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Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: The Role of Terrorist Threat in Russian Election Campaigns
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As terrorist attacks have become more immediate threats for large nations,
what role do fear and concern over terrorism play in campaign strategy, media coverage and vote choice during elections? Although terrorist groups and the mass media have had an uneasy relationship for decades, the events of 9/11 and its aftermath have intensified the classic journalistic dilemma. If terrorists are deprived of what Margaret Thatcher so famously called “the oxygen of publicity,” are they in fact denied part of their victory in a campaign of terror? Alternatively, if a public is poorly informed about either the political agenda of terrorists or their actual threat, are citizens left without both political knowledge and critical safety information? Election campaigns offer a particularly useful way to examine these issues, principally in countries that recently have experienced deadly terrorist attacks. While the public has relatively little input into security concerns in the short term, elections can offer a time for the public to express their opinion by choosing among various policy options. This paper is the first stage of a project that will examine the role of terrorist threat and security concerns in elections in Russia and the United States.
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consideration is whether politicians, parties and the media use nationalist or xenophobic rhetoric in their discussions of these issues or whether any of those involved frame the discussion under the broader terms of international affairs and cooperation. This paper will use material from the main Russian nightly news in the 2003 parliamentary elections as well as focus-group discussions on the parliamentary and 2004 presidential campaigns to discuss the framing of terrorist threat in Russian elections. What emerges from the Russian study is that while the prime-time news shows on state-run and commercial television cover terrorism differently, neither provide in-depth or meaningful analysis of the events. State-run television news focused more on international terrorism, while commercial television news featured more on terrorism related to Chechnya and news on Chechnya in general. There was little discussion of any issues, including terrorism, in the 2003 parliament campaign. In turn, focus-group participants found little link between terrorism and vote choice, although the notion of strong, stable Russia was a part of their calculus in their support for the only viable presidential choice, Vladimir Putin, in 2004. Terrorism, Media and Elections
Benson (2004) and Gitlin (2004) point to comparative media and politics as
the most promising area in which to develop useful models of media behavior that are more analytical than descriptive. As Benson states: “Since variation at the system level is most clearly seen via cross-national comparative studies, international research is best positioned to build more generalizable theory about the production of journalistically mediated political discourse” (p. 275). In particular, Benson feels that comparative work lifts political scientists away from considering the media as a dependent variable: “The challenge, then, is to bring the same sophisticated analysis to bear on understanding media as an independent variable, as part of the process of political meaning making rather than just a convenient indicator of the outcome. This is a worthy, but difficult task” (p. 276, emphasis in original). There is relatively little work in comparative media and politics. Part of this reason is the difficulty of the task, as understanding media content and systems across a range of countries is enormously complex. There have been some excellent studies that have compared media in foreign countries, particularly in times of elections, which have offered
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This project is funded by a grant from the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council under its New
Security Challenges Programme.
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As terrorist attacks have become more immediate threats for large nations,
what role do fear and concern over terrorism play in campaign strategy, media
coverage and vote choice during elections? Although terrorist groups and the mass
media have had an uneasy relationship for decades, the events of 9/11 and its
aftermath have intensified the classic journalistic dilemma. If terrorists are deprived of
what Margaret Thatcher so famously called “the oxygen of publicity,” are they in fact
denied part of their victory in a campaign of terror? Alternatively, if a public is poorly
informed about either the political agenda of terrorists or their actual threat, are
citizens left without both political knowledge and critical safety information? Election
campaigns offer a particularly useful way to examine these issues, principally in
countries that recently have experienced deadly terrorist attacks. While the public has
relatively little input into security concerns in the short term, elections can offer a
time for the public to express their opinion by choosing among various policy options.
This paper is the first stage of a project that will examine the role of terrorist threat
and security concerns in elections in Russia and the United States.
1
Under
consideration is whether politicians, parties and the media use nationalist or
xenophobic rhetoric in their discussions of these issues or whether any of those
involved frame the discussion under the broader terms of international affairs and
cooperation. This paper will use material from the main Russian nightly news in the
2003 parliamentary elections as well as focus-group discussions on the parliamentary
and 2004 presidential campaigns to discuss the framing of terrorist threat in Russian
elections. What emerges from the Russian study is that while the prime-time news
shows on state-run and commercial television cover terrorism differently, neither
provide in-depth or meaningful analysis of the events. State-run television news
focused more on international terrorism, while commercial television news featured
more on terrorism related to Chechnya and news on Chechnya in general. There was
little discussion of any issues, including terrorism, in the 2003 parliament campaign.
In turn, focus-group participants found little link between terrorism and vote choice,
although the notion of strong, stable Russia was a part of their calculus in their
support for the only viable presidential choice, Vladimir Putin, in 2004.
Terrorism, Media and Elections
Benson (2004) and Gitlin (2004) point to comparative media and politics as
the most promising area in which to develop useful models of media behavior that are
more analytical than descriptive. As Benson states: “Since variation at the system
level is most clearly seen via cross-national comparative studies, international
research is best positioned to build more generalizable theory about the production of
journalistically mediated political discourse” (p. 275). In particular, Benson feels that
comparative work lifts political scientists away from considering the media as a
dependent variable: “The challenge, then, is to bring the same sophisticated analysis
to bear on understanding media as an independent variable, as part of the process of
political meaning making rather than just a convenient indicator of the outcome. This
is a worthy, but difficult task” (p. 276, emphasis in original). There is relatively little
work in comparative media and politics. Part of this reason is the difficulty of the
task, as understanding media content and systems across a range of countries is
enormously complex. There have been some excellent studies that have compared
media in foreign countries, particularly in times of elections, which have offered
1
This project is funded by a grant from the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council under its New
Security Challenges Programme.
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