The Media as an Instrument of Information Warfare

The Framing of the Russo-Georgian War in Russian and European Media

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 7, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The puzzle this paper aims to solve is twofold: firstly, this study investigates how Russian and European media were used as an instrument of information warfare. Secondly and in more depth, it is examined to what degree the framings of the Russo-Georgian War in Russian and European media constitute information warfare. Here, the first question serves as to provide the necessary foundation on which the answering of the second one can build on. The relevance of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on media bias on the Russian but also on the European side. While European media such as The Economist, The Guardian and the BBC claim that Russia is waging an 'Information War' against the West, in EU countries such as Germany, there is a growing dissatisfaction of a considerable amount of people with the media coverage on Russia. By examining Russian and European media on the use of propaganda, this paper aims to address these concerns.

Student of the Joint Double Master "International Relations" at the University of Kent and the Higher School of Economics, Moscow