The Changes of Russia’s Image in the New York Times’ Editorials (2010–2017)

Abstract

The article deals with the ways of how Russia’s image has evolved in the New York Times’ editorials for eight years (January 1, 2010 –December 31, 2017) – before the 2014 events in Ukraine and the 2016 American presidential race and after. The goal of the research is to understand what drives American journalists in their attempts to create the image of the other country, what impact the Kremlin’s foreign and domestic policy has on the ways of how Russia is seen in American media, whether the standards of U.S. journalism are changing amidst the information warfare, which journalists launched against President Donald Trump and Russia. To reach these goals, the author conducts the content analysis of the newspaper’s columns, explains the reasons of why Russia’s image has been changed in a historical context and analyzes the factors that determine the current agenda of the newspaper. The novelty of the article adds up to the fact that the author presents a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the materials of America’s mainstream media outlet for a long period of time; he also comes up with the tonality- and topic-based original classification of the New York Times’ editorials; finally, the researcher shows how the image of Russia has evolved through the lens of an American respected newspaper as well as theorizes about the aspects of the U.S. modern columnism.