chechnya and afghanistan - nyt v izvestiat - journalism & mass communication quarterly (2000)

FROM AFGHANISTAN TO CHECHNYA: NEWS COVERAGE BY IZVESTIA AND THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Olga V . Malinkina and Douglas M . McLeod

This study analyzed newspaper coverage of conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya by the New York Times and the Russian newspaper Izvestia to examine the impact of political change on news coverage. The Soviet Union‘s dissolution included dramatic changes to the Russian media system. In addition, the dissipation of the Cold War changed the foreign policy of the United States. A content analysis revealed that the changes to the media system in Russia had a profound impact on Izvestia’s coverage, but political changes had little impact on the New York Times’ coverage.

For forty years the Soviet Union and the United States looked at each other through the prism of Cold War ideology. The world was divided into the Eastern and Western spheres of influence. The advent of Michail Gorbachev to power in 1985 brought radical changes to Soviet political, economic, and ideological systems that affected all aspects of the relations between the two superpowers. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the direction of foreign policy between the United States and Russia shifted dramatically from a policy of alienation, propaganda, and animosity into one of political, economic, and cultural cooperation and exchange.’

During the four decades of confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cold War paradigm predominated. On one side, U.S. officials condemned the Soviet Union for neglecting basic human freedoms of expression, association, and religion. The Soviets were blamed for intensifying the arms race and sponsoring emerging revolutionary governments around the world. On the other side, Soviet officials viewed the United States as a place ruled by money, where common workers were exploited by their employers, and where inequality pervaded opportunities in education, employment, and housing. The United States was accused of sponsoring resistance to the revolutions that took place in South East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central America.

Official policy of the US. and Soviet governments helped establish Cold War-inspired prisms for viewing international events. Media scholars observe that journalists take cues from the official policy of their home government when reporting on international events? During the Cold War, US. and Soviet media tended to adhere fairly strictly to the foreign policy interests of their respective nations when covering conflicts involving either n a t i ~ n . ~ However, the systemic changes that took place in the Soviet Union

Olga V. Malinkina received her M.A. from the University of Delaware. Her research interests include news coverage of social protest and international communication. Douglas M . McLeod is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include news coverage of social protest, public opinion and the media, and advertising and society.

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facilitated two major outcomes that have potential implications for news coverage of international conflicts: a weakening of internal controls over Russian media and the easing of Cold War hostilities that altered the foreign policy interests of Russia and the United States.

The purpose of this study is to compare the coverage of two international conflicts (one from the Cold War era and one from its aftermath) by media organizations from the United States and Russia. A case study of the Afghanistan and Chechnya conflicts as reported by the New York Times and the Russian newspaper lzvestiu was conducted in order to examine changes in news coverage.

Factors Shaping

Content

According to Shoemaker and Reese, media coverage in any system is shaped by the unique combination of features operating at a variety of level^.^ These features include: (a) individual influences on media content such as the education, ethnicity, personal values and beliefs, and the political orientation of individual media workers; (b) media routines that constrain individual media workers and affect “what gets defined as news” and portrayed as social reality; (c) organizational influences, which include differences in the organization’s internal structure, policies, goals, projected markets, and policies set by the individuals that control the media organizations; (d) extra-media forces such as sources of information and revenue, government, various powerful social institutions, the utilization of technol- ogy, and the economic environment; and (e) ideology, which is defined as a symbolic mechanism that serves as a cohesive and integrating force in a society.

Herman and Chomsky propose that in the United States, five filters narrow the range of news to make it responsive to the needs of the government and major power groups. These filters are: the concentrated ownership of the media, advertising as a major source of revenue, reliance on the official sources of information, “flak” from government and business officials, and anticommunist ideology? As a result of these factors, Herman and Chomsky’s ”Propaganda Model” states that the media coverage that is produced sup- ports the foreign policy interests of the US. government. In countries such as the former Soviet Union, the process by which the media are controlled is more direct through government ownership and financing, distribution control, and overt censorship.

Two factors shaping news coverage are of particular concern to this study. First, the disintegration of the Soviet Union involved a shift from state-controlled media to some degree of media privatization. Freed from the direct controls that state ownership entails (e.g., censorship), Russian media were given greater autonomy and latitude to criticize the government. This study examines how changes in the ownership control structures were reflected in news coverage of conflicts involving the Russian government.

Second, U.S. and Russian coverage of the Russian intervention in Chechnya as compared to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan provides a testing ground to examine the impact of global political changes. In particular, we analyze how the resultant change in the foreign policy interests of the United States and Russia was related to the way their respective newspapers covered these conflicts. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union created one of the most powerful ideological structures of the twentieth century. The easing of tensions between the United States

News

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and the Soviet Union has led to the collapse of Cold War ideology. It is important to assess the consequences of this economic, political, and ideological reconfiguration of the world system for media coverage of conflicts involving Russia.

News coverage of international conflicts differs immensely from any other type of foreign reporting. Media often depend on the military for the means of transportation, communication, and access to the information about the conflict? Political, economic, and ideological interests also affect news coverage of international conflicts. Several researchers have observed that media coverage tends to support the foreign policy interests of the media organization’s home government7 For example, Herman and Chomsky emphasized a double standard in the news coverage practiced by the US. media in their condemnation of the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, interven- tions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and use of “humanitarian” reasons to justify the U.S. intervention in Vietnam and Grenada.*

Zaremba’s examination of press coverage of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War by the Daily Graphic of Ghana, the Times of London of Great Britain, the Asuhi Evening News of Japan, the Straits Times of Singapore, the Moscow News of the Soviet Union, and the New York Times of the United States revealed consid- erable differences in perceptions and interpretations of the conflict based on the political and ideological alliances of the newspaper’s home country.’

Paletz and Vinson analyzed international news coverage of the KAL Flight 007 incident by the Daily Times (Lagos, Nigeria), the Times ofIndia, the Durham Morning Herald (North Carolina), Dawn (Pakistan), Nuevo Diurio (Nicaragua), and Pravda (the Soviet Union).lo The researchers found that by careful selection and interpretation of facts, and the strategic use of headlines, newspapers frame their content to suit their own objectives according to their political, economic, and ideological affiliations.

Downing (1988) analyzed the Soviet media coverage of the conflict in Afghanistan using transcripts of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports on the Soviet Union and the BBC World Service English translations of the Soviet media. According to the Soviet coverage, the Soviet Union became involved in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government that seemed threatened by ”the country’s external enemies.” Soviet media claimed overwhelming popular support for the new Afghan leader Babrak Karma1 and his Soviet-backed regime. Criticism of Soviet military tactics was absent in the Soviet coverage, while the United States was depicted as orchestrating a subversion using Pakistan and China as its agents.

Downing compared the Soviet coverage of the intervention in Af- ghanistan with the US. coverage of conflict in El Salvador in 1980.11 In both cases, the survival of the revolutionary regime was contingent upon the support of the superpower patron, the Soviet Union for Afghanistan and the United States for El Salvador. The findings revealed that neither the United States nor the Soviet media offered an adequate account of the conflicts in which the superpowers were deeply embroiled. Soviet media avoided mentioning the destruction and casualties of the armed forces, and downplayed the involvement of the Soviet military in ”terror-bombing of rebel-held areas and indiscriminate firing in villages.”12 The United States failed to give sufficient attention to the displacement of civilian population and deaths from aerial bombing in El Salvador. The Soviet and the U.S. media

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coverage were ideologically biased and tended to present the events in a light favorable to their countries.

The Conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechny a

At first glance, the Chechen conflict (1994-1996), as an apparent domestic issue for the new Russian Federation, appears to be different from the Afghanistan conflict (1979-1989). However, the Chechens had declared themselves to be an independent country from Russia. From their perspec- tive, Russia was an aggressive external force interfering in the internal affairs of Chechnya. In the broad sense, both conflicts involved a large military force that was mobilized against a smaller opposition contingent.

The invasion of Afghanistan occurred in 1979 when several members of the Afghan government were allegedly dissatisfied with the policies of the country's leader Amin, and requested Soviet inter~enti0n.l~ The disagree- ment among politicians in Afghanistan was treated by most Western countries as a purely internal affair of Afghanistan, whereas the Soviet Union attempted to justify its military intervention by presenting various reasons ranging from a threat to its national boundaries to the U.S. conspiracy to assert its military presence in Afghani~tan.'~ The Soviet presence in Afghanistan escalated into a large scale military operation, which fueled the emergence of previously dormant opposition from Islamic parties. What Soviet leaders thought would be a brief action to install a compliant government became a prolonged engagement as the rebels received financial and military assistance from abroad.I5 The decade-long conflict led to thousands of deaths on both sides before Soviet troops were finally with- drawn.

Chechnya is part of the Caucasus region on the Russian side of the border with Georgia. It is one of the most varied areas of the world in terms of its ethnic and linguistic composition; in total, about seventy aboriginal ethnic groups populate the Caucasus.16 The tensions between the Chechens and the Russians have surfaced periodically since the Russian expansion in 1785.17 Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of 400,000 Chechens to Kazakhstan in 1944, where they endured thirteen years of starvation and disease before returning to Chechnya.lB In 1991, Chechnya declared its independence from Russia. However, Russia officially considered Chechnya an integral part of the Russian Federation. The government of Chechnya was determined to pursue a policy of complete political and economic independence from Russia, in spite of overt indications of discontent displayed by Russian 0fficia1s.l~ Russia intended to maintain control of the area for strategic and economic reasons, as well as to prevent a domino effect in other areas of the Russian Federation. Recently, the conflict in Chechnya has reignited. To date there has been no research on the nature of news coverage of the conflict in Chechnya.

Theoretical Rationale

40

The comparison of coverage of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya by the New York Times and Izvestia offers interesting insights into how changes in the Russian media system and the world political arena affected news coverage. Both of these factors substantiate the hypotheses tested in this study.

By the time of the Chechen conflict in 1994, the relationship between the government and press had radically changed. The breakup of the Soviet Union resulted in change in media control mechanisms providing more

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latitude for criticism of official policy.2o The media in the former Soviet Union were completely government owned, and thus financed, supplied, and distributed by the Communist party.21 Each news story had to be approved by Communist Party officials before it reached newspapers and television screens.22 Currently, the news media are controlled by several large banks and corporations, though they still receive substantial funding from the Russian

The policy of glasnost, which includes the expression of one’s opinions, diversity of political movements on the Russian political stage, the democratization of Russian society, and dramatic changes in the political and economic mechanisms of control over media, produced fundamental changes in news media coverage of both domestic and international events. Instead of one official version of the events dictated by Communist party officials, news stories offer more controversial content often challenging the official policy line?4 Under glasnost, news stories became more dynamic, graphic, and entertaining due to the emergence of new newspapers, magazines, TV channels, and TV programs competing for audiences. The media began to attract advertisers in order to obtain revenues necessary to survive in the new economic en~ironment.2~ These changes to the Russian media system should permit greater news coverage variance from official Russian government policy.

The foreign policy interests of the United States and Russia have been transformed since the end of the Cold War.26 Instead of an enemy, Russia has become a partner in many political, economic, and cultural projects ranging from the exchange of scholars and students, to space exploration and high-tech research. In recent years, the United States has invested heavily in many Russian industries, and assisted Russia in obtaining financial aid from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other international organizations. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the resultant decay of Cold War ideology and the radical change in international relations, one would expect that the nature of news coverage of events involving Russia would change immensely. Coupled with the transformation of the Russian media system, change in Izvestia’s coverage should be substantial.

Change in the US. media system was largely political in terms of foreign policy interests.27 With the warming of the political climate between the two countries, and the shift in US. foreign policy toward Russia, the ideological blinders of the Cold War were lifted, giving the media more latitude to stray from foreign policy interests?8 “The old criteria for covering foreign affairs based on the East-West confrontation model and many of the old standards of newsworthiness no longer apply in the post- Cold War

To understand the actual changes in the news coverage by both American and Russiannews media, this study examines Russian and Ameri- can newspaper coverage of the Soviet involvement in the conflicts in Af- ghanistan in 1979 and in Chechnya in 1994. The important questions of this study are whether the news coverage of the two conflicts by the Russian newspaper Izvestia changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dismissal of Communist ideology, and the weakening of government control over the news media; and whether news coverage by the U.S. press, as represented by the New York Times, changed due to the demise of the Soviet Union, the alleviation of the Cold War ideology, and the shift in U.S. foreign policy.

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Hypotheses and hypotheses:

Research Questions

Based on the above discussion, this study proposes the following

H1: Articles published in Izvestia will be less supportive of the Russian intervention in Chechnya than of the Soviet intervention in Chechnya.

H2: Compared to its coverage of the major parties in the Afghanistan conflict, Izvestiu’s Chechen conflict coverage will be:

(a) less positive toward the role of the Russian government. (b) less positive toward the role of the Russian military. (c) more positive toward the role of Chechen rebels.

H3: Articles published in the New York Times will be more supportive of the Russian intervention in Chechnya than of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

H4: Compared to its coverage of the major parties in the Afghanistan conflict, the New York Times’ Chechen conflict coverage will be:

(a) more positive toward the role of the Russian govem- ment

(b) more positive toward the role of the Russian military (c) less positive toward the role of Chechen rebels

Sample. The newspaper articles analyzed in this study were drawn from the Russian newspaper Izvestiu and the New York Times. These newspapers were chosen because they are arguably the most influential newspapers in their respective countries. They both circulate nationa1ly3O and were both in operation throughout the periods of coverage under

Izvestiu was founded in 1917 as a newspaper of the Petrograd Council of Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants. Under the direction of Alexei Adjubei, Nikita Khruschev’s son-in-law, Izvestiu became one of the most powerful newspapers in the Soviet Union. Relative to Pruvdu, Izvestiu has had greater content diversity in terms of subject matter. Today, lzvestia has secured its independence as a joint-stock company.32

The New York Times is an important medium for covering international news. Its content influences other newspapers, wire services, news magazines, and television and radio news. In international affairs, the New York Times is ”a premier member of the elite press and plays an influential role in informing American leaders and interested members of the citizenry on international affairs.”33

The articles for the analysis were selected from December of 1979 until April of 1985 (Gorbachev’s appointment to the Secretary General of the Communist Party) for the Afghan conflict, and from November of 1994 until August of 1996 (the official signing of the peace agreement) for the Chechen conflict. Izvestiu’s articles in Russian for the Chechen and Afghan conflicts were individually located from microfiche copies of the newspaper. The New York Times articles pertaining to the Afghan conflict were selected from the New York Times index, whereas articles for the Chechen conflict were ob-

Method

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tained through the New York Times database on CD-ROM. There were 485 articles published in Izvestia regarding the Afghan conflict and 589 articles pertaining to the Chechen conflict. The New York Times published 712 articles about the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and 681 articles regarding Chechen conflict. Sixty articles for each of the four samples were randomly selected for analysis.

Coders and Training. In total, five coders (three Russians and two Americans) performed the content analysis. Coders trained for one week, coding articles that were not included in the sample. As part of this training, the coders discussed the content indicators of each variable and identified numerous examples. Each of the coders analyzed articles from both conflicts for the final sample.

The Coding Instrument. The unit of analysis for this study was the newspaper article. As a part of a larger project, the coding procedure identified and recorded the placement of the article, story type, size of the articles in number of paragraphs, source of the articles and photographs, topics of the articles (eg. military operations), support for intervention as a general slant of the articles, roles of major parties in the conflict, and sources used in the article.

To measure the article’s support for the intervention, coders under- lined phrases in the article that either supported, criticized, or were neutral toward the intervention. Using these statements as a basis for judgment, as well as an assessment of the overall tone of the article, coders assigned the article to one of three categories (positive, neutral, or negative toward the intervention).M

A similar procedure was used to assess the roles of the major participants in the conflict (the Soviet/Russian government, the Soviet/Russian military, and the Afghan/Chechen rebels). Phrases were isolated that commented on the role of these participants. Coders then made a judgment as to whether the article was positive, neutral, or negative toward the Soviet/ Russian government, the Soviet/Russian military, and the Afghan/Chechen rebels. If an article did not mention a given role, the article was treated as missing data in the analysis for that variable.

To assess the reliability of the coding, one-third of the articles in each sample was coded by two coders. The Krippendorff‘s Alpha intercoder agreement coefficients exceeded the conventional standard of .75 for all variables used in this analysis. Support for the intervention had an alpha of .97 (percent agreement was 98.5%). The other three Krippendorff‘s alphas were .99 for the role of the Soviet/Russian government (99% agreement), .98 for the role of the Soviet/Russian military (99n agreement), and .96 for the role of the Afghan/Chechen rebels (98% agreement).35

Statistical Analysis. Hypotheses were tested using T-tests for independent samples. A Bonferroni-type correction was applied to the .05 significance level to yield a significance level of .006, which corrects for inflated Type I error.

H1, which proposed that articles published in Izvestia will be more supportive of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan than of the Russian intervention in Chechnya was strongly supported (Table 1). The t-value of 4.54 (df = 118) was significant at the .006 level. The mean for Afghanistan was 2.25 and for Chechnya was 1.70.

m a , which stipulated that Izvestia’s coverage would be more positive towards the role of the Soviet government in Afghanistan than towards the

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TABLE 1 T-test for Differences between the Afghan and Chechen Coverage

by Izvestia

Variable Scale Mean S.D. df t-value p

Support for intervention Afghanistan (n = 60) Chechnya (n = 60)

Role of Soviet/Russian Govt. Afghanistan (n = 16) Chechnya (n = 57)

Role of Soviet/Russian Military Afghanistan (n = 1 ) Chechnya (n = 44)

Role of Afghan/Chechen rebels Afghanistan (n = 34) Chechnya (n = 39)

* p < ,006

1 =negative 2=neutral 3=positive

l=negative 2=neutral 3=positive

1 =negative 2=neutral 3=positive


2.25 .68 118 4.545, .OW 1.70 .65

3.00 .OO 71 8.900* ,000 1.61 .61

3.00 43 2.348, .001 1.63 .57

1.00 .oo 71 11.525' .OOO 2.13 .57

role of the Russian government in Chechnya, was also strongly supported. The t-value of 8.90 (df = 71) was significant at the .006 level. Meanvalues were 3.00 for Afghanistan and 1.61 for Chechnya. H2b predicted that Izvestia's coverage would be more positive towards the role of the Soviet military in Afghanistan than towards the role of Russian military in Chechnya. This hypothesis received strong support (t = 2.35, df = 43, p < .006). Mean values were 3.00 for Afghanistan and 1.63 for Chechnya. HZc, which stipulated that Izvestiu's coverage would be less positive towards the role of Afghan rebels than of Chechen rebels, was strongly supported (t = - 11.525, df = 71, p < ,006). Mean values were 1.00 for Afghanistan and 2.13 for Chechnya.

H3, which proposed that articles published in the New York Times would be more critical toward the conflict in Afghanistan than toward the conflict in Chechnya, was not supported (t = -.985, n.s.). Mean values for Afghanistan were 1.65 and 1.55 for Chechnya (Table 2).

H4a-H4c were not supported. There were no significant differences found in the New York Times' treatment of the role of the Soviet government in Afghanistan and the Russian government in Chechnya (t = - 1.320, n.s.). The mean value for Afghanistan was 1.44 and for Chechnya was 1.59. The coverage of the role of Soviet military in Afghanistan and Russian military in Chechnya was not significantly different as well (t = 1.091, n.s.). The mean values were 1.51 for Afghanistan and 1.38 for Chechnya. H4c predicting more positive the New York Times coverage towards the role of Afghan rebels than towards the role of Chechen rebels was not supported (t = 1.410, n.s.). The mean values were 1.88 for Afghanistan and 1.67 for Chechnya.

Discussion The world political system changed radically during the period of time between the Afghanistan and Chechen conflicts. The demise of the Soviet Union and the change in relations with the United States that marked the end of the Cold War caused a major transformation in the socio-political environ-

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TABLE 2 T-test for Differences between the Afghan and Chechen Coverage by the New York Times

Variable Scale Mean S.D. df t-value p

Support for intervention Afghanistan (n = 60) Chechnya (n = 60)

Role of Soviet/Russian Govt. Afghanistan (n = 43) Chechnya (n = 54)

Role of Soviet/Russian Military Afghanistan (n = 39) Chechnya (n = 54)

Role of Afghan/Chechen rebels Afghanistan (n = 34) Chechnya (n = 43)





1.65 .58 118 ,985 1.55 .53

1.44 .55 95 -1.320 1.59 .57

1.51 .55 91 1.091 1.38 .52

1.88 .64 75 1.410 1.67 .64

,163

,095

.140

.081

ment in which Izvestia operates. In addition to the end of the Cold War, control structures within Russia were altered as well. These changes corre- sponded to a dramatic change in the nature of Izvestia’s news coverage.

The significant differences between Izvestia’s treatment of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya are consistent with expectations yielded by theory and research on factors shaping the content of international news coverage.% The results reflect the nature of changes in the political, economic, and ideological control structures that constrain the operation of this Russian newspaper. Izvestia’s coverage was much more supportive of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan than of the Russian invasion of Chechnya. For the Afghanistan conflict, Izvestiu’s coverage presented a fervid justification of the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan and condemnation of the United States, Pakistan, China and other countries for financial, military, and political support of Afghan guerrillas. By contrast, many articles harshly criticized and even condemned the outbreak of the war in Chechnya. Izvestiu’s coverage of the Chechen conflict was full of graphically dramatic descrip- tions of devastation and combat, as well as tragic accounts of the fate of hundreds of Chechen civilians.

Izvestia’s coverage of the Afghan conflict portrayed the Soviet government and Soviet military in a strictly positive light. The Soviet media presented a single, Communist-party-approved version of the events in Afghanistan. The role of the Soviet government was that of a big brother assisting its neighbor in need. There was no questioning of the Soviet intervention in the internal affairs of a foreign country. The rebuttal to the Western accusations of the invasion of Afghanistan ranged from assistance to the new revolutionary regime in Afghanistan to the resistance to insur- gents backed by the United States and other countries.

Izvestia’s interpretation of the role of the Soviet military in the Afghan conflict was to share its knowledge and experience with the Afghan army, and to temporarily assist in the resistance to the anti-revolutionary forces. Izvestia accentuated the temporary engagement of the limited Soviet military contingent in Afghanistan, and emphasized that the Soviet troops were not

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in Afghanistan for combat purposes, but rather to provide security for the new Afghan leader and his regime.

Post-Cold War change in political, economic, and ideological condi- tions in Russia was reflected in Izvestiu’s news coverage of Chechnya. Izvestiu’s treatment of the role of the Russian government and Russian military in the Chechen conflict mirrored widespread public objection towards the Russian military involvement in Chechnya. There was evident divergence of opinions even among members of the Russian government and the Russian parliament (Duma) on the issue of military intervention in Chechnya. The Russian government was depicted in Izvestiu’s coverage as lacking communication, access to information, and coordination of the actions of various government and military branches. Yeltsin was harshly criticized for negligent actions and accused of political gambling. The Russian military was described by Izvestiu as poorly trained and equipped, lacking not only discipline and morale, but also knowledge of their objectives in Chechnya. Izvestiu emphasized the role of the Russian military in the Chechen conflict as that of a victim of the political interests of the Kremlin. The coverage was full of heart-rending accounts of the plight of young wounded soldiers left behind in Chechnya, and overt expressions of unwill- ingness to fight by both officers and soldiers. This kind of coverage was unheard of during the Soviet era.

Izvestiu’s treatment of the role of the rebels was different in the two conflicts as well. In Afghanistan, the rebels resisted the installation of the pro- Soviet government; therefore, the rebels were sternly criticized for their mistreatment of the civilians, brutality, and inappropriate fighting methods such as attacks on children and teachers, and the burning of mosques to name a few. Afghan rebels were trained, equipped, and financially supported by the United States, China, and many Western European countries. Izvestiu accentuated the role of Pakistan in providing housing and training for the Afghan guerrillas.

The Chechen rebels were criticized in the majority of Izvestia’s articles for horrifying instances of hostage-taking situations; nevertheless, the news coverage painted the role of the Chechenrebels as audacious fighters for their land, traditions, and family. They were depicted as being forced to take arms by the Russian intervention.

Given the dramatic change in Izvestiu’s coverage, it is surprising that there were no significant differences in the New York Times coverage of the Afghan and Chechen conflicts. The New York Times opposed the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the Russian intervention in Chechnya. In Afghanistan, the Soviet government was installing a pro-Soviet regime by the use of force, which the United States opposed, while in Chechnya, Russia was fighting with a republic that wanted to have its independence. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was considered interference in the politics of the foreign country, while intervention in Chechnya was an internal matter for Russia.

The harsh criticism of both conflicts and the lack of significant differences in the New York Times is somewhat surprising given the change in U.S. foreign policy interests. The lack of change in the coverage by the New York Times may be the result of several factors. First, it may indicate that foreign policy interests are not as powerful in shaping news coverage as Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model purports them to be. Alternatively, it may also be indicative of the fact that there is some ideological residue of the Cold War that continues to influence events involving Russia. Pulitzer Prize-

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winning journalist Harrison Salisbury has argued that, ”The traditional Cold War mode of thought is still there in the press.”37 Third is the fact that both events involved a violent intervention by a large nation against a smaller group of people; the similarity between the two situations may have led to a similar pattern of coverage by the New York Times.

In summary, this study found significant differences between Izvestia’s coverage of the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the 1994 intervention in Chechnya.38 Differences in the news coverage are consistent with the sweeping systemic changes that characterized Russian society in the interim. These changes made it permissible for Izvestia to criticize and even challenge the actions of the Russian government. On the other hand, the New York Times coverage of the two conflicts did not change significantly. This is in part reflective of the fact that there was relatively less structural change in the factors that shape its news production than there was in Russia. Change in U.S. foreign policy interests as brought about by the demise of the Cold War did not seem to have a large impact of the coverage of the New York Times.

NOTES

1. David R. Jones, ”Domestic and Economic Aspects of Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy,” in Soviet Foreign Policy, ed. Carl G. Jacobsen (New York St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 32-53; David Lane, Soviet Society Under Perestroika (London: Routledge, 1992).

2. Elena Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition: Structural and Economic Alternatives (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993); Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 1988); Jon Vanden Heuvel, “For the Media, a Brave (and Scary) New World,” Media Studies Journal 7 (fall 1993): 11-20; James F. Hoge Jr., “The End of Predictability,” Media Studies Journal 7 (fall 1993): 1-9; Alexander Shalnev, “On to Vegas - Glasnost for the Russian Press,“ Media Studies Journal 7 (fall 1993): 81-86; Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen Reese, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1996).

3. Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. 4. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message. 5. Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. 6. Miles Hudson and John Stanier, War and the Media: A Random Search-

light (Sutton Publishing, 1998); Peter Young and Peter Jesser, The Media and the Military: From the Crimea to Desert Strike (NewYork St. Martin’s Press).

7. Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent; Hudson and Stanier, War and theMedia: A Random Searchlight; Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message; Young and Jesser, The Media and the Military: From the Crimea to Desert Strike; Alan Jay Zaremba,Mass Communication and International Politics: A Case Study ofpress Reactions to the 2973 Arab-Israeli War (Salem, WI: Sheffield Publishing Company, 1988).

8. Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. 9. Zaremba, Mass Communication and International Politics.

10. David L. Paletz and C. Danielle Vinson, ”Constructing Content and Delimiting Choice: International Coverage of KAL Flight 007,” Argumenta- tion 8 (November 1994): 357-66.

11. John D. H. Downing, ”Trouble in the Backyard: Soviet Media Report- ing on the Afghanistan Conflict,” Journal of Communication 38 (spring 1988):

FROM AFGWISTAN ILJ CHECHNYA: NEWS COVERAGE BY kmsn~ AND THE NEW YORK Tmm 47 at University of Stirling on June 2, 2015jmq.sagepub.comDownloaded from


5-32. 12. Downing, ”Trouble in the Backyard,” 25. 13. M. Hasan Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan

14. Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion. 15. Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion. 16. Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Chechnya: A Small Victorious War

(London: Pan Books, 1997); Moshe Gammer, “Unity, Diversity and Conflict in the Northern Caucusus,“ inMoslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies, ed. Yaacov Ro’I (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 163-86.

17. Gall and de Waal, Chechnya;Gammer, “Unity, Diversity and Conflict”; Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Bulent Gokay, ”The Long Standing Russian and Soviet Debate Over Sheikh Shamil: Anti-Imperialist hero or Counter-Revo- lutionary Cleric?” in Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis, ed. Ben Fowkes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 25-64.

18. Lieven, Chechnya; William Flemming, ”The Deportation of Chechen and Ingush Peoples: A Critical Examination,” in Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis, ed. Ben Fowkes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 65-86.

19. Gall and de Waal, Chechnya. 20. Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition; Linda Jensen, “The Press and

Power in the Russian Federation,” Journal of International Affairs 47 (summer 1993): 97-122; Shalnev, “On to Vegas.“

21. Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition; Alexei Izyumov, “After Com- munism, the Shock of Independence,” Media Studies Journal 7 (fall 1993): 87- 93.

Response, 2979-2982 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995).

22. Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition. 23. Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition; Izyumov, ”After Commu-

24. Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition; Jensen, “The Press and Power“;

25. Androunas, Soviet Media in Transition. 26. Jerry F. Hough, ”The Domestic Politics of Foreign Policy,” in Soviet

Foreign Policy, ed. Carl G. Jacobsen (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 3-18; Jones, ”Domestic and Economic Aspects”; Paul Marantz, ”Gorbachev’s ’New Thinking’ About East-West Relations: Causes and Consequences,” in Soviet Foreign Policy, ed. Carl G. Jacobsen (New York St. Martin’s Press), 1989,18- 32.

27. Vanden Heuvel, ”For the Media”; Hoge, ”The End of Predictability.” 28. Vanden Heuvel, ”For the Media”; Jack Matlock, “The Diplomat’s

View of the Press and Foreign Policy,” Media Studies Journal 7(fall1993): 49- 57.

29. Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, The Media and Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 31.

30. Ellen Mickiewicz, ”Transition and Democratization: The Role of Journalists in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union,” in The Politics of News, ed. Doris Graber, Denis McQuail, and Pippa Norris (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998), 33-56.

31. The other influential Soviet newspaper, Pravda, was abolished by Russian President Yeltsin in 1991, and though it has since resumed operation, its influence is negligible. Moreover, ”Pravda practically did not write about the war [in Chechnya] at all,” according to Statys Knezys and Romanas Sedlickas, The War in Chechnya (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University

nism.“

Shalnev, ”On to Vegas.“

48 ]OURNAUSM 6 h S cOMMuMc4nON Q W F U



Press, 1999), 189. 32. George Vachnadze, Secrets of Journalism in Russia (Commack, NY:

Nova Science Publishers, 1992). 33. Abbas Malek, N m s Media and Foreign Relations (Nonvood, NJ: Ablex

Publishing, 1997), 228. 34. Marius Aleksas Lukosiunas, "Enemy, Friend or Competitor? A

Content Analysis of the Christian Science Monitor and Zzvestia," in Beyond the Cold War: Soviet and American Media Images, ed. Everett E. Dennis, George Gerbner, and Yassen N. Zassoursky (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991).

35. Klaus Krippendorff, Content Analysis: A n Introduction to its Methodol- ogy (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980).

36. Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent;Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.

37. Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, The Media and Foreign Policy, 24.

38. As this paper was being prepared for publication, the fighting between the Russian military and the Chechen rebels has erupted once again. The situation has continued to escalate, and the outcome remains uncertain.



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