The (Ex) Washington Realist

but - doesn't the character of the gov't
influence what people think? Would these numbers be the same if there were a free flow of ideas and info through media channels? When is the system a reflection of the people and the people a reflection of the system?
 

Why is the assumption that Russians aren't getting a clear and free picture and that Americans are when the US media also distorts and slants? Where is there any proof that the Putin government has been instructing the media to take a specific line on this matter? These numbers are in line with general European sentiment.
 

Why is the assumption that Russians aren't getting a clear and free picture and that Americans are when the US media also distorts and slants? Where is there any proof that the Putin government has been instructing the media to take a specific line on this matter? These numbers are in line with general European sentiment.
 

Nikolas - Two quick questions:

First, is it your sense that the people who took the poll adhered to standards that we would regard as necessary for acceptable polling? Does the polling organization have a track record?

Second, you must have seen newstands and watched television on your visits. How would you judge the variety and quality of news sources available to the Russian people right now? How would you compare Russian television coverage of world events with American coverage?
 

Hi David,

Thanks for the questions.

One stereotype I want to dispel is the notion that in Putin's Russia we are back to some sort of Soviet-style grey television coverage with a wooden-faced newsman reading lines (and some KGB agent pointing a gun at him off camera to make sure "the truth" doesn't slip out). The leading Russian channels produce news programs that visually and in production values are equal to their Western counterparts.

On the Middle East crisis, I found the main channels to track other European sources--wide ranging reporting but like the BBC and others much more willingness to cover the "Arab side" and to accord a lot less automatic acceptance of Israeli claims--but remember that with many Russians in Israel there is wide interest in what happens there and there is some degree of sympathy for Israel's predicament as tracking that of Russia's with Chechnya. The same I found in the print media.

I also stress the point that there is a real digital divide in Russia--the younger, better educated and wealthier you are the less you depend on state-influenced outlets for news because you have access to all the international channels and to the internet; in the main cities you also have direct access to Western news sources especially if you are English fluent.

I do have a problem when U.S. commentators talk about bias in the Rusisan media and use the U.S. as the standard of objectivity. I saw this a lot during the Yugoslav wars where the Russian media would cover events that the U.S. media chose not too and this was cited as proof of bias on the Russian side.

I think that you'd find a wide divergence of opinion if you polled in the U.S. and broke results down by where people get information--say BBC versus Fox News.

Russian polling is quite professional, in my opinion; the Levada Foundation is top notch and other firms have borrowed a lot from Western expertise in these areas. The Putin government is also keenly interested in accurate readings of public opinion. I haven't found anything that would suggest to me that public opinion data from Russia is corrupted or unreliable.
 

I think the digital divide (as Nikolas mentioned)can be a major factor in affecting public's opinion. Technology (especially the internet) has emerged as a key mechanism is facilitating information in our Information Age. If the Putin government is indeed keen to attain accurate readings of public opinion, perhaps they should ensure that the populace do get the opportunity to conceive international sources as well -- primarily eventual eradication of the digitual divide in Russia.
 

The gamble of the putin team which so far is paying off is that you worry about media that reaches the ordinary muzhik. young educated people are pretty much firmly in government camp so who cares what they get on internet or satellite tv, if you can afford these things you are generally pro-putin to begin with.
 

Thanks for this information and insight, Nikolas. Do you have any impression of how public opinion has been affected by state control of the media, to the extent that such control has been reasserted, as compared to what public opinion was like in the 1990s?
 

My sense is that the shift from oligarch-controlled to state-dominated media has had less impact on how public opinion is shaped than people's own personal experiences. So that the groundswell of pro-Western/pro-U.S. feeling at the beginning of the 1990s was predicated on the rapid success of economic reform and rapid integration into the West; when neither happened, public opinion soured, particularly on the U.S. Another feature underreported in the West has been the steady "return" of emigres to Russia; in the spring Komsolmoskaya Pravda ran a whole series of "Farewell America" articles that were pretty balanced in conveying opinions about the U.S.
 

So what? Public opinion in Britian has been overwhelmingly against the Iraq war for nearly three years running - by at least 30% - and the British government is still in Iraq. It's not about a democratic Russia supporting every knee-jerk American support of every knee-jerk Israeli policy, and Putin's Israel/Arab policy isn't based on public opinion anyway. It's based on constraining America. So it probably wouldn't change. But his authoritarian nature makes him even more inclined to constrain us than otherwise, because as an authoritarian he is more concerned with holding onto power, and he therefore sees good government as a threat, and therefore the US as an enemy.
 

"But his authoritarian nature makes him even more inclined to constrain us than otherwise, because as an authoritarian he is more concerned with holding onto power, and he therefore sees good government as a threat, and therefore the US as an enemy."

This is rendered laughable by recalling US support for Yeltsin, even when Yeltsin shot up his legislative branch of government with 125mm HE fire, and observing that Russia now has far more "good government" than it did then.

To the extent Putin is concerned to constrain the US, it is motivated not so much by his "authoritarian nature", but by the fact that he has two eyes and a brain in his head, and is able to see and draw proper conclusions from what the US government gets up to when it is unconstrained.
 

Opinion polls worldwide place blame on America and it's client state, Israel for unrest in the Middle East. To say that a free flow of ideas is lacking in the most developed western states, except for the US, including France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Switerland is completely absurd. It is in our country that a free flow of ideas is lacking due to the increasingly nationalistic and propagandistic media. On numerous Security Council Resolutions condemning the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, the only states to vote negative are America, Israel, and usually Micronesia and the Solomon Islands. Now that is consensus. Russians are quite correct in assuming that policies of repression enforced by US and Israel breed terror. If we support democracy then we must realize that of all citizens in "Israel/Palestine" 3/4 are Palestinian. If they were allowed to vote then Israel would have no mandate for existence, much less on their policies.