Linguistic Manipulation Means in Building Russia's Image in Western Media (Based on BBC Hindi and Deutsche Welle Hindi)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52575/2712-7451-2025-44-1-138-149Keywords:
image of Russia, media discourse, mass media, Hindi, information-psychological warfare, manipulation, cognitive-discursive approachAbstract
Nowadays Western countries are waging a full-scale information-psychological war on Russia. Such a warfare involves the planned use of mass media that employ linguistic means to form the public opinion about our country which is favorable to their political goals. A number of European news agencies operate outside their countries, for example, the Indian branches of the British and German state-owned companies British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Deutsche Welle (DW), that are targeting a huge Hindi-speaking audience in India. Since Russia adheres to a policy aimed at maintaining allied relations with India, it is important to understand the perception of our country in Indian society. Studying the features of Russia's representation in Indian media can help expand our knowledge about the potential attitude of Indians towards Russia. At the same time, there is a shortage of such studies. In this regard, this paper examines the specifics of Russia's image in the Indian media space, formed by branches of the British and German state-owned companies British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Deutsche Welle (DW). Media monitoring, contextual analysis and analysis from the viewpoint of the cognitive-discursive approach made it possible to establish that the BBC and DW use linguistic manipulation to form the image of Russia complemented by such characteristics as an aggressor, a danger to the European and NATO security, an autocratic country. The study findings contribute to the understanding of Western countries’ information-psychological warfare against Russia and, thus, can help in developing measures aimed at eliminating its consequences.
Funding: The work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, 2024 Competition “Conducting Fundamental Scientific Research and Exploratory Scientific Research by Individual Scientific Groups”, project No. 24-18-00049, https://rscf.ru/project/24-18-00049/
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