Analyzing Russian Propaganda: Application of Siegfried Kracauer’s Qualitative Content Analysis Method
ABSTRACT
Social scientists and political commentators have been occupied with propaganda analysis and definitions since the beginning of the 20th Century. However, quantitative content analysis, which was adopted to forecast the enemy’s strategic decisions, brought with it a tendency to look at the messages as a code that had to be translated to reveal its real meaning and the hidden intentions of its composers. The adequacy of its employment for the purposes of propaganda research was questioned already in 1940s; hence, alternative methodologies had to be proposed. The sociologist, Siegfried Kracauer, was the one to describe the method, that nevertheless being close to quantitative content analysis, successfully overcame its weaknesses. Although Kracauer himself admitted the imperfection of the suggested methodology, which he called qualitative content analysis, it was found to be most appropriate for the purposes of propaganda research and was successfully applied for the study of propaganda technique use during the two Russia-Chechnya conflicts.
AUTHORS
The David Yellin College of Education
Jerusalem, Israel
Elina Bardach-Yalov holds her Ph.D. in strategic communications from the University of Leeds. Her areas of expertise are terrorism and media, psychological warfare, strategic communications and political communications. Her doctoral dissertation was focused on the Russian and Chechen media usages during the two Russia-Chechnya conflicts. Dr. Bardach-Yalov recently served as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's strategic communications advisor.
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Journal of Information Warfare
The definitive publication for the best and latest research and analysis on information warfare, information operations, and cyber crime. Available in traditional hard copy or online.
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