stick to the most exhaustive and comprehensive approach available.

1.6 Linguistic means of enemy image creation

The "image of the enemy", realized through the language of hostility, is based on the characteristics of human psychology. The meaning of the concept of the enemy lies in the opposition of “us” vs “them”. The enemy is one who does not look like "us."

This contrast is the main prerequisite for the formation of national self-awareness of peoples. The actualization of the image of the enemy is associated with military conflicts, with the ideological schemes of certain periods of social development. In linguistics, scientists pay close attention to the classification of "enemies", the search for factors that determine the content of the "image of the enemy." The image of the enemy in the consciousness of society can be either personified and group.

Stereotypes and attitudes have a huge impact on creating the image of the enemy. In this case, the medium plays a big role, for example, online versions of printed media that create the image of the enemy in accordance with the state's foreign policy. The image of the enemy must meet certain requirements: satisfy the needs, for example, include information about a real or imaginary threat, about the possible course of events, perform evaluative functions in accordance with the traditions, values, ideas existing in society, contain informative information about the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the “enemy”, promote the internal consolidation of the perceivers.

It is customary to transfer any troubles and negative qualities to a certain collective hostile image that personifies the forces of evil and destruction. Such a view gives a sense of relief for one's own soul and saves society from moral responsibility.

Having set the main set of tools for analyzing media texts, it is now crucial to figure out what linguistic means one should look for when it comes to how mass media creates enemy image. Speaking about the language processes, the trigger of which are the mass media, we can first distinguish the following:

1. the tendency to blur clear style boundaries

2. the spread of colloquial style norms in the basic corpus of media speech (news, information analytics, commentary)

3. replication of erroneous speech use (incorrect stress, grammatical errors, incorrect compatibility)

4. a decrease in the speech norm due to the use of jargon in the media, profanity, etc.

The second and third approaches are of key importance for the development of the general concept of media language when the media language is understood a) as a stable intralingual system, characterized by a certain set of linguistic-stylistic properties and signs, b) as a special mixed-type sign system with a certain ratio of verbal and audiovisual components, specific for each of the means of mass media. It is within the framework of these definitions that the content and internal structure of the modern concept of “media language” were formed.

Implementing all the theoretical approaches mentioned in the previous parts of this review, there are several linguistic means that can be used to create an enemy in the eyes of impressionable audience:

1. Evaluative language - strong emotional vocabulary used to appeal to the reader's emotions; “hate speech”;

2. Language of opposition - “us/they”, a set of phrases aimed at portraying the enemy as an alien to the society that wants to ostracize him;

3. Formal language - cliches aimed at dehumanizing the enemy; labelling

4. Precedent phenomena - negative personification (Kuzminskaya, 2016)

1.7 COVID-19 in Russia: statistics, expectations and public anxiety

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), on May 14 the number of people infected with coronavirus in the world approached 4.248 million people, 294 thousand died. According to current data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 4.444 million people have been infected in the world, more than 302 thousand have died. European countries may face a new wave of coronavirus epidemic this fall, which needs to be prepared, said Hans Kluge, head of the European Bureau of the World Health Organization. According to him, the abolition of restrictions can now be a hasty decision, countries have "time for preparation, not for celebration".

In Russia, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infection on May 15 exceeded 262.8 thousand per day, it increased by 10 598 people. In total, 2418 people died in the country from COVID-19 (plus 113 per day).

Living in these unprecedented times, people are forced to change their lifestyles and stay home as much as possible in order not to risk their health. It certainly creates a certain extent of public anxiety. According to Levada-center polls, the number of anxious people in Russia increased from 1/3 to 50% of the population throughout just a couple of weeks from the end of February to the beginning of March 2020. However, it still seems that there is a certain part of the population underestimating consequences and threats COVID-19 forces us to coexist with. This phenomenon might be caused by the fact that Russians feel detached from the global world and its problems due to their inability to travel abroad or talk to foreigners in their daily life - Levada-center shows that only 10% of Russian population can afford yearly travels to other countries.

Moreover, the number of supporters of the "conspiracy theories" is growing rapidly. The proportion of those who believe that there is no epidemic and this is the invention of interested parties, has doubled since the beginning of April from 10.4% to 20.7% according to a news bulletin provided by the HSE. The Russians not only did not comply to Coronavirus prevention measures, unlike other countries faced with massive infections but have already begun to refuse self-isolation measures. The percentage of those staying at home decreased over 3 weeks by 8%, the proportion of those who visit stores less often fell by 6%. At the same time, in the USA and Germany, the share of those who comply with these measures either decreased slightly, or, on the contrary, increased. In the UK, the proportion of those who stay at home grew by 3%, and those who visit stores less often - by 9%. In addition, one in five people in Russia did not make any preventive changes to their lifestyle during the pandemic. In Germany, the UK and the USA, this indicator does not exceed 4%.

An increasing share of the population believes that the country has reached the peak of the epidemic (11.4%) or has already passed (5.9%) it. People are waiting for the self-isolation period to be finally over so that they could get back to work and the outdoors. However, confidence in an early resolution of the spread of the epidemic is rapidly declining considering the growth of the numbers of people infected throughout the country. Since April 5, confidence has fallen by 1.31 points.

2. Research methods

For this study, the author mainly uses the hypothetico-deductive model, which, in its essence, provides a researcher with a falsifiable hypothesis explored via observation, analysis and data collection. While exploring the media texts, both quantitative (word frequency) and qualitative (discourse analysis) methods are used when necessary. The analysis is based on the Greimassian method including Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Narrative Analysis and deep level analysis. Additionally, the author searched for linguistic manipulation techniques described in the literature review. These methods were chosen for several reasons: firstly, they seem to be the most exhaustive types of analyzing texts, combining both linguistic means and social consequences. Secondly, they might be relatively easily implemented into both traditional and Internet media.

The samples used in the current study are the following: a) regional press websites b) regional Telegram channels. They were chosen as the most popular and representative channels for information used by the local residents - according to OMI and Content Research, 55% of Russian population trust official media Internet accounts and 20% trust bloggers.

In terms of the narrative, two types of texts were analyzed: the first one explores the measures taken by the local authorities to prevent the further spread of coronavirus. These texts were taken into account because they create a positive image of those interested in creating an enemy in the eyes of their residents, thus creating the opposition “good-bad” - namely, “local authorities - infected foreigners”. The second type of texts is the news about the COVID-19 outbreak reported by regional mainstream Telegram channels (Table 1). Those are considered conservative and official among the residents of the regions and provide the population with every day reports on the situation. In addition, some of the texts - consequences were analyzed in order to prove the existence of the enemy image. They show how people become increasingly hostile towards certain groups of people.

Table 1

Region	Telegram channel (name)	Telegram channel (link)
Belgorod region	Belgorod ¹1	https://t.me/belgorod01
Voronezh region	#betterathome Voronezh region	https://t.me/govvrn36 ...

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