Lazitski Article Abs

506219
research-article2013
ABSXXX10.1177/0002764213506219American Behavioral ScientistLazitski
Article
Media Endarkenment: A
Comparative Analysis of
2012 Election Coverage in
the United States and Russia
American Behavioral Scientist

XX(X) 130
2013 SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0002764213506219
abs.sagepub.com
Olga Lazitski1
Abstract
In this article, the author researches the coverage of the U.S. and Russian presidential
campaigns of 2012 in terms of media endarkenment, a process of media influence that
ultimately shrinks the potential for a vibrant public sphere where informed citizens
debate crucial issues. Using the works of Herman and Chomsky as well as McQuail, the
study reveals the methodology of a process of media influence (intended or unintended)
by which both the intellectual level of the viewers and the number of informed
citizens decrease. A textual analysis of election coverage by national TV channels of
both countries uncovers some of the different forms that media endarkenment takes,
including the construction of a false reality, intimidation, and simplification.
Keywords
media endarkenment, propaganda model, agenda-settings, cultivation theory, framing
analysis, 2012 presidential elections, Obama, Putin, Russian TV, CBS, Fox News
Introduction
The difficulty in governing the people arises from their having much knowledge, is
what ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi (2006, p. 71) remarked. James Legge (Laozi,
1997) explained Laozis thought: Government according to Tao is unfavorable to the
spread of knowledge among the people, and would keep them rather in the state of
primitive simplicity and ignorance (p. 8). In other words, to keep its power, a government should endarken its people. Twenty-seven centuries have passed since Laozis
time, but it seems that people in power still follow this piece of advice, which has
turned out to be very effective.
1Emerson
College, Boston, MA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Olga Lazitski, 3-3 Starokachalovskaya Street, Apt. 284, Moscow, Russia 117216.
Email: olgalazitskaya@gmail.com
American Behavioral Scientist XX(X)
Nowadays, to bring this idea to life has become even easierwith such a great tool
as the media, who have been able to convince people, for example, of the necessity of
spending billions of taxpayers money on the war in Iraq, the absence of other presidential choices besides Vladimir Putin, and the enemy that disguises itself behind the
face of political opposition. The public might fall prey to the suggestive and manipulative phenomenon of media endarkenment. I consider it to be a process counter to
enlightenment. By enlightenment I mean the process of educating oneself and searching for reputable, truthful information, all prompted by a desire to be better informed.
Consider the typical victim of media endarkenment in Russia and in the United
States. He or she most likely dwells in a small rural town and is older than 40 years.
He or she does not read intellectual newspapers and magazines (like the American
The New Yorker or Russian Kommersant Vlast), is not interested in politics and in
international issues, and surfs the Internet to visit shopping sites, social network sites,
and showbiz news pagesif, of course, he or she has an Internet connection. In some
remote Russian regions, for example, the Internet is still not widespread and is quite
expensive for people who live there. The only source of information for such people is
a TV set and the several national channels that they get for free. They tend to believe
everything they hear on TV, even if their real life is not as delightful as it appears on
the screens of their sets.
For this reason, the main focus of my research is television networks content, especially of those programs that have the highest ratings among Russian and American
viewers. Despite the spread of the Internet, television is still the most powerful tool
that influences peoples minds in both countries. According to the recent Nielsen
Report (Perez, 2013), TV is still far in the lead in terms of media consumption.
Traditional TV viewing takes up 6 days (or 144 hours, 54 minutes) worth of time per
month, in comparison with the Internet on a computer, which takes up 28 hours, 29
minutes.
According to TNS Russia (Media RatingsTV, 2013), TV consumption is in first
place in Russia as well. There are 19 national channels in Russia; the most popular
networks are NTV, Rossiya 1 (Russia 1), and Channel One. They are free of charge,
reach almost the entire population of the country, and are government controlled.
American journalist Beth Knobel (Knobel & Sanders, 2012), who spent 9 years in
Moscow working as a producer, correspondent, and bureau chief for CBS News,
explained that the Russian government has reconsolidated control over the commanding heights of information: television. The vast majority of citizens, especially
Russias substantial rural population, receive news only through the national networks.
These monoliths, locked securely in obedient pro-Kremlin hands, dominate the
national infosphere (p. 31).
Russian broadcast journalist Ekaterina Gordeeva (2013) depicted her typical rural
viewers as drunkards. One of them drank away almost everything except a couch and
two old armchairs, on which he and his girlfriend sit every day watching the only television channel in their village before getting drunk (para. 6, own translation). At the
end of 2012, Gordeeva left her job at one of the national channels, NTV. And media
endarkenment was one of the reasons. The low-grade serials and reports ordered by
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the government displaced her honest, high-quality investigations about assaults at

orphanages and corruption in medication supply and long special reports about cancer,
hospice systems, and other social problems.
Chomsky (1997b) described how in the United States, the mass media try to divert
people in order to draw their attention away from the real problems: Let everybody
be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it is not serious (para. 8). B. Knobel
(personal communication, March 14, 2013) agreed that a lack of serious issues discussed in the media influences the audiences intellectual level: Endarkenment has to
do with the depth of reporting. . . . It is going on in America, in Russia and probably
pretty much in every corner of the world. Especially in America most people dont
read long articles, dont watch documentaries.
Results of this lack of interest in serious issues can affect the results of election
campaigns, which I consider to be the crucial events in both the United States and
Russia in terms of media endarkenment. Cade and Cade (1979) stated, There is a
general consensus, among both laymen and scholars, that mass media may affect political behavior (p. 28). As Han (2008) observed, The relationship between mass media
and political participation, especially electoral activities, has attracted much concern
in political science, and in mass communication as well. . . . Scholars provide conflicting views about mass media effects on voting behavior (p. 62). Verba and Nie (1987)
wrote that the most important act of political participation for regular citizens is voting
and campaign activity. Media endarkenment is able to work in both directions: to convince people to go and vote for a particular candidate as well as to keep the public
apathetic and disengaged from political decision making.
Many studies in political science (Inglehart, 1979; Klingemann, 1979; Verba &
Nie, 1987) have shown that knowledge and political sophistication are positively
related to voting and engaging in other political activities. However, Scheufele,
Shanahan, and Kim (2002) pointed out that much of the work has documented low and
declining levels of civic participation in American politics, widespread political ignorance, and lack of issue awareness among the mass public and found that a considerable proportion of the citizenry has no particular opinions at all, or neutral opinions at
best, on specific policy issues (p. 429). Scheufele etal. (2002) concluded, These
ill-informed opinions of the mass public, when aggregated in opinion survey or voting
booth, represent mere random noise which ultimately cancels itself out, leaving only
. . . well-informed views of social elites represented in collective decision-making
processes (p. 431).
The media have an endless potential to keep people informed, enlightening them
and telling them about what is going on. But media, due to inevitable reasons, are not
able to reflect the whole reality and thus select facts and ideas in a certain way, telling
the audience what is important to know about and how to think about it (Kim,
Carvalho, & Davis, 2010, p. 563). Framing issues in certain ways, the media might
manipulate peoples opinions and even behavior.
Summarizing the information above, this study develops the concept of media
endarkenment and its techniques and hypothesizes that some of these techniques were
applied by Russian and U.S. major networks during the 2012 election campaigns in
both countries. To verify this hypothesis, I conducted a comparative framing analysis
of coverage of selected Russian and American presidential campaign events.
Concept of Media Endarkenment

Media endarkenment is a process of media influence (intended or unintended) by
which both the intellectual level of the viewers and the number of informed citizens
decrease. I hypothesize that if the concept is applied intentionally, it is done so to make
or keep people apathetic, malleable, detached from reality, and thus easier to control.
In these cases, endarkenment is meant to retain power for the political and economic
elites who govern a country and who fear what would happen if the public rose in
protest. Hence, media endarkenment can also be described as a type of propaganda
and can be used as an umbrella term for the system of propaganda and manipulation
methods connected to the goal of preventing people from becoming enlightened, or
gaining knowledge. The term media endarkenment has two main meanings. One refers
to the way in which media content is shaped and compiled by journalists. The second
relates to the system of education and brainwashing for journalists, who in this case
are also the target of media endarkenment.
Endarkenment of the Audience

Although the information about the tools that the media use to mold public opinion has
been researched thoroughly, especially in media effect studies (McQuail, 2005), the
process of media endarkenment has not been consciously revealed. Media endarkenment uses some of the same methods described by other media theories: news framing,
agenda-settings, priming (McQuail, 2005), Herman and Chomskys (1988) propaganda model, and the concept of propaganda by Jacques Ellul (1973).
These ideas can be summarized in a list of media endarkenment techniques that
have been used to influence audiences in Russia and the United States:
misinformation
censorship
omission
spinning and twisting
construction of a false reality
intimidation
entertainment
simplification
lowering/marginalizing of contents quality
But before going into detail, it is necessary to stress the conditions in which media
endarkenment is able to function. As has been mentioned earlier, both Russia and the
United States have a system of prime television, which is watched by the vast majority
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of the countries populations. This medium is the main arena for public opinion formation and can be understood as a central space for the public sphere, which is the
conceptual space that exists in a society outside the immediate circle of private life
and the walls of enclosed institutions and organizations pursuing their own (albeit
sometimes public) goals (McQuail, 2005, p. 566). McQuail considered the media to
be the key institution of the public sphere and believed that its quality will depend
on the quality of the media.
Lunt and Livingstone (2013), after Habermas (1989), identified the destructive role
of the media within the public sphere: Instead of being a source of creative disorganization that promoted public autonomy and public life, the press had become a vehicle for established power (p. 89). According to McQuail (2005), in authoritarian
societies, ruling elites control the media to ensure conformity and compliance; in
democracies, the relationship between the media and sources of power and political
systems is complex (p. 523). In Russia, presupposition for the existence of media
endarkenment is the so-called vertical of power of Vladimir Putin and the United
Russia Party. Per se, he created the same one-party system that the Soviet Union essentially was. There is no counterweight in the government to the power of Putin and
United Russia, who removed any chance for anyone outside of the party to have any
power whatsoever. As long as there is a one-party system, there are no guarantees for
civil rights and freedom of speech and freedom of the press (B. Knobel, personal
communication, March 14, 2013).
In 2000, when Putin took office for the first time, the Russian weekly political
newspaper Kommersant Vlast found and published a secret document named Edition
#6, a plan to build a so-called sovereign democracy in Russia. Ten years later, after
Putin had governed for two terms, Kommersant Vlast (Edition #6, 2010) republished
selected pieces of the document, mentioning that nobody has ever officially confirmed the authenticity of the document, but many of its points have been fulfilled to
the letter (para. 1, own translation). The document stated that the new presidential
administration had to influence national and regional media by searching and using
special information about the commercial and political activity of each medium and
about its staff and financial sources. According to this document, the presidential
administration also had to influence journalists in national and regional media by collecting personal information on reporters.
Whereas in Russia only one sourcethe governmentcontrols what people get
from the media, in the United States another threat exists, but one that is not so different from the Russians. Some media scholars and journalists (Herman & Chomsky,
1988; Kolodzy, 2012) see danger in media mergers, when just a few giants control
what people see and hear. This assumption became one of the basic ideas of Herman
and Chomskys (1988) propaganda model. According to this model, The media serve
their societal purpose by things like the way they select topics, distribute their concerns, frame issues, filter information, focus their analyses, through emphasis, tone,
and a whole range of other techniques like that (Chomsky, 2002, p. 15).
In a critical review of the propaganda model, Klaehn (2002) wrote, Media,
according to this framework, do not have to be controlled nor does their behavior
have to be patterned, as it is assumed that they are integral actors in class warfare
(p. 148). This is the crucial difference between the self-perception of Russian and
American journalists. American journalists comprehend themselves to be part of a
power system; as a rule they believe in their noble mission and think they can change
the world. Russian journalists, on the other hand, are not so optimistic about their
work and mission. They usually understand that they are just a tool in the governments hands. They silently blame the system but obediently work for its prosperity
in order to make a living. All these perceptions make a great deal of difference in
what techniques of media endarkenment are used in both countries. I will now catalogue them and present the differences of their implementation in Russian and
American television.
Misinformation. Misinformation, or simply lies, is not a frequently used technique of
media endarkenment. (Here I am talking about it as a tool used by journalists with
purpose, not by mistake, which again might be a consequence of the endarkenment of
journalists.) To implement it, a television channel must first be motivated by very dire
circumstances but also be assured that it has protection from the people in power and
has strong confidence that the viewers will accept the lies.
Censorship. Censorship is another effective tool of media endarkenment. According to
McQuail (2005), Censorship refers to the control by public authorities of any form of
publication or transmission, usually by some mechanisms of examining all materials
before publication (p. 549). In both countries, constitutional guarantees of press freedom outlaw advance or preventive censorship, but there may be legitimate ground for
suppression . . . of a publication after the event, and there may be private censorship by media editors or owners (p. 550).
An American organization, Project Censored, which examines the coverage of
news and information important to the maintenance of a healthy and functioning
democracy, has been observing how censorship works in the United States. It defines
modern censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality
in mass media outlets (http://www.projectcensored.org/censorship/):
On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news storyor
piece of a news storybased on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such
manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and
powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal
pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and
institutions).
The way censorship should work in Russia is described in Edition #6 (2010),

mentioned earlier in this article. The document prescribed that the presidential administration gather incriminating evidence against the media, drive the media (which support or just sympathize with the opposition) into a financial crisis, take away their
licenses, and shut them down somehow, depending on the situation with each problematic medium.
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With loyal media, censorship works another way. I observed exactly how this functioned within the Russian national channel NTV, where I worked as a news writer. The
head of the channels news department or the CEO went to the Kremlin every week, and
after those meetings, one of the two would give the staff the direction for the editorial
policy and talking points about what to cover and how and what not to cover at all. Such
advice to ignore stories leads to another media endarkenment techniqueomission.
Omission. By omission I mean total absence or zero coverage of a story, as opposed to
censorship, which is controlled coverage. Omission can be the result of governmental
pressure, market pressure (ratings), or just a lack of a journalists education. Each year,
Project Censored publishes a list of the top 25 stories, most of which having never
been aired on the major American networks (http://www.projectcensored.org/the-top25-index/). In first place, under the heading Top 25 of 2013, was a story titled Signs
of an Emerging Police State. It discussed the consequences of the 2001 so-called
Patriot Act, which made the United States increasingly monitored and militarized at
the expense of civil liberties. On the very top of the 2012 list was a story about suicides
within the U.S. Army.
It seems that in the U.S. media, as well as in the Russian media, omission as a
method of media endarkenment is quite popular. During the 2011 parliamentary election campaign, the major Russian channels were not allowed to cover the social and
economic problems of dwellers in Russian provinces because, as the Kremlin believed,
this information could lower the ratings of the United Russia Party, which has been
ruling the country for more than 10 years and probably caused all the problems in the
first place. Stories about corruption among top officials, as well as the deeds of the
scant political opposition, have never seen the light of day on Russian TV.
Spinning and twisting.This technique of media endarkenment is suggested in the
agenda-settings and news framing theories that state media shape their content.
According to McQuail (2005), Agenda-setting is the process by which the relative
attention given to items or issues in news coverage influences the rank order of public
awareness of issues and attribution of significance (p. 465). Besova and Cooley
(2009) found that the more the media covered a topic, the more attention the public
paid to it.
Chomsky (2002), in Understanding Power, explained the way the framing techniques in the United States are implemented under whats sometimes been called
brainwashing under freedom (p. 13) and how it differs from the authoritarian model.
The media take the set of assumptions of the official doctrineswhether about the
economy, national interests, or security reasonsand then present a range of debate
within that framework that turns out to be even more effective than the absence of any
debates in totalitarian systems. Such debates marginalize and eliminate authentic and
rational critical discussion and enhance the strength of the assumptions, ingraining
them in peoples minds as the entire possible spectrum of opinion that there is (p. 13).
In an interview, Chomsky told me that people believe that the presence of lively debate
is a sign of democracy and that this is a smart way to keep people passive and obedient,
making them believe in the illusion of freethinking (N. Chomsky, personal communication, January 29, 2013).
In Russia, the situation is not so sophisticated. There is not even the illusion of
freethinking, but there is the illusion of debate. Only pro-Kremlin experts are
allowed in the public discussion. When it comes to the presidential debatesfor
people in the United States, this may be hard to believethe major candidate has
refused to debate with his opponents since he took office in 2000. The implied idea
of such an act is that the president is above the fight, he doesnt need to speak up for
himself, and his deeds speak for him, especially if those good deeds are constantly
on TV, 24/7, year round.
Construction of a false reality. This technique of media endarkenment, which is used on
television in both countries, is mostly applied in entertainment genres of television,
such as reality shows, mockumentaries, serials, and so on. But sometimes it can be
found in newscasts as well. In this case, it is more likely to be a strategy for constructing
artificial problemsto let the government magically solve them or to detract viewers
attention from real, unsolved problems. As the cultivation theory suggests, if you constantly see it on TV, you finally tend to believe it. This theory of media influence holds
that television provides people with a consistent and near-total symbolic environment
that supplies norms for conduct and beliefs about a wide range of real-life situations. It
is not a window on or a reflection of the world but a world in itself (McQuail, 2005,
p. 497). McQuail concluded, The relationship between viewing and social reality may
be reciprocal: television viewing causes a social reality to be constructed in a certain
way, but this construction of social reality may also direct viewing behavior (p. 498).
This idea underlies another technique of media endarkenmentintimidation.
Intimidation.This technique prompts fear in the audience by showing through the
media scenes of violence and mayhem, presenting the image of an enemy, and so on.
The effect of this technique could vary from getting people together in the face of a
common threat to the absolute opposite action, in which intimidated people hide and
do not participate in civic activities. A television news program has the capacity to
deliver more images of violence, suffering, and death in a half hour than most people
would normally view in a lifetime (Newhagen, 1998, p. 265). Young (2003) wrote,
By treating issues as fearful and dangerous, the problem frame may cause an awareness and expectation that danger and risk are very frequent characteristics of the environment (p. 1691).
But sometimes intimidation is implemented for another reasonjust for high ratings. Young (2003) suggested that we show an unwavering attraction to negative,
fear-inducing information because it likely had survival value in the past (p. 1692).
Fearful news is often used to attract an audience. Young (2003) agreed with Altheide
(1997, 2002) that the fact that the media use a problem frame in their newscasts
reflects a transformation in recent years in which they have shifted from being seen
as conduits of information to being viewed as sources of entertainment (p. 1691).
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Entertainment. Verstraeten (1996) wrote, The entertainment side of the media (which
is particularly predominant in television) also plays a major part in transforming the
public sphere (p. 353). This largest category of media content can also be used as
an effective tool of media endarkenment in terms of more specific kinds of effect,
including being amused; emotionally aroused so as to experience sadness, happiness,
anger, relief, excitement, fear, etc. (McQuail, 2005, p. 500). In this way, everything
on TV is made fun, even the most serious content. Neil Postman (1985), in his book
Amusing Ourselves to Death, depicted the effect of the domination of entertainment on
television. Hanson (2011) cited Postmans interview with Robert Nelson:
It is one thing to say that TV presents us with entertaining subject matter. It is quite
another to say that on TV all subject matter is presented as entertaining and it is in that
sense that TV can bring ruin to any intelligent understanding of public affairs. (p. 18)
Partially, this idea found itself in Russia and in the United States. Even in the recent
American presidential debateswhich were considered to be about serious issues like
the economy, unemployment, and the situation in the Middle Eastturned out to be
entertainment. People held debate watching parties and munched on popcorn while
listening to what the candidates were saying. The American media have covered the
appearance of the candidates with great interest, much to the detriment of their message. Journalists would prefer to count how many times during the debate Vice
President Joe Biden grinned rather than talk about Mitt Romneys five-point plan.
Journalists passionately discussed if Obama was snarky enough during the third
debate, instead of analyzing why Romney agreed with his challenger when a week
prior he said just the opposite. The debates resembled a theater, and its actors were
treated by the public like celebrities.
Russian TV is deprived of political entertainment, but it catches up with the domination of entertaining reality shows, feature reports about Russian celebrities lives,
and scandalous talk shows.
Simplification. This is a direct and effective technique of media endarkenment that is
flourishing on Russian and American networks. It could be discussed from two perspectivessimplification as a part of an official doctrine or as a result of a race for
ratings. This dualistic situation is relevant for the media industry in both countries.
News media seek to reduce the complexity of the issues by presenting them in easyto-understand interpretive packages (Kim, Carvalho, & Davis, 2010, p. 565). The
commercial media, with its space and time limitations and 24-hour news cycles, forces
everything into black and white, sacrificing the shades of gray that allow for thinking
out of the box and provide the potential to effect positive change (Robins, 2003,
p. 45). Kolodzy (2012) presented the dilemma of the simplicity of broadcast storytelling: Too often complex stories are ignored or abandoned because they are neither
visual nor simple enough to work in a television context. But if a story with too much
complexity is aired, the audience might be unable to follow it (p. 72).
10
Stereotypes play a big role in simplification. Instead of questioning assumptions

and studying a variety of points of view on a problem, the simplification approach
usually refers to a system of stereotypes. They may not be a complete picture of the
world, but they are a picture of a possible world to which we are adapted. In that world
people and things have their well-known places, and do certain expected things
(Lippmann, 1922/2004, Chapter VII, para. 1). Lippmann stated that any attempts to
destroy a stereotypical perception seem like attacks on the very foundation of all existence. Consequently, a stereotype tends to preserve us from all the bewildering effects
of trying to see the world steadily and see it whole (Chapter VIII, para. 3).
Lowering/marginalizing of contents quality. It was Lippmann who first referred to the
majority of a population as a bewildered herd (Aptheker, 1955/n.d.). Chomsky
(1997a) elaborated on this idea, saying that the goal is to keep the bewildered herd
bewildered because if people see too much of reality and understand what is happening in the world, they may set themselves to change the situation. One of the techniques for making the audience a bewildered herd is to lower or marginalize the quality
of media product. E. Kuzmin (personal communication, February 25, 2013), the
regional director of Russias Far East online news agency, colorfully depicted the content of television channels accessible for most of the population in Russias Far East
and Siberia:
Most TV content is comedy shows, soap operas, and four-hour-long evening pop concerts.
This TV gum makes people spend time next to their sets, chewing news in between
criminal series and comedy, having no desire to critically evaluate what is said by the
news anchors and why. The government for over a decade has deliberately applied this
endarkenment.
On American TV, the lowering of the content of the newscasts and entertainment
segments is occurring as well. This is confirmed by the recent annual report on
American journalism by the Pew Research Center (Guskin, Jurkowitz, & Mitchell,
2013). As the most appropriate evidence of this technique in action I would name the
reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (n.d.) on TLC, an American cable channel
that was initially focused on educational content. This program shows a family from a
rural town in Georgia. The mother and her daughters are obese, and this is presented
as the norm and even an advantage. According to The Hollywood Reporter (OConnell,
2012), the fourth episode of the show, which aired on the night of the 2012 Republican
National Convention, gained higher ratings than the broadcast of the GOP Convention
on Fox News.
The Endarkenment of Journalists

The second meaning of the term media endarkenment refers to the system of education
and brainwashing of journalists, whoalong with their audiencescan also be the
target of media endarkenment. A recent speech by Russian Deputy Minister of
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11
Communications and Mass Media Alexey Volin (2013) illustrated this idea thoroughly.
On February 9, 2013, he was presenting at the annual journalism conference at
Moscow State University, where he explained his understanding of a journalists
mission:
Any journalist should always remember that he or she does not have a mission to make
this world better, bring about the light of true knowledge, or put humanity on the right
path. A journalists mission is to make money for those who hired him or her. . . . We
should give students a clear understanding that they are going to work for a Master. And
this Master will tell them what to write, what not to write, and how things should be
written. And the Master has the right to do it because he pays them. (own translation)
This speech is just another indication of the existence of endarkenment that has been
imposed on the Russian media. Such government brainwashing in a journalists education plays a large role in this process. B. Knobel (personal communication, March 14,
2013) explained the situation with the endarkenment of journalists in the United States
caused by the economic meltdown. Since 2007, in the United States, more than 40,000
journalists have lost their jobs, and so now fewer people remain to do the work that
before was done by many more journalists. Instead of covering one story a day, now a
reporter covers five stories. As you do more things, the quality of each one goes down
(B. Knobel, personal communication, March 14, 2013). So the journalists in both countries are clearly affected by media endarkenment no less than their audiences are.
Comparative Analysis of 2012 Election Coverage in the

United States and Russia
This comparative analysis of the 2012 election coverage by Russian and American
national TV channels is dedicated to examining the implementation of media endarkenment during political campaigns and illustrating some of the techniques of endarkenment described earlier in the article. To reveal the differences and similarities of
media endarkenments usage on TV in both countries, I have conducted textual
research of the broadcast transcripts of two American and two Russian channels
from the so-called Big Four television networks in both countries: ABC, CBS,
NBC, and Fox News in the United States, and Channel One, Rossiya 1, NTV, and
Rossiya 24 in Russia. Among all the election happenings in the United States and
Russia, I selected two comparable events in each country: Obamas speech at the
Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September
6, 2012; Putins speech to supporters at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on February
23, 2012; and both officials victory speeches: Putins on March 4, 2012, and
Obamas on November 7, 2012.
The two victory speeches are obviously comparable. The convention and pro-Putin
rally speech choices need an explanation. At the DNC, Obama delivered a speech to
his supporters who came to Charlotte from all over the country. In Russia, political
parties have conventions too, but they do not carry the same meaning and importance
12
as the U.S. parties conventions do. That is why instead of a formal speech at a convention of the ruling pro-Putin United Russia Party, where Putin actually talked to his
subordinates, I chose a speech from a rally where people from every part of Russia,
who claimed to be Putins supporters, were brought in. Therefore, these two events
were quite similar in their goals and participants.
I have analyzed how these U.S. national channelsCBS and Fox Newscovered
Obamas speeches and how these Russian national channelsNTV and Rossiya 24
covered Putins speeches. Regarding the choice of channels, I should point out that
CBS and NTV are both prime over-the-air national channels, both have the highest
ratings in each country (Media ratingsTV, 2013; Top 10 List, 2013), and both
have similar programming. Fox News and Rossiya 24 are both national 24/7 news
channels that started as cable networks for political reasons.
Hypotheses and Research Questions

The central hypothesis of this study suggests that media endarkenment techniques
were implemented during the coverage of the political campaigns in both countries.
The article also hypothesizes that on Russian TV, the way the techniques were used
was direct and obvious, whereas on U.S. TV, the manner was more sophisticated. All
hypotheses are related only to the comparative analysis of the two Russian and two
American channels and the four election events described earlier.
Hypothesis 1: The features of media endarkenment can be found in the election
coverage by U.S. and Russian national channels.
Hypothesis 2: The framing of coverage of Obamas and Putins speeches matches
some of the media endarkenment techniques.
Hypothesis 3: When it comes to political campaigns, media endarkenment is generally applied to Russian and American TV using similar techniques.
Hypothesis 4: Implementation of media endarkenment in the United States is more
sophisticated and indirect than in Russia.
Hypothesis 5: Media endarkenment in the United States is counterbalanced by the
coexistence of liberal and conservative TV channels, unlike in Russia where networks establish only one position.
The general research question of this article is as follows: Were media endarkenment techniques implemented during the political campaign TV coverage in both
countries? To try to answer this question, the study is split into five specific
questions:
Research Question 1: How did CBS frame Obamas convention and victory
speeches?
Research Question 2: How did Fox News frame Obamas convention and victory
speeches?
Research Question 3: How did NTV frame Putins rally and victory speeches?
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13
Research Question 4: How did Rossiya 24 frame Putins rally and victory
speeches?
Research Question 5: What differences and similarities, in terms of media endarkenment, were found in the 2012 election coverage by Russian and American
national TV channels?
Method
Bertrand and Hughes (2005) stated, Textual research may be directed at discovering
the explicit meaning of the text, or the latent meaning. Such research on television
news, therefore, is often linked to a search for the ideological content (p. 195). For
my textual research, I have chosen a method of framing analysis with a comparative
qualitative approach, considering this more appropriate for my goals. Pan and Kosicki
(1993) wrote, Framing analysis as an approach to analyzing news discourse mainly
deals with how public discourse about public policy issues is constructed and negotiated (p. 70).
Pan and Kosicki (1993), after Gamson (1988), believed that news discourse is an
integral part of the process of framing public policy issues and plays an important role
in shaping public debate concerning these issues (p. 69). De Vreese (2005) wrote,
One influential way that the media may shape public opinion is by framing events
and issues in particular ways. . . . Frames in the news may affect learning, interpretation, and evaluation of issues and events (pp. 51-52). This is the reason that in my
research I focus mostly on the content of news shows but include some of the political
opinion shows as well. Pan and Kosicki (1993) explained that framing analysis views
news texts as consisting of organized symbolic devices that will interact with individual agents memory for meaning construction (p. 58). Among these devices are
metaphors, exemplars, catchphrases, depictions, and visual images. Pan and Kosicki
also extracted four structural dimensions within news texts to analyze: syntactical,
script, thematic, and rhetorical.
In my study, I divide news frames in two groups that de Vreese (2005) called
generic and issue-specific. Five of the generic news frames, identified by Semetko
and Valkenburg (2000), are Conflict, Human Interest, Attribution of Responsibility,
Morality, and Economic Consequences. Another group of generic frames was identified based on Cappella and Jamiesons (1997) study of consequences of strategically
framed news on political cynicism. Under strategic they meant news that focuses on
winning and losing, includes the language of war, games, and competition, contains
performers, critics, and audiences, focuses on candidate style and perceptions, and
gives weight to polls and candidate standings.
In my analysis, besides following the generic frames, I also apply a deductive
approach, which has the goal of finding components of news stories that constitute
frames. De Vreese (2005) referred to Entmans (1993) concept when suggesting that
frames in the news could be examined and identified by the presence or absence of
certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments (p. 54).
14
After identifying the frames in the coverage of Obamas and Putins speeches and
analyzing the framings structural dimensions and symbolic devices, I will look for
conformity of frames and their matches with media endarkenment techniques described
earlier in the article.
Obamas speeches. For framing analysis of the coverage of Obamas speeches, I took
broadcast scripts of CBS and Fox News from the LexisNexis database and referred to
my own notes made during my observation of the live broadcasts in September and
November 2012. When searching transcripts of the DNC coverage through LexisNexis, I used the keywords Obama speech and the time period between September 6
and September 10, 2012. The search turned up 136 stories. I eliminated everything
except CBS and Fox News transcripts. Finally, from CBS I selected 7 morning and
evening news editions and the Sunday shows Face the Nation and Sunday Morning
Political Affairs; from the Fox News channel I retrieved 9 scripts from The Five, Fox
News Watch, The OReilly Factor, and Journal Editorial Report.
For Obamas victory speech coverage, I used the keywords Obama won and the
time period between November 7 and November 10, 2012. The LexisNexis search
turned up 229 stories, from which I chose 7 CBS morning and evening news transcripts and 8 Fox News transcripts from The Five, Fox News Watch, Journal Editorial
Report (live event), 2012 Election Coverage (live event), Fox Special Report With
Bret Baier, Fox on Record With Greta Van Susteren, and The OReilly Factor.
Putins speeches. For framing analysis of the coverage of Putins speeches, I took the
broadcast scripts and video packages aired on the Russian TV channels NTV and Rossiya 24 from their official websites. I also referred to my own notes made during my
work as a news writer for NTV and observation of the live broadcasts in February and
March 2012.
When searching transcripts of Putins rally coverage on the NTV and Rossiya 24
websites, I used the keywords Putin Luzhniki and the time period between February 23
and February 24, 2012. The search turned up 6 NTV and 15 Rossiya 24 reports, all of
which were shown in the newscasts. I wanted to analyze political talk shows as well,
but Russian channels dont have the variety of news and opinion shows that the
American networks do.
For Putins victory speech coverage, I used the keywords Putin Manezhnaya and
the time period between March 4 and March 5, 2012. The web search turned up 12
NTV news stories and 12 news reports by Rossiya 24.
Results
To identify all the frames of the speech coverage, the study first applies a four-dimensional (syntactical, script, thematic, rhetorical) analysis of the selected transcripts and
video records. Pan and Kosicki (1993) pointed out the significant role of lexical
choices, which constitute an important aspect of news discourse construction and are
often made in conformity with structural rules. Very often, lexical choices of words or
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15
labels are made to designate one of the categories in syntactic or script structures
(p. 62). For example, by designating Obamas speech as a pep talk, CBS This
Morning anchor Charlie Rose interpreted the meaning of the speech and categorized it
into a general category of inspirational pally talks. At the same time, Fox News columnist Charles Krauthammer designated the same speech as the emptiest speech I have
ever heard on a national stage.
In choices of lexical, syntactic, and thematic structures, ideology plays an important role. When a journalist chooses particular designative words, it is a clear and
sometimes powerful cue signifying an underlying frame (Pan & Kosicki, 1993,
p. 63). This approach, applied to the recent study, helps to reveal some of the traits of
media bias in the analyzed content of all four channels, both U.S. and Russian.
Eisinger, Veenstra, and Koehn (2007) pointed out that the presence of systematic
ideological bias is prevalent in American media and would contradict claims of neutrality (p. 19). In fact, both television networks analyzed in this article have been
frequently criticized for their ideologically biased reporting (Brock & Rabin-Havt,
2012; Goldberg, 2003). Whereas some conservative politicians and journalists accuse
CBS of having a liberal bias in its reporting, liberals contend that Fox News has a bias
favoring a conservative political position and the Republican Party. Both networks are
commercial and controlled by influential media mogulsRupert Murdoch at Fox
News and Summer Redstone at CBS. Russian NTV channel De Jure is commercial as
well, but De Facto is controlled by the government because the channel is an asset of
Gazprom-Media Holding, which is an entity of the state-owned energy giant Gazprom.
The Russian government also owns Rossiya 24, so the Kremlin bias of both these
networks is obvious.
Considering all this information, the study uses multidimensional analysis of
selected speeches coverage by each of these four channels. In terms of syntactic structure, teasers and anchor tosses, as well as headlines, are the key elements of text organization and storytelling; they frame viewers reality and their expectations about the
world (Tannen, 1993). The emphasis of these structural elements helps to identify
repeated patterns of the central idea through the rest of the text.
From the first seconds of the news shows about the presidential election results,
viewers of Rossiya 24 knew that Russia is rejoicing; NTV in its teaser told that in
Putins headquarters, staff members hug and clink glasses with each other; CBS
reported that President Obama wins big, telling Americans that he will search for
common ground in the next 4 years; and Fox News started its special election coverage with a Mitt Romney sound bite and anchor Bret Baiers words, Governor Mitt
Romney in a concession speech . . . saying that he and Paul Ryan left everything on
the field. Selection of the first catchphrases in these examples clearly identified a
central organizing idea for each network. Rossiya 24 generalized that the whole of
Russia was happy with Putins victory, forgetting that supporters of the other four
candidates probably felt the opposite. NTV emphasized the human interest side of
Putins triumphdrinking at the official headquarters. CBS enthusiastically
announced Obamas big victory, and Fox News sorrowfully sympathized with the
Republican candidates defeat.
16
The thematic structure analysis of the selected stories follows the same reading of
the texts with varieties of interpretations. A structural order of the thematic elements
helps to identify the political leaning and thus a particular frame. For example, covering both Obamas speeches, CBS often gave Obamas sound bites first, and then
Romneys reaction. In the case of Fox News, the situation with the sound bites was
reversedRomneys first. On both Russian channels, structurally Putin was always
first and the only onenewscasts omitted any sound bites of Putins challengers during almost all election events and during the victory speech coverage.
The order of the subtopics in the show was also very illustrative. Fox Special Report
With Bret Baier on the Democratic National Convention started with a story about the
rescheduling of the events venue from the big outdoor Bank of America Stadium in
Charlotte to the smaller indoor Time Warner Cable Arena. In the second part of the
show, the anchor opened with a scandalous story about Israel-GOP comments:
It looks like Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz,
who just finished speaking here, has come out on the wrong side of a he said/she said/he
said. After the Washington Examiner reported comments about Israel and Republicans,
Israeli ambassador Michael Oren said she was categorically wrong.
Fox News gave a sound bite of the chairwoman, who explained that she was misquoted by a conservative newspaper, and then the program aired the audio released by
The Examiner, where Wasserman-Schultz said exactly what she had just denied. CBS
transcripts selected for this research omitted these subtopics about the Israel-GOP
comments and the venue change.
The multidimensional analysis proves the presence of the five generic news frames
and reveals substantial episodic and thematic frames. For the next step of this study, a
list of all found frames was made. Frames are followed by the examining questions for
the closer analysis of their symbolic devices that help to verify consistency of a particular frame (see Table 1).
In the realm of elections, in addition to the 5 generic news frames, the study identifies 10 other generic and issue-specific frames recurrent in the news and political talk
shows in the United States and Russia. The connotation of a particular frame can vary
due to the differences in the political and cultural background of the countries. For
instance, the Race/Fight frame had a similar sense of competition or contest throughout the coverage in both countries. Nevertheless, in Russia this frame did not have the
peaceful meaning of a game or horse race with the presidential candidates as participants; in Russia this frame portrayed the election as a war between friends and
foes and depicted Putins campaign as a mortal combat between a superhero and bad
guys who wanted to destroy Russian sovereignty and usurp power. That was what
Putin said in his victory speech and what NTV and Rossiya 24 broadcast. It is noteworthy that Russian national TV channels, unlike U.S. networks, did not try much to
analyze, characterize, and all the more, criticize Putins speeches. Russian channels
just transmitted his sound bites and retold viewers what he said, following him and
taking frames from his speeches as they were.
17
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Table 1. Identification of the Common Frames Within the Campaign Coverage.
Frame
Human interest
Economic consequences
Attribution of responsibility
Conflict/scandal
Morality
Race/fight
Presence of enemy
Patriotism/jingoism
Superman
Exceptionalism
Exaggeration
Problem
Disappointment
Sarcasm/irony
Stability/fear of change
Question
Does the coverage contain an individuals story/an emotional
angle to the presentation of an event?
Is there a mention of costs or degree of expense involved?
Does responsibility for causing or solving an issue in the story
attribute to the government/an individual/a group?
Does the news story reflect disagreement between parties/
individuals/groups/countries?
Is an event or issue interpreted in the context of religious
tenets/moral prescriptions?
Are the presidential campaigns presented using war/horse
race terminology?
Do journalists follow the speeches ideas of internal/external
presence of enemies?
Do the media use patriotic/jingoistic rhetoric in the coverage
of the selected events?
Do the media present images of Putin/Obama as supermen?
Do journalists follow the speeches rhetoric about the
exceptionalism of the presidents supporters and the
ways Obama/Putin offered to lead the countries and solve
problems?
Does the coverage contain repeated patterns of superlatives
and play with significant numbers, trying to exaggerate the
importance of the presidents words?
Does the coverage reflect any problems touched upon in the
speeches or accompanying events?
Do the media broadcast repeated patterns that express
disappointment in the content of the speeches/the way
events are organized/the election results?
Do journalists use sarcasm/irony devices to show their
attitude and doubts about the facts they reported?
Do the media transmit repeated patterns that support the
idea of stability and promote the fear of change that could
come with new presidents?
At his support rally, named Defend the Country, Putin was playing the old Sovietstyle fears from the Cold War era. He overwhelmingly used war rhetoric in his speech,
which was delivered on Russias annual Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland, a
national holiday that replaced the Soviet-era Red Army Day. Putin framed his campaign
as a battle for the future of Russia and defined his supporters as defenders of the
Fatherland. Rossiya 24 followed this lead, reporting that the rallys organizers invited
for participation those who are not indifferent to the countrys destinythose who are
ready to vote for Putin on March 4. In its teaser, Rossiya 24s newscast quoted Putin:
The battle for Russia goes on! Victory will be ours! and later narrated:
18
CORRESPONDENT: Vladimir Putin called on his supporters to unite for the sake of
Russias future, to be responsible to the maximum on Election Day, and to prevent the
imposition of the will of others. . . .
PUTIN: We will not allow anyone to interfere in our affairs, to force their will on us
because we have our own will.
Mirroring Putins language and Cold War-style description of the threat, Rossiya 24
used Soviet-era images in its narrative and recalled that the venue of Putins speech
hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1980 Olympics. Led by the United
States, 65 countries boycotted these games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Rossiya 24 reported on Putins rally speech: Big politics and big sport, as already
happened at Luzhniki Stadium during the 1980 Olympics, for example, today have
intertwined again. NTVs newscast replayed these Soviet patterns, using only visual
symbolic devices: video of the Moscow Olympics mascot, Misha the Bear, which was
heavily represented in the audience that came to hear Putin.
In the Russian case, this Race/Fight frame was tightly interlaced with the Presence
of Enemy frame. This could be explained by several reasons. The cultural and historical background of post-Soviet Russia is deeply founded on the events of the revolution
of 1917 and World War II. The war rhetoric is still effective and understandable and
the struggle with the enemy is still the best way to unite Russians. The factual reason
for the Enemy frame in Putins campaign and, as a consequence, in the media coverage
was the recent 2011 opposition protests, the largest the country had seen since the
1991 Soviet collapse. The protests began in December 2011 after a parliamentary election that Putins party won through what was believed to be widespread fraud. The
Kremlin accused leaders of the protests of being paid agents of the United States working to weaken Russia. Putins campaign tried to add an element of fear to the political
situation by depicting the protesters as revolutionaries, intent on overthrowing the
government, even though the opposition leaders had consistently called for peaceful,
democratic changes. In his rally speech, Putin referred to the so-called disagreeing
Russians: We ask everyone not to look abroad, not to run to the other side, and not to
deceive your motherland, but to join us.
Interesting enough, this confrontation had nothing to do with the other four presidential candidates, and it illustrated the hopeless positions of Putins official challengers, who were not ever seriously considered rivals. The real competitors, according to
the interpretation of the frame implementation, were seen by Putin as overseas, predominantly in the United States. This conclusion was echoed in the spin of the Enemy
frame in CBS coverage of Obamas convention speech. A CBS This Morning reporter
commented,
CORRESPONDENT: In his harshest attack, Mr. Obama implied that Governor Romney
was ill prepared for the world stage.
OBAMA: You dont call Russia our number one enemy, not al Qaeda, Russia, unless
youre still stuck in a Cold War mind warp.
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In the victory speech coverage, Fox Special Report With Bret Baier used this Enemy
frame in a different manner:
CORRESPONDENT:Further east in Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev
expressed relief that the man who called Russia Americas top geopolitical foe, Mitt
Romney, did not win the vote. While Vladimir Putin [congratulated] Obama, its hard
to guess how he really feels.
The Presence of Enemy frame in the CBS coverage indicated that the only external
threat was terrorism. The internal enemy, according to the coverage, seemed to be
unemployment, and the victory over it was the common goal of both candidates who
finally agreed that both Democrats and Republicans sought prosperity for the country
but disagreed in the way to tackle the problems. Because in the media coverage, the
image of an internal enemy trying to destroy the countrys sovereignty is absent, the
Fight frame in the presidential campaign characterization revealed itself quite rarely
and mostly at the end of the race. In the victory speech coverage, CBS This Mornings
White House correspondent acknowledged that this campaign was a tough fight:
CORRESPONDENT: A lot of people remarked that he didnt look so much joyous as he
did relieved. This was a grueling campaign, a hard-fought campaign, at times, an ugly
campaign where both of the two campaigns hit below the belt [emphasis added]. So,
last night he talked a lot about trying to repair those wounds.
But this spin of the Race/Fight frame in the American media was rather the exception;
in general, the traditional peaceful Horse Race frame was used:
Today on Face the Nation, with just two months left until Election Day, the sprint to the
finish is on. (CBS Face the Nation, 2012)
With the conventions behind us, the real race begins. A look at where the two candidates
stand heading into the fall stretch, next. (Fox Journal Editorial Report, 2012)
Stability/Fear of Change is another frame similar in a general sense but different in

the hue of its meaning. Whereas CBS transmitted the idea that Obamas economic
course should continue and the stability of the team in charge would lead to success,
NTV and Rossiya 24 promoted the absence of alternatives to Putin, saying that he was
the only one who could lead the country to prosperity. In covering Obamas convention speech, CBS This Mornings reporter followed the pattern that the first term for
the president was just a beginning and that this stability was needed for positive
changes: He asked for more time to create more jobs and reduce the debt. He accused
his Republican opponents, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, of trying to sell platitudes
instead of a plan.
The Russian networks depicted change as an issue destroying stability and causing
chaos and thus as an undesirable thing that people should fear. NTV correspondent
20
Sergey Kholoshevsky reported on the rally speech: Stability today was defended
even by the workers from the Urals, who for this purpose came to Moscow by train.
But the reporter didnt mention that some of the supporters were brought by trains and
buses from all over the country and had been promised a couple of days off in return
for attending. For some of them tickets were paid, especially for the supporters from
the remote Far East and Siberia. The trip from these regions to Moscow is so expensive that it is barely affordable for the vast majority of the population.
NTV also used the Human Interest frame, for instance, in the report by correspondent Georgiy Grivenniy, who showed Putins victory speech through the individual
story of one of the regular voters:
CORRESPONDENT:Mosgas employee Sergey Gynko says he has come to
Manezhnaya Square as a Putin supporter not on his companys orders, but because of
his convictions. Gynko, a former member of the military, has not forgotten offenses
against the army in the 1990s.
GYNKO:We were not paid for 6 months. My wife and I survived only on a small
allowance.
Rossiya 24 used the Human Interest frame as well. In a report on the victory speech,
correspondent Andrey Kondrashov explained that Putin was crying on the stage not
because of his emotions, but because of the cold wind:
All those who were closely following Putins speech suddenly noticed the tears on his
face. For journalists, it immediately became the subject of the discussion. So, later in the
headquarters we asked Putin about it. The frost on Election Day was light, but the flags
fluttered: the cool breeze was not spring, indeed [emphasis added].
This surprisingly poetic rhetoric might have some latent purposes. It has been noticed
that many Russian journalists, especially those who work for the state media, have
gotten used to this metaphoric style that lets them be careful and, in a case of the governments discontent, explain that they are just misunderstood.
The tears story performed by Obama after his victory appeared on CBS News with
the same Human Interest frame, but more human than in Putins tears story:
Shortly after his re-election victory, President Barack Obamas campaign released a
video that shows a rare moment of emotion from the commander-in-chief. President
Obama pauses in the middle of thanking members of his campaign staff and volunteers at
his campaign headquarters in Chicago to wipe away tears. As he rubs the corner of his
eyes, the room starts clapping.
Fox News also used the Human Interest frame in its coverage. In The OReilly Factor
episode about the DNC, a guest speakerJonathan Strong, a reporter from Roll
Calltouched upon other Human Interest awkward moments, for instance, how the
chairwoman was caught yawning during Obamas speech. This particular program,
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21
as well as the other selected Fox News shows, contained a number of Sarcasm/Irony
devices to show reporters attitudes about the events. In The Five, co-hosts discussed
the convention speech and unemployment numbers:
BOLLING: The only sector that grew jobs was drinking places. . . .
GUTFELD: I alone am responsible for a 35% increase in Manhattan.
GUILFOYLE: You have jobs and a real hangover today.
GUTFELD: Yes, he did create some jobs. Obama created jobs for people counting the
number of jobs that have been lost.
CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer also used the Sarcasm/
Irony frame when covering Obamas victory speech and the election results, but the
CBS journalist framed the event opposite from Fox News political leaning:
CORRESPONDENT: The Republicans got re-elected. John Boehner came back. I mean
Congress approval rating below diphtheria. . . . They still have the majority. So, you
know, John Boehner is saying, look, they elected us, too. They didnt just elect the
president, they elected us, too. . . .
ANCHOR: Below diphtheria [emphasis added] does not sound like a good condition,
Bob Schieffer. So is itis the onus on President Obama to reach out again? He started
that last night in his acceptance speech, making it clear that he wants to have a
conversation.
Selected Fox News shows were found to cover the speeches using the Attribution of
Responsibility frame, when in the stories responsibility for not solving the problems of
the economy was attributed to Obama and his administration. Fox News also used the
Conflict/Scandal frame within the stories about Democrats political activities and liberal journalists comments. For example, Fox News discussed the case of MSNBC
anchor Chris Matthews, who in the closing thoughts from election night said, Im so
glad we had that storm last week, because I think the storm was one of those things. No,
politically, I should say, not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities
for good politics. The Morality frame was used by Fox News shows in the coverage of
some controversial issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage; the Disappointment
frame was used in the convention speech analysis and reporting on the election results.
The Economic Consequences frame was found in the coverage by both CBS and Fox
News, because the economy was the number one issue throughout the campaign:
ANCHOR: But the dreary slog of the economy that cannot find the accelerator pedal
coupled with the sensory overload of a nonstop news cycle in time of war overseas
and disunity at homeall this leaves many to wonder whether the rhetorical hurdle
Barack Obama faces tonight will prove insurmountable and whether the most celebrated orator of his generation can recapture the magic of his dazzling early performances. (Fox Special Report With Bret Baier, 2012)
22
CORRESPONDENT: The economy overwhelmingly was the most important issue. And
more than three quarters of the voters in our exit poll77%told us the economy
was still in bad shape. Whats more, more than half told us the country is headed in the
wrong direction. (CBS This Morning, 2012b)
In the Russian channels coverage, the Economic Consequences frame was found as
well, but it was not so overwhelmingly widespread. One of the guesses is that it was
because the economic situation was not favorable for Putin, who was supposed to be
portrayed in the news as a superman.
The Superman frame was used in the CBS newscasts, where Obama sometimes
was covered as a national hero rescuing the auto industry, advocating for minorities,
and fighting for new jobs:
DAVID REMNICK, The New Yorker editor: The bumper sticker argument for the election is GM is still alive and Osama bin Laden is dead. I think that was reflected in the
convention a great deal. The notion that somehow anyoneSuperman, Batman,
much less Barack Obamawas going to come in to this situation in near catastrophic
depression and solve everything . . . was a fantasy. (CBS This Morning, 2012a)
Both American and Russian journalists depicted images of supermen primarily

through the use of sound bites from the candidates top supporters:
SERGEY SOBYANIN, mayor of Moscow: I know how he [Putin] makes decisions and
how he takes everything over. He is a good old boy, a real leader, a man of words and
deeds. We will support him. And hurrah for a strong Russia! (Rossiya 24 News, 2012a)
The Superman frame is related to a group of issue-specific frames that also includes
the Patriotism/Jingoism and Exceptionalism frames. They are found in the coverage
by all four channels (in the case of the United States, both liberal and conservative)
and are overlapped with the rhetoric of the speeches:
OBAMA: What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most
diverse nation on earth. . . . The freedom, which so many Americans have fought for
and died for, comes with responsibilities as well as rights. . . . (Fox News, 2012
Election Coverage, 2012)
PUTIN: We are a victorious nation. It is in our genes, in our genetic code, it passes from
generation to generation. And we will win now too. (Rossiya 24 News, 2012b)
The Exaggeration frame was also implemented in the coverage by all selected channels.
This frame came with stories about a range of problems, the importance of the words told
at the events, and the numbers of people in attendance, as in these Rossiya 24 reports:
The rally in Luzhniki became the largest event in the stadiums history, or Nobody
before [emphasis added] yet has turned Manezhnaya Square and 10 surrounding streets
into a dance floor, where Putins supporters celebrated his victory. A Fox News
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23
correspondent, who was reporting from the DNC, exaggeratedly complained that he had
problems to get to the convention floor to do the live shot. We only managed because
there was a Fox fan amongst security, when at the same time, a CBS anchor enthusiastically announced that over the last two weeks of conventions weve heard a lot of promises, accusations, finger-pointing, and red-meat rhetoric from our political leaders. But
last night, we caught a glimpse of something that could inspire an entire nation.
Findings
Research Question 1: How did CBS frame Obamas convention and victory speeches? According to the results of the study, CBS coverage portrayed both speeches in a way favorable for Obama using most prominently the frames of Stability, Patriotism,
Exceptionalism, Superman, Human Interest, and Economic Consequences. In the
selected shows, journalists cheerfully discussed positive moments of Obamas performance, reasons for his victory, and the next steps for achieving a consensus with the
House of Representatives.
Research Question 2: How did Fox News frame Obamas convention and victory speeches? Fox
News selected shows, on the contrary, contained discussions on the weak points of
Obamas convention speech, reasons for Romneys defeat, and the hard times ahead for
Obama in attempts to reach across the aisle in the divided Congress. The analysis
showed that the Fox News channel was more critical in coverage of both speeches. This
was demonstrated with plentiful usage of the frames of Morality, Conflict/Scandal,
Problem, Attribution of Responsibility, Sarcasm/Irony, and Disappointment.
Research Question 3: How did NTV frame Putins rally and victory speeches? According to
the framing analysis, NTV, similar to CBS, portrayed both of Putins speeches in a
favorable way. In their reports, journalists often used the frames of Fight, Presence of
Enemy, Stability/Fear of Change, Exceptionalism, Superman, Human Interest, and
Patriotism. However, the level of jingoism was not as high as in Rossiya 24s coverage, and not everything was taken literally. Sometimes NTV journalists, like their Fox
News colleagues, expressed some doubtsfor example, that supporters had participated in the rally and victory meeting voluntarily. For expression of these doubts,
reporters used the Sarcasm/Irony and Human Interest frames. Throughout the coverage, the war rhetoric prevailed. Reporters called Election Day the victory day and
dedicated it to Putins victory, although the term Victory Day is the official name of
the big national holiday that marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet
Union in the Second World War.
Research Question 4: How did Rossiya 24 frame Putins rally and victory speeches? The
framing analysis confirmed that Rossiya 24 showed strong support toward Putins
campaign. As with NTV and CBS, Rossiya 24 portrayed the selected events in a favorable way for the president, but the manner of expressing this support was more obvious and less sophisticated than the coverage by the other channels. This conclusion is
24
demonstrated by the implementation of the frames of Exaggeration, Jingoism, Fight,

Presence of Enemy, Stability/Fear of Change, Superman, and Attribution of Responsibility. An abundance of anti-opposition rhetoric was also noticed in the coverage by
Rossiya 24. Political opposition was depicted as the main internal enemy of the
country.
Research Question 5: What differences and similarities, in terms of media endarkenment,
were found in the 2012 election coverage by Russian and American national TV
channels? Some of the frames that were found in this research perfectly match some
of the media endarkenment techniques listed earlier in this article. I found that the
frames of Fight, Presence of Enemy, Superman, and Stability/Fear of Change fit the
media endarkenment technique of construction of a false reality. For example, in
2011 Putin created a political movement with the militant name All-Russia Peoples
Front. It was intended that this front, like the World War II Soviet peoples front,
would fight an enemy. But there was no enemy then; however, by the end of the year,
the image of the enemy was successfully constructedpartially from the Russian
people who disagreed with Putins politics and partially from the U.S. State Department, which was believed to support the Russian political opposition. By the time of
the presidential campaign, the image of the internal and external enemies was vividly
developed with the help of the national media, and the newly elected Putin during his
victory speech announced that the foe had been defeated:
PUTIN: We have shown that our people are truly able to easily distinguish between the
desire for progress and the renewed political provocation that has one objective
onlyto destroy Russian sovereignty and usurp power [emphasis added]. The
Russian people have now shown that in our country such choices and scenarios will
not pass. They shall not pass. (NTV News, 2012)
The notion of a race on Russian TV was constructed as well because in fact there was
no real race, only the illusion of a race with five candidates. The victory of the main
candidate was predetermined from the very beginning.
In the United States, construction of a false reality worked in a different direction
and turned out to be self-endarkenment from the Republican side. A senior editor for
Fortune Magazine, who supports the Republican Party (N. Easton, personal communication, November 9, 2012), shared an interesting perspective on why the GOP
was defeated. She said that the Republicans just didnt notice that the country had
changed and its population had become extremely diverse. That sounded as if
Republicans believed in a false reality that they built themselvesmuch like the
Russian government.
Sometimes it seems that those who govern Russia have no idea how regular people
survive, how much money they earn and spend, how much food costs, and so on. They,
too, lost a sense of reality and didnt notice that during the last few years, a whole new
class of society that is immune to media endarkenment has grown up in Russia. These
people do not watch TV anymore and, instead of being detached from each other, they
Lazitski
25
get together through social networks, and that was exactly how the mass protests in
December 2011 were organized.
Omission is another media endarkenment technique that the framing analysis
revealed. A comparative approach helped to understand what was omitted in the coverage. According to this research, opposition protests in Moscow during Putins rally
and victory speeches were not covered by NTV and Rossiya 24. In the United States,
omission revealed itself in CBS zero coverage of the DNC venue change and the
scandals surrounding Democrats comments on the Israel-GOP issue and Hurricane
Sandy.
The spinning and twisting media endarkenment technique was implemented by
selected TV channels with the help of the Exaggeration, Morality, Disappointment,
Sarcasm/Irony, and Attribution of Responsibility frames. They allowed journalists to
impose their particular points of view on the stories.
The entertainment technique was found to fit the frames of Race, Conflict/Scandal,
Sarcasm/Irony, Exaggeration, and Human Interest. As a CBS guest, The New Yorker
Editor David Remnick said after Obamas convention speech, All of us, when we
were watching the speech last night, were somehow expecting that it was like watching the NBA All-Star dunk contest. The entertainment technique with its frames helps
to grab the audiences attention and win the channels own racefor ratings.
The simplification technique of media endarkenment was implemented by using
Exceptionalism, Patriotism/Jingoism, Fight, and Presence of Enemy frames. As a rule,
they are all based on stereotypes and thus very effective.
The intimidation technique was found to use Fight, Presence of Enemy, and
Stability/Fear of Change frames, which impose anxiety and fear on the audience and
make it easier to unite people against internal or external threats. This media endarkenment technique revealed itself during the presidential campaigns in both countries: in
the case of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi and in the case of suppression
of mass protests of opposition in Russia.
Summarizing all the findings of the study, I can give a positive answer on the general question of this research: Were media endarkenment techniques implemented during the political campaign TV coverage in both countries?
Thus, all five hypotheses of this study are confirmed.
Conclusion
The study found features of some of the media endarkenment techniques in the 2012
election coverage by the U.S. and Russian national TV channels CBS, Fox News,
NTV, and Rossiya 24. It is interesting that in two such different countries with different values, media endarkenment was generally applied in the 2012 election coverage
using similar techniques, such as omission, intimidation, spinning and twisting, entertainment, simplification, and construction of a false reality.
However, in the United States, implementation of media endarkenment was more
sophisticated and indirect than in Russiaprobably to keep up appearances of democracywhereas in Russia, democracy is not a matter of primary concern and people in
26
power usually do not care about disguising their ways of imposing control. This also
might be a reason for one of the conclusions of this studythat media endarkenment
in the United States is counterbalanced by the coexistence of liberal and conservative
TV channels, unlike in Russia where networks establish only one position.
Although it was found that the framing of the coverage related to some of the media
endarkenment techniques, the correlation needs further research, as do the methods of
media endarkenment and each of the issue-specific frames identified in this article.
This study is focused only on national television and does not pay attention, for example, to local stations or the Internet. Other weaknesses are not only the particular
choice of mass media but also the choices of the cases and countries. For further
research, Middle Eastern and Asian media, where endarkenment might exist as well,
could be added to new case studies.
Because this study is a combination of two approachestraditional framing analysis and the new concept of media endarkenment, which is only in the beginning of its
developmentI would suggest further research ideas for both approaches. When it
comes to framing analysis, it would be interesting to analyze Obamas and Putins
comparable speeches themselves, without touching their coverage in the media. Pan
and Kosicki (1993) suggested that in the United States, framing analysis is based on
the recognition that in the American political process, the participants are increasingly pressed to use symbolic devices to gain legitimacy, form political alignments,
strive toward consensus, and organize collective or policy actions (p. 70). From this
perspective, it would be interesting to reveal and compare the patterns that follow the
application of framing analysis in the Russian political process.
When it comes to the media endarkenment part, I would suggest testing this concept on other cases, not necessarily political, and with different research methods.
Further research could examine such questions as, Is the Internet functioning as an
antidote to media endarkenment? What can be used to remedy media endarkenment?
And how might we measure media endarkenment?
In the era of media endarkenment, when the truth is hidden from the audience or
drowns in a sea of useless information, it is important for the audience to develop
critical thinking, which helps to identify the frames that dress up the facts. In the
age of spin, when one persons truth is anothers propaganda (Kolodzy, 2012,
p. 65), the real state of things can be understood from the thoughtful decoding of
sophisticated spins and thorough searching of different sources. However, at the
same time, in societies that are considered to be democratic, there might be a discussion on whether or not people want to be endarkened. In terms of democracy, this is
a peoples choice and they make it by voting for a particular medium. People have a
right to know as well as a right not to know, as new U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry explained on February 26, 2013, while talking to students in Berlin during his
first official overseas trip:
In America you have a right to be stupidif you want to be. And you have a right to be
disconnected to somebody else if you want to be. And we tolerate it. We somehow make
Lazitski
27
it through that. Now, I think thats a virtue. I think thats something worth fighting for.
(John Kerry, 2013)
But if people want to be endarkened or they simply do not know that they are, it raises
another discussion question: Should something be done about it? It could be argued
that something should indeed be done because the quality of the media influences the
other key institutions of the public sphere, and media endarkenment can be harmful to
them. Ruiz etal. (2011) believe that for democracy, even more important than the
ability to communicate is the quality of the conversation (p. 466). Lunt and Livingstone
(2013) think that journalists and media institutions should contribute to creating the
conditions of possibility for participation and deliberation by adopting the position of
an institution operating in the public sphere (p. 94).
Intelligent conversation and public discussion are the core substances of enlightenment, and it is presumed that the prominence of these sources of substance should
increasingly appear with the development of new media technologies. However,
more fears than hopes are now being voiced about the enlightenment role of the
major mass media, as they increasingly seek to make profits in a highly competitive
market place (McQuail, 2010, p. 54). It seems that in both the United States and
Russia, the most reasonable way to reduce the influence of media endarkenment for
now is to be selective, critical, and aware of what kind of medium is being
consumed.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
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Author Biography
Olga Lazitski is a broadcast journalist and media researcher from Russia. In 2012-2013, she
worked at Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, as a Fulbright Visiting Researcher. She
developed the concept of media endarkenmentthe term she coined to describe the process
counter to enlightenment occurring, as she believes, in both the Russian and U.S. media.

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ABSXXX10.1177/0002764213506219American Behavioral ScientistLazitski

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