Interpretation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani War in Russian Media

Section: Modern Journalism: Subjects and Issues

In September–November 2020, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, or Azerbaijan’s military operation “Iron Fist”, entered Russian media’s agenda. The aim of this paper is to examine the coverage of this war in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Novaya Gazeta newspapers. The paper considers media technologies of reality interpretation in the context of priming and framing as well as environmental factors, which influence, directly or indirectly, the media interpretation of events. The author of the paper studied 35 publications issued in the period from September 27 to November 11, 2020 and concluded that the aspects of coverage and interpretation of events in the media under consideration was different and able to shape the readership’s opinion in assessing the military actions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The important point of the Armenian-Azerbaijani agenda in Rossiyskaya Gazeta was that it distanced itself from the assessment of the warring parties. On the other hand, Novaya Gazeta tended to spark readers’ interest in the war and make them adopt a stance, being open to critics of Russia’s foreign policy from among experts and journalists.

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