Title: Legitimizing aggression against Ukraine: Russia's manipulation of language and historical memory through state-sponsored propaganda
Department: Global Studies - Russian & Post-Soviet Studies
Description: This project lies at the intersection of media studies and linguistics and will explore the propaganda content produced by the Russian state for domestic consumption in anticipation and during the full-scale aggression against Ukraine since February 24, 2022. Russia's aggression against a sovereign nation of Ukraine unfortunately has enjoyed broad domestic support and this attempts to answer the question why this is the case. On one hand, the project will conduct lexical and semantic analysis of the "language of aggression:" lyrics of music videos, rally speeches, as well as memes and slogans that have been circulating via government media. On the other hand, the project will examine the weaponization of memories of WWII and the rewriting of history in order to legitimize the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine. For that purpose, the project will examine Russian historical cinematic blockbusters from the 2000s and 2010s, as well as recent music videos that link WWII to the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Hometown: Kodiak, Alaska
Advisor: Elena Prokhorova
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