| Abstract [eng] |
The issue of this master thesis is to understand how officially declared soft power resources and instruments are used in the opposite – destructive – means, in Russian foreign policy. The main purpose of the paper by critical analysis of the Russia soft power to conceptualize its inherent strategy and, according to the Baltic States representation through Russian media in English, to show how it is implemented in practice. By taking into consideration the issue and the main purpose of the paper four objectives are composed. After describing traditional soft power conception, to analyse critically how this foreign policy direction is used in Russia and to conceptualize its intrinsic strategy. Secondly, to present what were the main factors that stimulated an adoption of soft power into Moscow’s officially declared foreign policy and by analysis of its policy documents, to characterize how Russia seeks to be perceived by international society. Then, through data-setting and framing media analysis methods, to examine how the Baltic States are represented through Russian media in English. According to the research results, to show how the representation of these states expose not soft, but destructive power and how officially attractive foreign policy features are revealed through criticism on other states. Two statements were proved by this research. Firstly, formally Russia adopted inherent to soft power resources and its tools of dissemination, but in practice, Moscow strategy is based on spreading doubts, mistrust and polarization between countries, its potentially attractive features are formed through the criticism on others, and its influence is grounded on the fear, for this reason Russian strategy is described as destructive power in this paper. Secondly, the Baltic States are represented in the negative way through Sputnik News website, these representations are exploited of the destructive power implementation by portraying three states through unfavourable image to Western society, by promoting tension and collision between the USA and Europe, and by characterizing Russian attractive features through the criticism of these states. Benefits of this master thesis is the demonstration of soft power characteristic inherent only for Russia, and by analysing its strategies the term destructive power was proposed. The analysis of the Baltic States representation showed how this destructive power is used through Russian media in English. |
